Unlike many other motion pictures featuring children that are based in fantasy, producer/creator Hal Roach rooted Our Gang in real life: the majority of the children were poor, and the gang was often put at odds with snobbish "rich kids", officious adults and parents, and other such adversaries. The series was notable in that the gang included both African-Americans and females in leading parts at a time when discrimination against both groups was commonplace.
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Due to the popularity of Our Gang, a number of imitation kid comedy short film series were created by competing studios. Among the most notable of these are The Kiddie Troupers, featuring future comedian Eddie Bracken; Baby
Burlesks, featuring Shirley Temple; the Buster Brown comedies (from which Our Gang received Pete the Pup and director Gus
Meins); and the Toonerville Trolley-based Mickey McGuire series starring Mickey Rooney. There is also
evidence that Our Gang-style productions were filmed in small towns and cities around the country using local children as actors during the 1920s and 1930s. These productions did not appear to be affiliated with Hal Roach, but often used storylines from the shorts of the period, and sometimes even went so far as to identify themselves as being Our Gang productions. Our Gang inspired later works focusing on children, such as The Bad News Bears, The Goonies, The Sandlot, and the Peanuts series by Charles
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A BLAST FROM
THE PAST - OLDER THAN DIRT QUIZ
'Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?'
'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him. 'All the food was slow.'
'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?' 'It was a place called 'at home,'' I explained.
'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it :
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card.
In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck.
Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died. My parents never drove me to soccer practice.. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer... I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow)
We didn't have a television in our house until I was 16. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a..m. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.
I was 21 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called 'pizza pie.' When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.
I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.
Pizzas were not delivered to our home But milk was. All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers -- It cost 7 cents a paper, and they got to keep 2 cents. They had to get up at 6AM every morning.
On Saturday, they had to collect the 42 cents from their customers. Their favorite customers were the ones who gave them 50 cents and told them to keep the change. Their least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.
Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.
If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.
This is my "Older Than Dirt Quiz"
: Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom.
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1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines on the telephone
8. Cork popguns
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
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11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning.
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12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S& H green stamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Newsreels before the movie
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers
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If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt! |
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BLAST
FROM THE PAST - THE McCARTY METRO
May 31,1984 - Page
2
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WORLD'S GREATEST TORTURES & INJURIES
A - AL MARSHALL
Jealous because Mike McCarty received a scholarship to MSU and his son didn't, Al Marshall stood in the Sussex alley and tortured Dennis and Danny McCarty by throwing cherry pits and unburned aluminum foil at them.
B - BUTTERED NOODLES, APPLESAUCE AND
RING BOLOGNA DINNER The only torture worse than having to eat buttered noodles, applesauce and ring bologna at 5 P.M. was having to eat cold buttered noodles and ring bologna at 6 P.M. because you gagged and couldn't swallow this hot meal one hour earlier. |
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C - CAN OPENER This torture—a bite by Dennis McCarty's broken, jagged front teeth—could send a man to the hospital or open Pepsi's.
D - DIANE MACDONALD'S KNEES
A double torture underneath Clancey's tree. Diane MacDonald was capable to
holding down both Dennis and Ricky McCarty by strategically placing her knees on their chests. Her fists were then free to punch them silly.
E - EGG SANDWICH LUNCH The stench of a fried egg sandwich lunch carried by Ricky McCarty to a 1st Communion Practice Mass at Gate of Heaven Church was sheer torture to the nostrils of Sister Mary Elephant. She remarked, "Who cut the cheese?" before removing herself from Ricky's aisle.
F - FURNACE FLUE The entire McCarty family was tortured and almost overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning on their first night at North York Drive. A furnace flue had been deliberately cemented shut by
Barber-Fineberg Builders.
G - GATE Mike McCarty was ridiculed and tortured by George Ford safety boys by having to stand guard for hours at a deserted fence gate—not a street corner—<-as his initial safety boy assignment.
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H - HOT DOG Walking into a cottage at Port Austin, the McCarty boys were greeted with a agonizing sight and
smell a moldy hot dog which had been thrown behind a bedroom dresser many months before. |
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I - ISHI, CRAYTON This Japanese-American was injured when he walked head first into a metal post in the center of the darkened McCarty basement while watching home movies.
J - JOHN R. A walking torture machine. This wild man bit, scratched, kicked and punched Sussex Avenue youth whenever he
visited his cousins, the Karalis'.
K - KARALIS PICKER BUSH A great place to throw little kids into.
L - LINK SAUSAGE, TOMATO SLICE & KRAFT DINNER
The only torture worse than having to eat link sausage, tomato slice and Kraft Dinner at 5 P.M. was having to eat cold link sausage and Kraft Dinner at 6 P.M. because you gagged and couldn't swallow this hot meal one hour earlier.
M - MRS. SOPHIE (SOFA) SMELLNICKI A torture to look at, smell and talk to.
N - NOODLES & HAMBURGER DINNER
Forced feeding of this agony filled foul dish caused Danny McCarty to choke, turn blue, require artificial respiration and require an ambulance ride to the hospital late one
night.
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P - POPEYE PUNCHER
Dennis McCarty's only offensive weapon... a torture filled revolving battery of closed fisted punches.
R - RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER
A chain reaction injury causing nine cases of whip-lash. When Sob McCarty saw his son Ricky dressed as Rudolph at a George Ford
Christmas Play, he yelled. "Hey Ricky!" Ricky stopped to find his father, thereby causing a chain reaction collision knocking over eight tiny reindeer and old St. Nick.
S - SHEP A
dog in perpetual heat who would torture small children by mounting them in Coyle Park. This dog also terrified Ricky McCarty by trying to jump into his Shopping News bag one rainy day.
T - TINY TRAP
Small dog torture involving Kraft Dinner, rolled rugs and sofa pillows. |
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W - WOJAC, EDDIE (Ricky McCarty's Friend)
Eddie Wojac tortured Miss Sata's English Class by giving a boring five minute oral book report that was Interrupted by a two minute fart.
BLAST
FROM THE PAST - HOME GAZETTE - JULY 6, 1967
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Send in your old
photos, news clippings, etc for our Metro Blast From The Past
Page. |
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A
METRO PHOTO BLAST
Larry and his girls - 1995
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BILLBOARD
TOP HIT SONGS
GUESS THE
YEAR THESE SONGS WERE HOT
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Jumpin' Jack Flash
/ Rolling Stones
Mony Mony / Tommy James & The Shondells
The Ballad Of Bonnie And Clyde / Georgie Fame
Simon Says / 1910 Fruitgum Company
Mrs. Robinson / Simon & Garfunkel |
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NAME
THIS COMIC CHARACTER?
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Can You
Name
This Character?
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LAST
MONTH'S CHARACTER
Li'l
Jinx Congratulations
to: Evan |
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Li'l Jinx is a fictional comic book character published by Archie Comics since the late 1940s. A high-spirited little girl who has humorous misadventures with her neighborhood friends, she was created by cartoonist Joe Edwards, first appearing in
July 1947. During her peak period, Jinx's stories ranged from three-panel blackout gags to seven-page stories. Jinx was normally depicted as a lovable but mischievous little girl, engaged in a comical battle of wills with her long-suffering father. Like most of Archie Comics' strips of the period, Jinx offered insights into family relationships and children's perceptions of the adult world.
Jinx was the daughter of Hap and Merry Holliday, earning her unusual name by virtue of being born on Halloween. Creator Edwards based Jinx's adventures on his own experiences as a parent. While "Li'l" is not part of her given name, everyone always calls her "Li'l Jinx" in the comics' dialogue, similar to the title character of Little Archie.
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