A friend of mine heard Bill Cosby bought the rights to ALL the “Little Rascals” episodes - and had them destroyed due to their questionably racist slant. YET! Just after this, I heard TNT (or some cable station) was holding a “Little Rascals” marathon.
So, what gives? Did Cosby buy the rights?
What kind of name is “Alfalfa”, anyhow?
Snopes is all over it:
I find it totally hard to believe that evan if Bill Cosby did buy them, he would resort to that. I believe Disney owns the parent company that owns Little Rascals. Turner would be my second guess. Hal Roach owned them first, then MGM (I believe).
Cosby would have had to act incredibly quickly, and discreetly, to destroy them without notice. I’ts not like they still couldn’t be seen, they are now all on home video. I’m not sure if they videos are the T.V. edits, with the more racist scenes removed, or the original.
An IMHO, the show did depict black and white children as friends, about as close as interracial friendships publically got at that time. And although buckwheat is a steriotype, Stymie seemed to act as a normal kid.
Bill Cosby doesn’t impress me as the type of person woh would destroy it, He had his own “little rascals.” Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
But my 2¢:
The Little Rascals TV syndication package underwent severe editing back in the 80s (or late 70s). Some episodes were not shown at all (like “A Tough Winter,” featuring Stepin Fetchit, and “The Kid from Borneo,” with John Lester Johnson as Uncle George/Bumbo), and the others had any scenes that might be considered offensive neatly snipped out. So, while Cos was not responsible for any embargo, the real syndicator did give administer a fair amount of censorship. [Another one that you didn’t see was a silent one where the kids joined a club called the “Cluck Cluck Clams.”:eek:]
“Alfalfa” was IRL a country boy from some small town in Illinois. My guess is that they wanted to give this hayseed little boy a hayseed name. (Plus there had already been a precedent established for naming Rascals after grains with Farina and Buckwheat.)
OH I WANNA SEE IT! It sounds like an incredible jab at what was back then a powerful group. The satire against the KKK would way outweigh any silly steriotype. Release it to the adults, like “the 3 Stooges”.
I’ve been watching some of the old ones lately on … TCM I think. The old ones with Stymie and the gang and didn’t think they were rascist, maybe at the most PI. Specifically “The Pooch”. Pretty enjoyable. Damn that little Spanky was a cute kid.