Review by tavm

This Hal Roach comedy short, Teacher's Pet, is the one hundred first in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series and the thirteenth talkie. This is the one that really showcased Jackie Cooper's charisma as a child actor and would eventually lead him away from the series into starring exclusively in feature films. He leads the gang in playing pranks on the new teacher they find out is named Miss Crabtree who they think is someone-well, certainly not pretty as she eventually turns out to be as played for the first time by June Marlowe. I'll just say that this short is one of the most charming of the series with just the right amount of laughs to offset whatever sadness one may feel about doing something so cruel to someone as beautiful as this new teacher. So on that note, I highly recommend Teacher's Pet. P.S. This film marked the debut of one Matthew Beard who'd eventually be called Stymie in the series but here is called Hercules. It's also the first in the series to open with what would become the theme song-"Good Old Days" by LeRoy Shield. And it would be the first in the series to have "talking opening credits"-that is, a couple of ladies-Beverly and Betty Mae Crane-would announce the title and production credits instead of them being printed on screen. They'd do this also for subsequent Our Gang shorts School's Out and Love Business. And Richard W. Bann-co-author of the book "The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang"-provides nice commentary on disc 2 of The Little Rascals Collection DVD during this short.