The Pinch Singer

This Hal Roach comedy short, The Pinch Singer, is the one hundred forty-third entry in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series and the fifty-fifth talkie. In this one, there's a radio contest with a $50 prize. Alfalfa tries to audition three times but Spanky has Pete the Pup ring the gong each time. When Darla does her number she's the one picked to enter the show. But she doesn't arrive in time. Guess who goes in her place? The authors of the book, "The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang"-Leonard Maltin & Richard W. Bann, thought this was a contrived entry that "was fed too many sweets, and without the proper nutrients never grew into the kind of healthy comedy it might have been." Me, I was amused enough by the whole thing to not even care! If there's any material that gave me pause, it's the scene when Alf does blackface during one of his auditions as well as another three-person act that does the same thing during the actual contest. Otherwise, The Pinch Singer was entertaining enough for me. P.S. Regular Roach composer Marvin Hatley appears as the conductor of the orchestra in the radio studio scenes. Once when someone says "Take it away, Marvin!" and then again when Alf gives him the sheet music. And Darla appears for the second time in the series as a blonde as she was also shooting The Bohemian Girl at about the same time. And this was the official first time that one Fred Newmeyer directed an Our Gang episode though he had previously been involved in the series when he directed the first one actually called Our Gang. But most of his scenes from that were scrapped and Robert McGowan was the one who did the version that was eventually released.