Hi'-Neighbor!

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.