Hi'-Neighbor!

Okay, I love the Little Rascals! The ones from the 30s and 40s. 1934, i think, is the best season of shorts. Mainly it's becuase it contains Scotty Beckett and Spanky McFarland at there best! I give "Hi Neighbor" 10 stars!

This Hal Roach comedy short, Hi'-Neighbor!, is the one hundred twenty-sixth in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series and the thirty-eighth talkie. Wally and the gang see a new toy fire engine arriving in town and attempt to make friends with the rich kid who owns it but he wants nothing to do with them. Also the girl Wally has a crush on, Jane, takes a ride in that fire engine so he and the rest of the gang try to make their own...This is one of the most enjoyable of the talkie Our Gang comedies as we see the gang use their imagination in building something out of discarded parts because of their desire to one-up on someone higher up the social ladder, so to speak! So that's definitely a recommendation of Hi'-Neighbor! P.S. Four months had passed after the previous OG short-Wild Poses-had finished filming. Spanky had been loaned to various studios during this time and in one of those features he made for them-Miss Fane's Baby Is Stolen for Paramount-he caught a whooping cough and passed it on to co-star Baby LeRoy! As punishment, Spank had been suspended, hence the gap. During that gap, director Robert F. McGowan had decided to quit the series. He was replaced by Gus Meins who would subsequently helm the series for the next two years. Newcomers to the gang included Wally Albright, Jackie Lynn Taylor who played Jane here, and Scotty Beckett who would be paired with Spanky. The rich kid is played by Jerry Tucker whose real last name is Schatz. When this short appeared on Disc 4 of "The Little Rascals-The Complete Collection" DVD set, his elderly self appeared in the intro of that one as he considered this one his most enjoyable film experience with the gang. He's one of the few members still alive today.

Between the wars, and in spite of the depression, America remained in two halves. Today, those are red and blue states, but in the 30s it was rural America and the cities. During this time, the cities got bigger and the farm areas somewhat thinner but more resolute. You were either in one or the other, period.

There were essentially no suburbs, what we would think of today as suburbs. Except in Southern California. Suburbs were invented after the second war with Levittown and the huge incentive of veteran's mortgages. Only then would they become something fully recognized in the film consciousness as physically representing the middle class melting pot.

That's why it is so noticeable here. The gang lives in a suburb where rich, poor, back and white coexist.

Now think about that a moment. I'm pretty sure that Roach had no special agenda. This suburb was outside Los Angeles and handy for filming. But the notion of a gang that transcends class (but not in this episode) and race, and even sex mostly is pretty darn commendable. And I suppose in the long run it was as influential as all the other stuff that gets Spike Lee riled.

This one has a familiar theme for the Gang shorts: class is bad, women are fickle and attracted to cash, cooperation and imagination trumps all.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

In this episode the rascals build a fire engine from scratch, to use in a race.

The brake on the home-made fire engine fails at the end and the fire engine ends up in a pond. In one scene a boy is sitting on a board and someone drills through the board, ripping off the boy's pants and, I think, his underpants (!)

An unusual episode because before the rascals also get their clothes torn off by shrubs on the side of the road as they ride down to the pond-- where they all get dunked.

The film begins with a moving fan rolling down the street. The boys are thrilled when they see a beautiful new toy fire engine on the truck and follow it--hoping to make a rich new friend. However, the new boy wants nothing to do with them and won't let them ride his neat firetruck. So, the gang decides to build their own. Not surprisingly, when they take it for a spin on the big hill, the shortcomings in their design become all too apparent.

This film bears a lot of similarity to another Our Gang short--"Hook and Ladder"--which is about the boys building their own firetruck in order to help the local firemen put out fires. However, the rear-projection in the final scene is a lot more obvious here in "Hi' Neighbor" and it's not quite as good as the earlier film. Worth seeing but far from their best.