Good DVD with ALL of the Little Rascals shorts?

[p51]

Does anyone know of a good-quality DVD that has all of the unedited Little Rascals shorts? I trolled Amazon and the reviews either state that the quality of supposedly complete sets (some are mentioned as incomplete) are terrible or they aren't complete.
Looking for a good set.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A full set of all the shorts doesn't exist -- most of the silents haven't been restored, let alone released, because of the jumble of rightsholders for the silent Roach Studios product and the way in which most of the earlier silents were hacked up for TV reissues in the fifties and sixties. A handful of the silent shorts no longer exist at all. The only box set of the Roach-era talkies (1929-38) was that issued several years ago by Genius Productions, which had most of the shorts in restored form, except for a handful of 16mm Blackhawk Films prints.

The discs in this set were later reissued as individual DVDs, with restored versions of the shorts that had been Blackhawk versions in the box set, but no revised box set was ever issued.

The MGM-era shorts from 1938-44 are available in a box set from Warner Archive. If anybody actually ever wants to see them.

 

[p51]

Dang. It never occurred to me that they were all tied up on copyright issues.
You never see them on TV anymore. As a kid in the 70s, most TV stations ran alternating Our Gang and Three Stooges shorts. Man, I miss that.

 

[2jakes]

I usually go to youtube, download & transfer to DVD for home use.
But I only do it on favorites, like this one.


[video=youtube;TwH292SOWf4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwH292SOWf4[/video]

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have the Genius box set, and for the most part it's a definitive collection of the Roach talkies, in chronological order. Most of them are restored to their theatrical form, with original opening and closing titles and no television edits. The few Blackhawk prints are decent other than the use of replacement title cards.

Some of the earliest talkies are in rough shape -- "Boxing Gloves" (1929) and "Bouncing Babies" (1929) seem to be work prints with crudely-edited or missing sound effects, and a few of the others are from beat-up negatives. There are a few that weren't included in the TV syndication packages, including "A Tough Winter" (1930) which was supposed to be the pilot film for a spin-off series starring Stepin Fetchit, and "Railroadin'" (1929) which was never sold to TV because the soundtrack was missing -- it's been found and restored and is now intact.

 

[p51]

I really don't need the silent ones. I'm mostly looking for the mid-30s (later ones, I guess) that you most often saw on TV.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Genius set should do you nicely then. A few of the mid-30s shorts are the Blackhawk prints with replaced title cards, but since none of the TV distributors used the originals, that shouldn't be an issue. Most of the prints in the set have the original Roach-MGM theatrical titles, which, if you've never seen them before, you'll find quite impressive. These restored prints were used for the last major TV run of the shorts, on the AMC cable channel about fifteen years ago.

 

[p51]

Sounds good to me. Just found the one you mentioned online and will be buying soon. Thanks for the info!

 

[p51]

I found a set on Netflix and have been watching them one disk at a time.
I have to admit they don't really hold my interest like I thought they would. Sure some of them are amazing ("free wheeling" is as funny to me as it was when I was a kid) but many are quite drawn out and really not that terribly funny. Some stuff, I guess, is best not to be watched where you can fast-forward it. Little Rascals, I guess, is one of them.
I'll watch them to the end because I haven't gotten to the "Spanky and Alfalfa" era just yet...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Part of the pacing issues are that the films were made to be shown to large live audiences -- and the actors were directed to adjust their delivery to leave room for the laughs. The pacing seems much snappier when they're shown to live audiences. The Laurel and Hardy shorts, among other Roach products, have this same problem.

What I enjoy most about the early talkie shorts are the settings -- most of them were shot in actual locations around Culver City, and you get a real sense of how rural parts of the Los Angeles area still were in the early thirties.

 

[p51]

True. At least the Three Stooges learned from this and paced their material far faster for movie audiences.
I agree there's a neat 'slice of life' element to the Rascals shorts, in that many were obviously filmed off the studio grounds. One short titled, "Railroadin'" is amazing, as it was filmed in a Santa Fe yard with full cooperation of the railroad. They took a locomotive and short gondola out on a line somewhere and staged a 'near miss' between it and a passenger train. Spinning wheels in the yard, even hitting a trailer full of stuff, quite spectacularly. It'd never been in TV as I found that the soundtrack had been lost until someone found it in 1982.
Maybe once I get to the more well-shown-on-TV shorts from the later 30s, maybe I'll change my tune on buying the DVD...

 

[p51]

Maybe once I get to the more well-shown-on-TV shorts from the later 30s, maybe I'll change my tune on buying the DVD...

Yeah, that didn't happen. I finished the entire series last week and when I was done, I was glad I didn't spend the money on the set.
It was neat to watch, but I found myself using the fast forward button a lot.

 

[2jakes]

The snap-pop-crackle sounds of machinery or animals dressed up may have been a novelty back in those times.
As LizzieMaine pointed out, I also enjoy the background settings from a bygone era.

The films of Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Laurel & Hardy with the story content, comedy skills in combination with
the settings of the period give me no reason to touch the remote at all.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think with any comedy series, movies or TV, "binge viewing" brings out all their worst flaws. Most of these things were ground out on a production line, and while there are gems in every batch, there's also a lot of dross, thrown in to fill out the release schedule. I make a point of never, ever watching anything in "marathon" sessions -- when I got the Rascals set, I watched one a night until I was done with it. Some I liked, some I didn't, and some roused no particular reaction at all.

I love Harry Langdon, to use another example, and a have a fine boxed set of all his silent shorts -- but watching ten of them in a row would be enough to put me off him for life.

 

[2jakes]

I think with any comedy series, movies or TV, "binge viewing" brings out all their worst flaws. Most of these things were ground out on a production line, and while there are gems in every batch, there's also a lot of dross, thrown in to fill out the release schedule. I make a point of never, ever watching anything in "marathon" sessions -- when I got the Rascals set, I watched one a night until I was done with it. Some I liked, some I didn't, and some roused no particular reaction at all.

I love Harry Langdon, to use another example, and a have a fine boxed set of all his silent shorts -- but watching ten of them in a row would be enough to put me off him for life.

What is the purpose of television marathon showing of classic movies during the holidays ?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Nobody expects anyone to watch "A Christmas Story" for twenty-four hours straight. Unless they've eaten an entire bag of candy canes and have gone into a sugar coma.

 

[2jakes]

Nobody expects anyone to watch "A Christmas Story" for twenty-four hours straight. Unless they've eaten an entire bag of candy canes and have gone into a sugar coma.

LizzieMaine, you are priceless...that’s funny ! :lol:

 

[ChiTownScion]

Nobody expects anyone to watch "A Christmas Story" for twenty-four hours straight. Unless they've eaten an entire bag of candy canes and have gone into a sugar coma.

Love that movie, but even I can't handle more than two viewings. Watching it is an annual ritual- the best part being when I threaten to buy a "major award" leg lamp for our own front window to my wife's protest.

I keep hoping that Ralphie will flip out and go after Skut in a manner that he really deserves.. you know, cracking open his skull with a cinderblock or at least putting it in a vise like Joe Pesci did to that guy in Casino. Darn good thing that they don't let me write heartwarming family movies, I guess.