Calling All Kids

It's Our Gang's salute to the military. They sing and dance on stage. Some do individual numbers. Some do impressions of celebrities. There is no visible audience on screen. They salute every branch except the Coast Guard.

It's wartime. It's propaganda. It's rooting for the home team. It's somewhat fun like a really good school production. I have to admit that I don't recognize the impressions. I don't know if it's the kids or me. I probably don't know most of the celebrities. I do wonder if they could have been more specific in selling war bonds or recruit kids to do scrap metal collections.

This M-G-M musical short, Calling All Kids, is the two hundred fifteenth entry in the "Our Gang" series and the one hundred twenty-seventh talkie. This was the last of the musical Our Gangs which begins with the announcer doing the intro ending with him saying, "Take it away, Our Gang!" After a bunch of kids in uniform march in formation, a young girl sings about the Army, Navy, and Marines. Then it's Mickey and Froggy doing a recruitment skit. Then some celeb impersonations among the kids with one doing Judy Garland, one doing Virginia O'Brien, one dancing like Eleanor Powell, Buckwheat doing Rochester (with the real Eddie Anderson providing the voice), Janet dressing, singing, and dancing like Carmen Miranda, and a Fred Astaire impersonator doing the firecracker dance from Holiday Inn. The finale has the song about those military organizations again with film projected back of the stage representing them. The musical numbers aren't bad but Froggy and Mickey's skit is. While it was nice hearing Rochester's voice, nothing he said was funny. So on that note, Calling All Kids was middling entertainment, at best.