AN ODE TO 'THE LITTLE RASCALS' & 'OUR GANG' FOLLIES

The older I get, the more I relish the simplicity of my youth. And being that today was Mother's Day and all, it had me thinking about all sorts of weird crap.

As an only child, I had a pretty even-keeled life. I had a great family and all sorts of friends but in the end, it was ... just a simple childhood.

But that said, there was an overabundance of TV watching. By today's standards, it was insane. I mean, shit, I watched so much goddamn TV that I swear, I'm like that guy Martin Tupper in the HBO series "Dream On," who would think in old '50s TV clips. In any case, it was a great show. Catch it if you can. It was an old school HBO series - groundbreaking nudity and all.

Anyway, forget all that, one of my favorite pastimes after I finished my homework was the boob tube. We were one of the first houses on the block with cable TV - and by cable it was really just a bunch of Philly TV stations and cable access channels.

At the time, all these new stations needed content and cheap, older properties were the only thing being broadcast. My favorite? I l-o-v-e-d Hal Roach's "Our Gang" follies aka "The Little Rascals."

To be truthful, I couldn't begin to do the black-and-white shorts justice here in a short post like this. For that, I'd say take a look here.

I'm sure I'm not the only one but I identified SO MUCH with these nostalgic tales that I swear sometimes I think I'm the reincarnated soul of some studio backlot grip or something.

A brief description: "Our Gang"/"The Little Rascals" was a long-standing series of American comedy shorts centering on various groups of poor neighborhood kids and their adventures. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, "Our Gang" was produced at the Roach studio starting in 1922 as a silent short subject series.

Unlike other pictures of the era featuring kids, producer Roach rooted these shorts in real life. The subjects were poor (poverty level, really) and the gang was always at odds with snobbish rich kids as well as adversarial adults and parents. 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 all too common.

For those significantly younger, I've managed to find a clip on You Tube. Get a drink, settle in and watch a few minutes of these priceless and even sometimes controversial gems.

Oh and for the record, the widely-circulated urban legend that comedian Bill Cosby bought up the rights to "Our Gang" to keep the racial stereotypes off of television is completely false. Cosby has never owned any rights to the series at any time