Jackie Cooper is still alive, but another member of the “Our Gang” cast has died. Shirley Jean Rickert, who wasn’t one of the better known players, has passed away at age 82. She’s the girl with the curly blond locks, as seen in the memorable “Fly My Kite” from 1931. Here is the complete 20-minute 2-reeler.
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Grandma was played by Margaret Mann, who was born in Scotland in 1868. Whenever I watched this installment of The Little Rascals, as the series was called for TV syndication, I didn’t understand why there was an electric switch on the utility pole, and I knew it had to be harder than it looked for a bunch of kids to saw down the pole.
But what I really want you to notice is the unique and wonderful music by Leroy Shield. It’s quirky, catchy, original and unforgettable to anybody who heard it while growing up. Yet incredibly, Shield received no screen credit from producer Hal Roach. In the 90’s a band from the Netherlands (Holland gets mentioned a lot here, huh?) called The Beau Hunks released some fabulous CD’s of Leroy Shield’s music. Here’s a delightful rendition of “Hide and Go Seek”, which is featured prominently towards the end of “Fly My Kite”.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/FEB/HideandGoSeek.mp3]
That’s Mary Ann Jackson with the bangs. She was eight years old in “Fly My Kite”, which happened to be the last “Our Gang” short she was in. She passed away five years ago.
A couple more points: Grandma’s financial predicament, although exaggerated by her evil son-in-law, was all too real in those pre-Social Security times. In 1931, $100,000 was the equivalent of $1.4 million today.
Shield could yank a tear out of a kid before they were sophisticated enough to know what they were crying for. Naturally, we Pratt kids were smart enough to know injustice when we saw it. I don’t remember this particular episode, but I DO remember one where the kids took some food that fell off the back of a truck and ran off with it to eat it in hiding. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize the children were poor and starving. I was by myself watching this and burst into tears.
Molly had a similar moment recently when she watched a show on Appalachia on National Geographic. She claims she had no idea how poor they were there, and cried out loud as she she said the ones who were not lucky enough to have coal mining jobs got by on welfare, or selling prescription painkillers (OxyContin and Vicodin, aka “Hillbilly Heroin.”) There were a couple of “success” stories where a woman got clean on her own (no choice, no insurance), got a job, and is managing to support her entire family running a diner. She now refuses to let Tom make fun of the “rednecks” around here. Good for her!
I’ll ask Tom about the electrified pole. If it was hooked up, you’d have some fried “chitlins” (one of my nicknames for children) alright. I recognize the little girl with the bangs; she was in quite a few of the “Our Gangs.”