Dancing Romeo

Froggy has always been sort of a puzzle to me. I never could figure the guy out. I mean, once you got past his frog voice (which became all the more grating towards the end of the MGM series), there really wasn't much else recommendable about him (except maybe those cute philosophical quotes from his Aunt Minnie).

Then comes "Dancing Romeo," a film in which Froggy gets to show his stuff as a love-sick kid who has his heart set on a girl who's devoted to dancing. So what does he do? He learns to dance, which he does during the last half of the film. And I must say, the combination of the Hungarian Rhapsody and his wire-manipulated leaps and bounds is quite effective.

Froggy is by no means my favorite Our Gang character, but he seems to hold his own well in this particular film.

OK, so maybe this wasn't brilliant acting, yet I have a nostalgic soft spot for the Our Gang and Rascals shorts.

As a little tot, Froggy's voice always scared me, and even now, as adults, my brother and I will call each other Froggy when we have laryngitis. :) The "Dancing Romeo" episode sticks out in my mind to this day (and I'm 43) because of the scene where Froggy is eating breakfast and as he stares into his eggs, there is his beloved Marilyn, dancing inside the egg yolks. As a four-year-old, I freaked out and refused to eat "eggs with people in them" until I was at least 10. Poor mom always had to scramble them. :)

This M-G-M comedy short, Dancing Romeo, is the two hundred twentieth entry in the "Our Gang" series and the one hundred thirty-second talkie. Froggy has a crush on Marilyn (Valerie Lee) who's too busy taking classical dancing lessons with Gerald (Bobby Browning) to spend time with him. After seeing her and her partner dancing at the party, Froggy can't get his mind off of them and resolves to dance himself. Compared to Mickey Daniels & Mary Kornman, Jackie Cooper & Miss Crabtree, and Alfalfa & Darla, Froggy & Marilyn aren't a great couple on the series but they're quite intriguing to watch nonetheless. So I liked the way the thing ended and I liked this short enough to forgive the usual less-than-polished acting of the kids. Cyril Endfield did much better in his second directorial effort in the OG series than in his first. So on that note, Dancing Romeo is recommended. Oh, and I always think of the "Sleeping Beauty Waltz" by Tchaikovsky-which was danced by Marilyn and Gerald-as "Once Upon a Dream" from Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty and when "Hungarian Rhapsody" by Franz Liszt was playing during Froggy's "dance", I immediately thought of Bugs Bunny's cartoon Rhapsody Rabbit when he was trying to perform that on the piano when a mouse keeps interrupting him...

Though "Tale of A Dog" is usually listed as the last OUR GANG film, "Dancing Romeo" was both filmed and released afterwards, making it truly the last entry in the series. And unlike "Tale of A Dog", "Dancing Romeo" is actually a decent film.

Sure, it's fairly pale compared to "School's Out", "Fishy Tales", "Forgotten Babies" and the other great "Our Gang" films from when they were produced by creator Hal Roach. It's even tame compared to early M-G-M entries such as "Party Fever". But it has to be by far the best entry of the last season. In fact it's a relief compared to such travesties as "Benjamin Franklin Junior". This the only one that isn't either steeped in condescending morals or a hopelessly halfhearted token of "comedy". It's also the rare Our Gang that actually makes good use of Froggy ("Going to Press" is another.)

The story of Froggy's attempts to impress a dancer whom he has a crush on is simple and effective, and given restrained direction. There are a few genuine laughs. Perhaps the best moment comes after Froggy has confessed he's about to do the most desperate thing possible. Janet worries he's going to shoot himself, and he replies "Worse than that! I'm gonna learn how to dance!" Also amusing is the kiddie audience's earnest response to Froggy's "recital" ("he must have been practicing for his whole life!")

This is no classic, certainly not to be confused as representative of Our Gang at its best. Yet it demonstrated that if the series could no longer be saved, at least it could end on a relatively high note.

Apart from the MGM staginess, this is kind of a fun little short, especially at the end when Froggy does his wire-assisted dance. There's one part where he "runs" (or tries to) across the back curtain that actually got a chuckle out of me.

But, man, these kids can't act. Buckwheat barely gets by. Mickey doesn't say much, and when he does, he says it adequately if shrilly. Janet's really horrible. She's given a "comic" line of "You're not going to (STAGE GASP) shoot yourself, are you?" that comes out like she's reading a cue card. Valerie "Marilyn" Lee, Froggy's love interest, is actually the best actress of the lot, and Maltin rightly says her thespian skills are less than inspiring.

If you must watch, you can get some humor out of Froggy's dancing sequence, so it's not a waste of time for Our Gang aficionados.