Happy Days

Happy Days (1926)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This short was taken from the famous Winnie Winkle comic strip with Ethelyn Gibson playing her here in one quick sequence. The main story here is her kid sister Perry (Billie Butts) whose gang enters a baseball game against their rival gang. While watching this film I couldn't help but think of the Our Gang series, which was certainly more entertaining and featured plenty more laughs. I was really shocked at how unfunny this thing was and even though I'm really not familiar with the comic strip, I don't think that's the reason I didn't enjoy this film more. The biggest problem is that every joke took the obvious route, which made the film appear even more dull than it might have been otherwise. Not only is the film rather flat and unfunny but we get some rather typical for the time humor with the black kid, with white lips, getting the majority of the abuse. The strange thing is that the good guys clubhouse has KKK written on their door and of course the only black kid happens to be on the other team. How something like this got through even in 1926 is beyond me but it certainly left me scratching my head.

"Remember the time when you got a whole nickel for taking a dose of castor oil? - Those were the happy days." Mary Hopkin never had days like these! The action is very much off "Breadwinner" Ethelyn Gibson (as Winnie Winkle) in this Winnie Winkle entry - instead, the story focuses on precocious guest star Billie Butts (as Perry Winkle) and young friends, The Rinky Dinks. There is a distinctive "KKK" etched on the "Rinky Dinks Club House"; however, they seem to be a more integrated team than that organization suggests. They play ball in the "Mangy" league, and go in for some dance instruction. Much of the humor involves animals in humans' clothing, like chickens, and a giant frog. Wee.

** Happy Days (10/1/26) Arvid E. Gillstrom ~ Ethelyn Gibson, Billy Butts

In the early 1920s, Hal Roach created the Our Gang shorts (also known as "The Little Rascals"). While most of these very early films no longer exist (since they were made of very unstable nitrate stock), I've seen a few of the early silent films. However, if you compare them to HAPPY DAYS, you can't help but notice the parallels. In fact, and I hate to step on toes here, but the Winkle films appear to be a knock-off of the Roach series--as the Winkle films followed the other series and seemed like carbon copies. The only difference is that the early Our Gang films were much funnier and more enjoyable to watch.

In addition to the derivative nature of the films, the way the Black member of the kids was portrayed was a bit disturbing and something you would not have seen in Roach's films. While Roach used a few Black actors (such as "Farina" and "Buckwheat"), here the film features a Black kid who is made up to look like a white kid in black face--sort of like a mini minstrel show. In other words, they painted white around his lips to make him look as if a White actor was in the role. I assume this was an effort to make a Black character more palatable to racist audiences. For shame!