The Little Ranger

This M-G-M comedy short, The Little Ranger, is the one hundred seventieth entry in the "Our Gang" series and the eighty-second talkie. Since the series by this point was only credited as "Our Gang", that's the way I'm now referring them as. Alfalfa is waiting for Darla at the movies, ignoring Muggsy's (Shirley Coates) flirting with him at the box office. Darla arrives with Butch as both couples enter the theatre. While sitting down, Alf dreams he's the cowboy hero with Darla the leading lady, Butch the villain, and Porky and Buckwheat the sheriffs. Oh, and Muggsy is the other leading lady...With Gordon Douglas continuing as director of the series, The Little Ranger is a funny enough start for M-G-M's initial foray in taking over production of the shorts from Hal Roach Studios which would only make features from this point on and switch distribution to United Artists. Besides the heading during opening credits now saying "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents", the theme song is now a medley of "London Bridge is Falling Down" and "The Farmer in the Dell", and screenplay credits are printed for the first time in the series, the authors being Hal Law-who had been one of the gag writers in the HR entries-and Robert McGowan-not the director who helmed the silent and early talkie entries but his same-named nephew who previously helmed some late silent and early talkie ones as "Anthony Mack" though the senior one's middle name was Francis while this one is-well, it's the first name of his pseudonym. Most of the eps from now on are written by them. Oh, one more thing: the song Alf partly sings is "A Melody from the Sky" which was first played in the feature The Trail of the Lonesome Pine which featured Spanky McFarland-who was still absent from this series at this point. Spank hummed this tune in that picture. So on that note, The Little Ranger was a nice start for M-G-M's run of the series.

Personal note: These were my first exposure to the Our Gang series during the mid-'70s when Buckskin Bill showed them on his weekday morning "Storyland" program or his daily afternoon "The Buckskin Bill Show". Me and my brother remember enjoying them as kids as we didn't know about the way some were presented as lessons as differed from those that weren't. But we'd soon find out when a rival station ran the earlier Hal Roach talkie entries...