The Little Rascals (film)

The Little Rascals is a 1994 American family comedy film produced by Amblin Entertainment, and released by Universal Pictures on August 5, 1994. The film is an adaptation of Hal Roach's Our Gang, a series of short films of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s (many of which were broadcast on television as The Little Rascals) which centered on the adventures of a group of neighborhood children. The film, with a screenplay by Paul Guay, Stephen Mazur, and Penelope Spheeris – who also directed – presents several of the Our Gang characters in an updated setting, and features re-interpretations of several of the original shorts. It was the first collaboration by Guay and Mazur, whose subsequent comedies were Liar Liar and Heartbreakers.

Another film based on Our Gang, The Little Rascals Save the Day, was released as a direct-to-video feature in 2014.

Plot
Spanky McFarland (Travis Tedford) is the president of the "He-Man Woman Haters Club" with many school-aged boys from around the neighborhood as members. Alfalfa Switzer (Bug Hall), Spanky's best friend, has been chosen to be the driver for the club's prize-winning go-kart, "The Blur", in the upcoming Soap Box Derby go-kart race. However, Alfalfa is nowhere to be found.

The boys go to find Alfalfa and discover him in the company of his sweetheart Darla (Brittany Ashton Holmes), with whom he is forbidden to be in love because she is a girl, which goes against club rules. Alfalfa invites Darla on a picnic, and to prove his devotion to her, he agrees to have the picnic inside the clubhouse. Unbeknownst to Alfalfa, his fellow club members find out about his plans.

At the picnic, Alfalfa and Darla think they are alone, but the other club members secretly pull several silly pranks to sabotage their romantic date (whoopee cushion, cat litter in sandwiches, etc.). When they finally reveal themselves and demand to come inside the clubhouse, Alfalfa frantically tries to convince Darla to hide in the closet, which leads her to mistakenly believe that Alfalfa feels ashamed of her. In the frenzy, a candle flame gets out of control, ultimately causing the clubhouse to burn down.

Darla breaks up with Alfalfa and turns her attentions towards Waldo (Blake McIver Ewing), the new kid in town whose father (Donald Trump) is an oil tycoon. Because Alfalfa burned down the clubhouse and also fraternized with a girl, he is assigned by Stymie (Kevin Jamal Woods) to guard the go-kart until the day of the race.

Alfalfa makes several attempts to win back Darla, including sending her a fake love note. When that fails, Spanky goes with him to formally break things off with Darla. They are initially denied entrance to her ballet recital, but Spanky insists that they will wait for Darla to come out; Spanky gives Alfalfa a frog to play with while they wait. They are soon spotted by the neighborhood bullies, Butch (Sam Saletta) and Woim (Blake Jeremy Collins), who chase them inside the building. To escape, Spanky and Alfalfa duck into a costume room and disguise themselves as ballerinas in pink tights, tutus, and wigs. They manage to evade the bullies, but they attempt to enter another room to get out of their disguises, which are tight and uncomfortable. They are surprised to find the room filled with girls, including Darla, dressed in identical ballet outfits. The boys nervously pretend to be in the recital that is about to take place, but Alfalfa almost gives them away when the frog he is still holding croaks. Just as they are about to back out of the room, the ballet mistress (Lea Thompson) enters and ushers them all on stage.

The recital begins, and the boys are horrified when the mistress announces they are performing scenes from "The Nutcracker." Alfalfa hands the frog to Spanky, but Spanky drops the frog into the waistband of Alfalfa's tights. Alfalfa squirms in discomfort as the slimy frog wriggles around in his tights, turning the show to chaos as he tries to catch it while still dancing along. The girls break out into laughter, along with the audience. The recital ends, and the boys run off stage and Alfalfa quickly ducks behind a curtain and strips out of his disguise in order to get the frog out.

The ballet mistress, furious that the boys ruined her recital, confronts them and throws them out immediately, Alfalfa in his underwear and Spanky still in drag. Butch and Woim are waiting for them outside the door, so Spanky distracts them while Alfalfa sneaks out. When Spanky loses his wig, the bullies give chase. Spanky manages to lose them, but they bump into Alfalfa, who is trying to run home in his underwear. Butch and Woim chase Alfalfa into a mansion, but are turned away by the maid. Escaping through the back door, Alfalfa is chased by Fifi, Waldo's Doberman, and he leaps into a pool and swims to the other side. As he climbs out, he notices his underwear floating on the surface of the pool. As Alfalfa retrieves his underwear, he discovers Darla and Waldo in a hot tub, laughing at him, to his embarrassment. Waldo's dog then chases Alfalfa off the property.

At the carnival talent show the day before the race, the boys try to fund-raise $450, the cost of the lumber needed to rebuild their clubhouse. The youngest club members, Buckwheat (Ross Elliot Bagley) and Porky (Zachary Mabry), have unwittingly come up with $500, not realizing that their method for earning the money was not exactly honest. Their school teacher, Miss Crabtree (Daryl Hannah), finds out about the scheme and confronts Spanky, but he convinces her to donate the money to be given as first prize in the go-kart derby.

Alfalfa once again tries to win Darla back, this time through song, being that Darla mentioned after she dumped him that the only thing she ever really missed about him was his singing voice. Waldo and Darla have also entered the show in a duet. Alfalfa then requests the chance to perform for her and win her back. However, Waldo sabotages his attempts to serenade her by putting soap in his drinking water, causing him to burp out bubbles all throughout his song.

As a result of Alfalfa's carelessness, "The Blur" is eventually stolen by Butch and Woim, so that now, in addition to having to rebuild the clubhouse, the boys need a new go-kart. They band together to build "Blur 2: The Sequel," and on the day before the race, Spanky and Alfalfa (who previously had a falling out when the latter discovers the gang's "prank list", which was the proof that the gang sabotaged Alfalfa's picnic with Darla) reconcile their friendship and decide to ride in the two-seat go-kart together. They hope to win the prize money and the trophy, which is to be presented to the winners by A.J. Ferguson.

Butch and Woim make several sneaky attempts to stop Alfalfa and Spanky from winning the race. Waldo and Darla are also in the race, but they are eventually annoyed with each other, and Waldo seemingly kicks Darla out from his car. In a wild dash to the finish, and despite the many scrapes and crashes throughout the race, "The Blur 2" crosses the finish line ahead of the pack in a photo-finish between "The Blur" and "The Blur 2" literally by a hair, due to Alfalfa's pointy hairstyle. After the race, Butch and Woim are angry towards Alfalfa because he won the trophy and the prize money. They attempt to beat him up, but Alfalfa finally stands up for himself and punches Butch in the face, knocking him into a pool of pig slop. Woim then gets scared and jumps into the slop willingly.

Along with first prize, Alfalfa also wins back Darla, after it is revealed that it had been Darla who had kicked Waldo out of their car and finished the race alone because she found out that Waldo was responsible for the bubbles at the talent show. Meanwhile, Spanky is shocked at the trophy presentation when he finally meets his favorite driver, A.J. Ferguson, who turns out to be female (Reba McEntire). Spanky confesses to Darla that he and the boys were responsible for ruining their picnic lunch. After the club house is rebuilt, the boys collectively have a change of heart towards membership and they decide to welcome Darla as well as other girls into the club, adding a "Women Welcome" sign onto the front door.

Cast

 * Travis Tedford as Spanky McFarland, the president of "He-Man Women Hater's Club" and Alfalfa's best friend
 * Bug Hall as Alfalfa Switzer, Spanky's best friend
 * Brittany Ashton Holmes as Darla, Alfalfa's love interest
 * Kevin Jamal Woods as Stymie, the club's vice-president
 * Jordan Warkol (voice dubbed by E.G. Daily) as Froggy, a club member with a croaking voice and a love for amphibians
 * Zachary Mabry as Porky, one of the younger members of the club
 * Ross Elliot Bagley as Buckwheat, another one of the younger members of the club and Porky's best friend
 * Sam Saletta as Butch, the neighborhood bully
 * Blake Jeremy Collins as Woim, Butch's friend and sidekick
 * Blake McIver Ewing as Waldo, an obnoxious rich new kid who is very interested in Darla
 * Courtland Mead as Uh-huh – club "typographer", always answers "uh-huh"
 * Juliette Brewer as Mary Ann
 * Heather Karasek as Jane
 * Raven-Symoné as Stymie's girlfriend at the club
 * Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen as the twin girls at Darla's sleepover
 * Mel Brooks as Mr. Welling, the bank teller
 * Lea Thompson as Miss Roberts, Darla's ballet instructor
 * Daryl Hannah as Miss Crabtree, the gang's schoolteacher
 * Reba McEntire as A.J. Ferguson, "the best driver there is"
 * Whoopi Goldberg as Buckwheat's mother
 * Donald Trump as Waldo's father
 * Eric Edwards as Spanky's father
 * Dan Carton as Alfalfa's father
 * George Wendt as Lumber store guy
 * Alexandra Monroe King and Zoe Oakes as Darla's friends

Animals

 * Petey Blue Nose Pitbull
 * Fifi, a doberman pinscher
 * Elmer, a white throated white Capuchin monkey and part of the Rascal's club.

Production
Bill Thomas, Jr., son of the late Bill Thomas, who played the original Buckwheat, contacted the studio and was invited down to visit the set, but got the impression that the filmmakers did not want him or any of the surviving original cast members involved in any production capacity. The surviving cast members saw this as especially hurtful, in light of the fact that director Penelope Spheeris had previously made a point of including Buddy Ebsen, from the original Beverly Hillbillies, in her 1993 feature film adaptation of that series. Eugene Jackson, who played the original Pineapple from the silent Our Gang comedies, tried unsuccessfully to contact the studio to be a part of production, stated, "It's real cold. They have no respect for the old-timers. At least they could have recognized some of the living legends surviving from the first films." Filming took place from January 11, 1994 to April 6, 1994.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 23% based on reviews from 13 critics. On Metacritic it has a score of 45 out of 100 based on reviews from 20 critics. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A-" on scale of A to F.

Brian Lowry of Variety magazine wrote: "Those who grew up watching The Little Rascals may well be intrigued by the idea of introducing their kids to this full-color, bigscreen version. Still, the challenge of stretching those mildly diverting shorts to feature length remains formidable, and one has to wonder whether an audience exists beyond nostalgic parents and their young children."

Box office
The Little Rascals earned $10 million at the North American box office during its opening weekend. The film grossed a worldwide total of $67,308,282.

Repurposed scenes and situations
Many of the gags and subplots in the film were borrowed from the original Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts. These include:
 * The scene in which Buckwheat and Porky are fishing and get their fishing lines tangled originates from a scene in the 1943 Our Gang short Three Smart Guys with Buckwheat, Froggy, and Mickey.
 * The He-Man Woman Haters Club originally appeared in the 1937 Our Gang short Hearts are Thumps; the club would return in the short Mail and Female the same year. The plots for both shorts were reused for the film. In addition, the scene where the gang ruins Alfalfa and Darla's lunch date, as well as the scene where bubbles come out of Alfalfa's mouth while he sings, were borrowed gags from Hearts are Thumps. Alfalfa sending Buckwheat and Porky to deliver a love note to Darla was borrowed from Mail and Female.
 * The "hi-sign" originally appeared in the 1935 Our Gang short Anniversary Trouble, and the animated 1979 special, The Little Rascals Christmas Special.
 * The children dressing up as fire fighters and attempting to put out a fire appeared in the Our Gang shorts Fire Fighters (1922), The Fourth Alarm (1926), and Hook and Ladder (1932). The gag in which Spanky (Travis Tedford) winds up on a flying water hose was originally used with Farina in The Fourth Alarm.
 * The gag involving Spanky and Stymie disguising as adults appeared in a handful of Our Gang shorts. Mickey Daniels and Johnny Downs attempted to dress up as Santa Claus with this gag in the 1926 short Good Cheer. Farina and Pleurisy tried this routine in the 1929 short Election Day. Stymie and Dickie Moore tried it in the 1933 short Fish Hooky, while Spanky and Alfalfa tried pulling it off in both the 1935 short Teacher's Beau and the 1936 short Two Too Young.
 * The scene in which Spanky and Alfalfa accidentally find themselves performing in a ballet recital was inspired by the plot of the 1937 short Rushin' Ballet. The costumes that the duo wear are exact replicas of the costumes that the original Spanky and Alfalfa wore in Rushin' Ballet. The gag in which Alfalfa gets a frog loose in his clothes was originally used in the 1937 short Framing Youth, where Spanky was trying to convince him he had a frog in his throat.
 * Alfalfa singing "The Barber of Seville" originated in Our Gang Follies of 1938.
 * The idea of the children building their own vehicle out of junk and scrap metal had been used in several Our Gang shorts, most notably the 1934 short Hi'-Neighbor!. The gag in which the kids' car causes several adults to leap into the air was also borrowed from Hi'-Neighbor!, and also appears in One Wild Ride (1925), Free Wheeling (1932), and Divot Diggers (1936).
 * Much of the Go-Cart race climax (including the gag in which the car belonging to Butch and Woim accidentally goes into reverse) was borrowed from the 1939 short Auto Antics. Material from Hi'-Neighbor and Three Men in a Tub (1938) is also present.

Home media
The Little Rascals was released on VHS and DVD in 1995 and 2004 respectively. It made its Blu-Ray debut in 2014.