Little Rascals Unveiled - Orphans in Early Hollywood and Cabbage Patches

[Music] Hey, what's up, guys? Today I wanted to talk about The Little Rascals and kind of rethinking what that show is really about. You could call it a fan theory, I guess, but at the same time, it's a peak into early Hollywood and the use of orphans in the early entertainment industry. Now, whether they were orphans in real life is hard to tell, but it seems quite evident that some of the most popular movies in the Golden Era of Hollywood revolve around orphans. Take Dorothy, for example, from *The Wizard of Oz*. There's something about this symbolism that is used consistently throughout the dawn of early film. I thought it would be interesting to consider that in connection with resets and repopulation. Why were there so many movies about orphans in the first 30 years of Hollywood?

Well, one of the most famous shows ever is *The Little Rascals*. Now, if you're like me, from the new generation, I didn't really watch this growing up at all. I only know about it because there was a movie made in 1994, and I did watch this growing up as I'd go to my friend's house, and this was the only movie that he was allowed to watch—this and *Sandlot*, actually. So I didn't really see any of the older shows growing up, and I'm definitely not an expert. I'm just researching the past of this whole entire concept, trying to view it from an outside perspective, and it led me down this interesting rabbit hole, or theory, I guess you could say. Perhaps there are things missing, but I would love an expert who knows everything about it to explain a few things because there's some really weird stuff going on in these old shows.

So *The Little Rascals* is actually based on a film series called *Our Gang*, and it wasn't called *Little Rascals* from what I could tell. It was called Hal Roach's Rascals, which were a series of comedy short films chronicling a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures, starting in 1922, and the production continued until 1944. Okay, so let's remember that they're described as poor children. You see, from what I remember, it was just a group of kids who were just being kids, but it seems there are some details left out on the overall summaries of the show. That's what made this investigation difficult—is that there are many older episodes, which I've seen—all the talkies and almost all of the silent films that are online—and I can't really find anything that is detailed on the lore behind all this, like who are these kids and why are they involved in all these weird scenarios, even secret societies.

So let me ask you: are *The Little Rascals* orphans? If so, that would certainly put a huge spin on the entire show. Okay, so why are we talking about *The Little Rascals*? *The Little Rascals* is not just a show about poor children. First off, it's basically like the first show in Hollywood—we're talking about the early 1920s is when this all started—especially a show of its kind, showing children of multiple races together going on adventures. It was huge, but it's mostly seen from a comedic view—that when watching the show we're seeing the world from the point of view of the children. But what if there's something else going on, something darker that doesn't get enough light, or at least I haven't seen anything explaining what this show is really about? Well, let's begin, because remember this show has some of the most iconic characters in Hollywood history: Alfalfa, Spanky, Darla, Froggy—many of the bits are very well known—but this theory really brings into question everything about what the show is really about. So you're probably like, "Okay, then what is it about? What's so weird about the show?" Okay, let's get started. I want you to see *The Little Rascals* from a whole new point of view, a new reality.

The idea is that these little rascals are actually street orphans. They are orphans who constantly get in trouble and get moved from home to home, and that's why they're Little Rascals—"You little rascals!" They can't seem to stay in one place. Not only that, but these street orphans are initiated in a secret society and have secret rituals. I know that sounds crazy, but hang with me. That's essentially what each episode is about, or at least originally. Now, keep in mind that as the show progressed into the later seasons, they begin to have families for a longer period of time, but in the beginning of the *Our Gang* series, there is no question: this is a street gang of orphans, or children who do not have birth parents or parents at all. This isn't a joke either; it's about to get super weird, and I couldn't even make this up if I wanted to. It's literally in the show; you will see it clearly if we go through some of the most bizarre episodes. It will become clear that there's something not quite right about this whole show.

Well, first off, let's lay down some ground rules: the idea is that they're street orphans and they get moved around to different locations throughout the series. Okay, so once you're an orphan, you're always an orphan. It doesn't matter if the kid later in the series says "Mom"—the child was once an orphan, and so it's still considered a part of the street gang. Also, the dog symbolizes everything I just said; it means a street orphan that is a part of the club. Sounds pretty wild, huh? This is also interesting because there are some connections to this show in the Cabbage Patch Kids; we'll discuss that later. But if we can find clues that connect orphans to Cabbage Patch Kids, then perhaps this suggests that they are related to one another. Not just that, but what is the connection between secret societies, mind control, and orphans? So keep in mind that there are a lot of episodes, many to consider, so I'll do my best to present, but it's an extremely difficult task. It may be best to start with just refreshing on probably what everyone is familiar with, or if you've seen the newest movie.

Okay, so the main character, for me at least, is Spanky, who is the leader of the crew and the best character in my opinion. Then you have Alfalfa, which I'm sure all of you have heard of or seen at some point in time with his famous "c-c-c-k." A few more important characters are Froggy, Stymie, Buckwheat, and Porky. Then you have the bully, Butch. That's pretty much all we need to know for now, and as we go back to the original silent film era, we can discuss some more characters because the crew kind of changes over the years as they got older.

Okay, so let's talk about the 1994 movie for a second. So, for me, the acting isn't even close to as good as the original characters from the older show. And think about it: the whole movie is about how this gang—doesn't explicitly say orphans—but I do suspect they are even orphans in this newer movie, or the creators are aware that they are street urchins, as look at the outfits of the children in the club, other than Spanky and Alfalfa. Not just that, Alfalfa was in the trash can, and Waldo, the rich character, is apparently the best son money can buy, and we get a clip of Donald Trump who plays his father, strangely. So Waldo's an orphan; we will see that supported by older episodes later. But yeah, they don't really go into detail in the movie on these kids' living situations or their past. The plot of the movie all revolves around these kids who were in a secret society named the He-Man Woman Haters Club. Now, I think most people will just say this is a cute kids' club or something, but when we start to look into the older episodes on this, it's going to get weird pretty quick. So, no, I'm just going to go ahead and say it: this is a secret society with secret signs directly correlated with Masonry. That's evident even in the 1994 film, complete with the dog with the black circle—that's something we'll explore later—but the proof of that is when the boys are walking into the club, they have to give a high sign, which is the very exact sign that is referenced in an older episode. So the creators definitely watched the old show and saw the symbolism as multiple bits of reference throughout the 1994 movie.

Well, again, the whole movie revolves around this secret society. Alfalfa breaks his oath and starts to like girls, and at first, he's actually sentenced to be executed by Spanky before Stymie gets involved. After this, Alfalfa even has a Shakespearean dream allegory where he falls off a cliff and he has to choose between the club or death. He falls into the ocean and then wakes up. Yeah, this movie is actually kind of explicit with some of the jokes, or let's just say more on the nose with it. "C-c-c-k" is reference to something that Springs when he gets excited, which is not as apparent in the original series—maybe for one episode—but just some weird references throughout the movie. But overall, yeah, the movie is not that bad when it comes to symbolism, but it does revolve around the notion of a kid in a secret society trying to win a girl back while the club sabotages him for breaking oath. There's also some cross-dressing, which sure, we can overlook, but it gets strange as we continue. That's the basic gist of the movie—nothing too dark about it—but it's only when you look into the past of the show that we can get the full picture. It even ends with a secret society including girls as times are changing, which is exactly what happened in history with the Eastern Stars.

Okay, so that's the 1994 movie—no mention of orphans really—and if you search "Little Rascals" and "orphans" or "secret societies," there's really nothing on this topic. We'll start with the talkies, and before we break down the lore of the *Our Gang* series, let's just go ahead and start breaking down some of the episodes from the iconic period, which I would say is from 1935 to the early 1940s, before the war, or really the episodes with Alfalfa in it. That way it will make more sense when we start breaking down some of the mind-blowing episodes. I guess I should mention that many of the older episodes from this time are considered racist, and apparently many of them have been edited, so it can be difficult to figure out what is really the original. But yeah, there are many themes and jokes that could be considered racist; there are many blackface scenes, so I do just want to give a warning just in case that offends anybody. There are some scenes where they make obvious black jokes, some worse than others. I'll bring it up when we come across those.

Okay, well let's start with Alfalfa in his first episode. Well, Alfalfa was played by Carl Alfalfa Switzer, who has a very strange story. Well, he died at the age of 31, before his 32nd birthday, and a very sad story where supposedly he pulled out a pocketknife and got shot. It was considered self-defense, but he was shot by his former business partner, and this all occurred over $50. It's also on his gravestone that he was a Freemason, interestingly, because there's really not that much information on that. Well, on his first episode, "Beginners' Luck," you basically get this weird stage show, which this is a common theme in this series—is you have these essentially mind-controlled children performing stage shows. Sure, you could argue that's extreme, but when you see them performing these songs and dancing to these different stories, I mean, what else do you want to call it? It's not like they want to do this stuff; they've been told what to memorize. It's called vaudeville theater, but when you see children do it, it's just strange, especially if there's a connection with orphans, which we'll see later. It's weird because they're like these little prodigies, and that's what I was saying with the new movie—is that the children actors don't even compare to the talent from the original actors. Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment, which was a collection of different acts strung together. There are multiple *Little Rascals* vaudeville episodes that basically revolve around this—children prodigies performing strange symbolic shows for the sake of entertainment, and this was huge back in the day. They would do this at theaters as a show, or in other words, for money. There's nothing too strange about this episode, but there was this weird thing that I noticed: the girls in one of the plays' performances actually sing a very specific song; it's called "Honolulu Baby." Well, this song was actually written by Marvin Hatley for the 1933 Laurel and Hardy film *Sons of the Desert*, which look, I don't want to go into a whole different tangent here, but that film is weird. It's basically a comedy movie about secret societies, kind of making a joke of the whole matter while revealing certain things blatantly, such as ancient rights and oaths that must be abided by no matter what. Anyways, in that movie—it's a movie about Shriners—and also, by the way, it was produced by Hal Roach, the mind behind *Little Rascals*—while in *Sons of the Desert*, they sing this "Honolulu" song in the exact same fashion. I only noticed this because I watched the movie randomly and that song got stuck in my head. So there's some weird connection or nod going on there, and that song's not a famous song; it was made just for that movie. To understand this: Hal Roach was a huge figure in early Hollywood and is essentially the creator of *The Little Rascals*, or the *Our Gang* show—they are Hal Roach's Rascals. Well, he would eventually team up with Harold Lloyd, someone who used to be extremely famous but not too many people know about him anymore. You've probably seen the scene of him hanging from the clock tower. Well, yeah, this guy was a master 33rd-degree Freemason and was one of Hal Roach's partners. He's actually in an episode of *Our Gang*, in fact. So right there, there's no denying that Freemasonry was somewhat a part of this whole ordeal. Lloyd has some weird movies himself that we could break down where he tries to commit suicide and is brought to heaven to self-reflect. It's kind of like putting rituals in secret in early film. There's even blood in that scene, a cross or X on some books in the background, and he even checks a dictionary for the word "seiler" as he's writing his death letter. So yeah, very strange—some Masonic allegory. Anyways, I digress. That's the background behind some of the creators of the show, though. It's logical to conclude that references of secret societies are not just reaching or overanalyzing when we see this viewpoint of the children, their world, and the clubs that they were in. Well, these are actually references to the clubs that the adults were in during that time, which if you were anyone big back in the day, you'd be associated with this secret society or fraternity of some kind. To me, that is definitely what they're doing with the He-Man Woman Haters Club bit.

Actually, the He-Man Woman Haters Club is not the only club; there are more. The first episode for the He-Man Woman Haters Club is from "Hearts or Thumbs," and then "Male and Female," but this isn't the first club; this is just kind of a joke that evolved from older bits. But weirdly, they still take oaths, and they also have a checkerboard table for the judge, Spanky, in the He-Man Woman Haters Club. In the episode "Male and Female," there's also a cross-dressing bit, and the other boys end up liking Alfalfa once he dresses up, which is kind of weird to me. Also, what's the consequence of breaking the He-Man Woman Haters Club's oath? You get paddled. That's important to remember for later, as it's a pretty blatant reference. Search for "Freemason paddle" if you want to see what I mean. There's also the Wise Owl Club—man, what a reference. This is in the "Fishy Tales" episode, which this is just a bizarre episode—some kind of play on William Tell, which is an old legend of an assassin—and Buckwheat kind of takes a joke for a moment, and then while looking in the mirror, Alfalfa accidentally shoots Butch in the back of the head. So Alfalfa is scared, and they think Butch is going to beat him up, so they have to pretend that his foot has been dislocated, and they're in this Wise Owl Club room, which also the sign says "Sees all, says nothing"—so secret stuff. Then inside, there's a clear square encompassed on the wall. They make a fake foot so that it could trick Butch, but it's strange because he's just hammering this leg, and then Alfalfa's leg is secretly under the bed getting tickled and eventually gets bit by crabs, which doesn't seem by accident. Why were there crabs under the bed? Perhaps it was for the street cats that enter later, but why are they responsible for feeding the cats, and why is there a bed in here? What kids do you know that go out and build a secret lodge with a bed? It's kind of weird if you ask me. There is the Eagle Eye Detective Agency that features an eye on the door, and now Alfalfa has a secret name: he is X-10. This is in the "Hide and Seek" episode, but they're just pretending to be detectives.

Okay, so then what's up with all this oath stuff? Why do they need to take oaths? Stymie and Buckwheat both get the name X-6—so 66. Well, in this episode, they accidentally get kidnapped—it wasn't on purpose; they randomly just hop in a crate—and this was on the back of a truck. But yeah, then they get taken to this haunted house—a grand opening—with some strange skull and bone symbols. Sure, a skull on its own is not that bad, but in this context, it is symbolic. So these kids basically wake up in the dark, or inside of this haunted house, and once they come out of the crate, they don't know that this is a haunted house. So for them, this is a real experience. And keep in mind the kids are still wearing their hats, which is weird and obviously has some type of meaning. Well, a voice comes on and tells them that few make it out of this place alive. On the surface level, this is just a haunted house where the kids accidentally found themselves after deciding to be detectives, but on an esoteric level, this is some type of initiation ritual. They have to choose which door to go through, and if they choose the wrong one, they die. Interestingly, as they try to escape, there's a door that has a demon monster inside, and I want you to remember how this looks for later, as it's directly connected to an older episode. This is no accident; that is some type of demonic being with horns and smoke coming out of its mouth. Notice the curtains—this is a behind-the-scenes look. Remember the eye from the beginning of the episode? So they start running, but it's one of those moving walkways, so they can't get away from this demon. Alfalfa's like, "I can't run anymore," it just falls, and for him, he thinks he's going to die, but he wakes up on the other side, realizing that they had to face their fears, then if they want to escape, they need to sit on a bench, which here we realize that the voice is actually Lucifer or the devil. They didn't want to sit on the bench, so a skeleton with the head of the devil and a pitchfork comes out, and Alfalfa is like, "Okay, we'll do what you say." You may think, "Okay, well it's just a ride," and I get that, but I don't know of any rides that have crossbones like this, and they also have a buzz saw ready to chop off your head—that seems a little dangerous if you ask me. So they run out of this haunted house, and they're terrified, and they never want to be detectives again.

Then you have the "All for One, One for All" club, which has nothing to do with hating girls; it's exclusive to only the guys, and this is the club where they got the secret signs from in the 1994 movie. This "All for One" club is in the "Alfalfa's Aunt" episode, which is a very strange Alfalfa episode. It starts with the boys having a club meeting, and we see the same hand-point icon from the previous "Hide and Seek" episode, which in this one is pointing to the secret entrance, and then a goat comes running out, just in case you didn't get what was going on here. Well, they have fry caps, or some type of hat war for this club, and they also have dues, or yearly payments, to be able to be a part of the club. They have a high sign of brotherhood, and then they do this sign from the movie here as well. Next, we're introduced to a new character that has never been in previous shorts: Alfalfa's Aunt Penelope, who decides to become a murder mystery author. This is weird because, for some reason, she decides to use the actual last name of the family. So what ends up happening is she drops a page from her novel, and it literally says that she has to kill her nephew, Alfalfa, because it's the...

Only thing between her and the Switzer Millions. I get that she was just using names for inspiration, but come on, what kind of person would write about this? Especially writing about killing your nephew in agony at a specific astrological timing. So Fala reads this and gets really scared. What does he do? Well, he goes to his brothers in the club and asks for help, because they are all for one. It's really weird because if you watch the series in order, this episode was much different, like with out-of-nowhere changes. But yeah, so Fala reads this note: “Dear ex, I have discovered that only my nephew stands between me and the Switzer Millions, so like the others, he shall die in agony tonight, the stroke of nine.”

Nel is reading a book called *Famous Murders*, with a strange M character and also a blade with three drops of blood that looks pretty occult. The newspaper that Alfalfa is holding is also filled with some type of death or murder scene. Ory then literally sniffs smelling salts in this episode, and so they swap off Alfalfa's body with some fake one to scare Aunt Penel, and she decides to leave. But they never really explain why she used their names in the first place. This All For One club is actually the successor club to the Eagles Club, which was in the *Pinch Singer* episode. This is a lesser-known episode that wasn't distributed by MGM, and it kind of makes sense when you watch it. Alfalfa is in blackface in this one; it was actually kind of harder to find; I only found it in an archive. But also, towards the end, there is this Plantation Trio with multiple kids in blackface. This is what I was talking about earlier with the stage shows.

Well, the Eagle Club was a secret club that was trying to raise money so that they could enter a radio contest show. This will be a common theme: orphans trying to raise money by performing these very weird acts that, on the surface, can be seen as cute, but when you really think about it, it's more for adults, not children, as they have no idea what any of this means. The Eagle Club is the successor club to the Ancient and Honorary Order of Woodchucks, when its president was actually Stymie, not Spanky. This is one of the earlier clubs with the high sign, which involves the fingers of one hand in front of one's chin. They gather in a ramshackle old shed, identified by a hand-painted sign on the door giving the club's full name as the Ancient and Honorary Order of Woodchucks Club Incorporated. This club also has dues, and there are some different crew members. So what's going on here? This is not just some cute club that the kids made up; it goes back multiple generations with multiple different Little Rascal characters. So this is a long tradition, but that would only make sense if they were actually orphans. We also see the dog on a pedestal or at the front near the president. This meeting will be explored further. This is from *Anniversary Trouble*, another episode that's difficult to find, as it wasn't distributed by MGM. We will talk more about Spanky, but in this episode, Spanky has a family with the black maid and Buckwheat. So Buckwheat's basically a maid in this episode, but it gets worse because, well, I'm pretty sure Buckwheat plays a girl in these early episodes, and Spanky does blackface in this episode, so it's kind of cross-dressing and racist, but the kids don't even know the difference at first, which is also pretty weird. Then the episode ends with some spanking, and Spanky is spanking his pop. Spanky may be a play on that he's getting constantly in trouble, or he's a little rascal, so he gets spankings, but he does most of the spanking, being a leader of the club. There are actually a few more clubs, but before we get to that, let's discuss some of the weirdness from the Alfalfa episodes.

There are the black jokes that come every other episode; for example, *Divot Diggers* has Buckwheat being dragged by a dog, and they make this monkey joke multiple times throughout different episodes. It's kind of like with the *Lucky Corner* episode where Buckwheat will be the butt of the joke. *Arbor Day* was kind of a weird one; they have this bit that they do a lot where midgets from a sideshow will be pretending to be children, but they're full-grown adults. I'll talk about that later. The Russian ballet is the classic cross-dressing episode where they run from the bullies and do a performance, but there are also men with masks, which is kind of strange, and in the background is this Greek architecture with the pillars and a classic checkerboard floor and three Spar boys. They pretend to have an epidemic; they go to the doctor and think that the doctor actually gave Buckwheat a serum and turned him into a monkey; so another monkey joke. Then you have *The Follies of 1938*. This is a really good short where Alfalfa appears out of the future. There is a barber of civil reference, and in the future, Spanky owns a club and has a top hat. In *Framing Youth*, Spanky looks over at a picture of him with a black eye that is very eerie, and in this episode, it has to do with the radio again. We hear the same Honolulu Baby song from *Sons of the Desert*. This episode is basically about them converting their club into a voice studio so that Alfalfa can win a radio talent show. And *Aladdin's Lantern*: just some weird stage shows again with cross-dressing and perhaps even a sonic stage.

Well, let's continue because now we can explore one of the main themes of the show: this idea that you can replace children and trade them in for a newer model. Which, once you see the show for what it is, this is exactly what's happening to the children. But in the short *Tiny Troubles*, we get this very weird episode. Okay, so it starts with the kids in jail, and we learn about a light-fingered Lester, which is one of those midgets I was talking about. Well, he pretends to be a baby, and this is literally the movie *Little Man*; not sure if you ever saw that, but yeah, that's a wild movie. Anyways, Alfalfa couldn't get his baby brother to stop crying, which, by the way, was twins in *Roman Holiday*, so I suspect this is a new family entirely. But forgetting that for now, he decides that he has had enough with this baby, and so he literally decides to trade him in for a new model. This is because Darla compares the baby to a puppy and is like, “We straightened the puppy; perhaps you can do the same for the baby.” That's not a normal thing for kids to say, and at some point, regardless of social norms, they would have some idea where babies come from; maybe not in detail, but I don't think it makes sense for these kids to be so clueless. Well, apparently Alfalfa was told that his mom got his brother from a hollow tree in the park, and they actually believe this to be true. So they're like, “Okay, let's go to the tree and get a new baby; forget this one.” They even put a note on the baby, strangely. So they go there, and Light-fingered Lester is hiding from the police in the tree, and the crew shows up and thinks he's an actual infant. They're like, “Hey, there's a baby there now,” and so they drop off Alfalfa's baby brother and actually leave him in the park alone while they take this new baby, which is actually a… yeah, such a weird episode. He goes to Alfalfa's home, drinks beer and smokes a cigar until the cops show up and take everybody in. To me, the strangest part is that there would even be an episode about bringing a child in. Remember the comparison was to a puppy, so like a dog, to get a better or more quieter version. What are they trying to say? Is it just a fun little bit, or is there more to this symbolism? Well, we aren't done yet, and if you're skeptical, hang on for a moment, as there's some episodes that we'll discuss later that will show there's more to this all than just humor and gags. For example, the very next episode is called *Dual Personalities*, where a certain secret is revealed. The whole episode is about hypnotism, and the joke is that hypnotism is actually real; that's essentially the bit in this one. First, we see a man who was hypnotized to become a bridge, but then, seemingly by chance, Alfalfa is chosen from a crowd to get hypnotized because he mistakes the word “skeptical” to mean “timid.” He then becomes a Three Musketeer or something, but the interesting part about this is that the hypnotist gets hit in the head by a brick that fell from a brick mason. And because this mason dropped a brick and hit the hypnotist, Alfalfa is now stuck in a trance state temporarily, or he truly believes to be a musketeer. You may be like, “Okay, so what? It's just a joke on hypnotism; not so bad.” But you have to think about what we're talking about here: orphans, children in early Hollywood, and at this time, the Labor Standards Act of 1938 was just enacted. So you think there were any laws against hypnotism? Of course, you can say it's not real, but they're telling you in this episode that it's real, and if it were possible, wouldn't that put a spin on this whole series? Perhaps it explains why these children were young prodigies. Then this episode involves a sword duel to the death with Butch and Alfalfa. Do's even like, “Oh, they might kill each other over this.” They literally even have a grave ready for the kids. Is this some type of weird ritual or something? Then they shoot each other with fake guns, but Darla ends up picking Waldo instead.

The next episode is another common theme that's been done multiple times throughout the history of the series: the gang discovers that Porky's family can't pay rent, and there's this goat randomly, which you'll actually see in many episodes, especially the earlier ones. But yeah, so they put on this circus show to raise money, and they have like all these fake animals that aren't even real animals. There's an older short from the silent era that has the exact concept where they're going through a strange mansion, and you have all these bootleg animals. Interestingly, in this episode, Buckwheat plays the tribal Borneo man or the maneater, but we'll discuss that more in a bit. You could even perhaps consider the end of this episode a hanged man reference, as Alfalfa is a daredevil and gets stuck on this rope swing that they attached to a donkey. Also, there's this Mr. Wilson, who is the guy at the beginning of the episode demanding for rent. This is an important character to remember for later. But later in this short, he goes to get some lemonade, but it's unaware that the reason there's a discount is because the goat named Violet drank from it, and so he spits the drink out, throwing the rest of the drink on the goat's face, and then the goat kicks him. Now, this Mr. Wilson is the same character from a previous episode where he owns an orphanage. This is the same actor, Clarence Wilson, who was in the episode *Shrimps for a Day*, so he's the leading staff or head at The Happy Home Orphanage, which we'll discuss shortly. It may be important to note that Spanky and Porky were brothers earlier in the series but are not brothers in this episode. They say it's because the writers forgot, but I disagree; I believe it was done on purpose when you see the secret of the show. Okay, let's move on to *Cousin Wilbur*, another episode with the All For One Club. Wilbur is getting initiated; his last name is Newcome; William Nesbit. He calls Porky and Buckwheat “Master,” strangely. So Wilbur's like, “Where are all the members at? What do you offer?” And Alfalfa is like, “Well, we have secret signs.” And then Wilbur's like, “Oh, you're a social club; you should think about becoming a benevolent society,” which is a society that offers insurance with its membership. Weirdly, the benefits of the society is that they pay you if you get harmed or get a black eye or bee stings or even a spanking by your mother or father. Sure, kids get black eyes, but it just seems strange that this would even be associated with a society, especially one with secret high signs. Well, what happens is supposedly Butch starts giving all the kids black eyes, and now they have to pay for all this. So basically, this whole episode is about Freemasonry, black eyes, and insurance played out on a kid level. There's another episode, *Dad for a Day*, where they're in the gang clubhouse, and Mickey doesn't have a dad. It's actually a sweet episode with a nice ending, but it's strange because they end up going to a maternity ward, and then there's these guys just waiting to receive their babies, and one guy's even randomly told as triplets. Nothing too strange about this episode, but it becomes questionable once you follow Mickey throughout the series. Mickey is also an orphan, and we'll see that as we continue. Then there's the *All About Hash* episode where we learn about the All For One acting company. So wait, does this mean there are secret societies associated with acting companies? In the *New Pupil* episode, Froggy's reciting some stuff about the War of 1812, which is not that big of a deal, but I thought it'd be interesting to note because there are several war reenactments within the series. *Bubbling Troubles* is a weird episode; Alfalfa is going to like explode or something, but let's go ahead and move on to Alfalfa's last episode. It's called *Kitty Cure*, and the weirdest thing about this is that we're never really told it's Alfalfa's last episode; he just doesn't show up in any more shorts after this one. So what's it about? Well, the episode starts with Alfalfa and a stroller, and now he has twin brothers. This isn't just a mistake from the writers because the physician is literally like, “Oh, how are those twins I brought you?” So these twins were given away; you don't think so? Well, Alfalfa says, “Look, if Mom orders any more babies, please only one at a time.” Oh, so they are ordering children. It revolves around this William Morton, which apparently he is sick, but this doctor doesn't really think he's sick; he's just lonely and needs children, really. It seems the Morton guy wants a strong, longer dose, so he wants some more drugs for sure. Just in case you didn't catch the symbolism from the beginning of the episode, they make it more clear for you as the kids are playing baseball in a sandlot outback; they hit a baseball through the window, knocking over Mr. Morton's medicine. So Morton leaves his room to hear the doctor talking to his wife, and he literally says, “Have you ever considered adopting a child or two?” Well, Morton doesn't like this idea, but the door rings, and the crew has showed up to apologize for the window. It's in this shot that we see the floor is clearly a checkerboard pattern, which to me is relevant, and this is where it gets weird. So basically, the wife is like, “No, don't worry, you guys; you don't need to do anything,” but Morton wants to invite the children over for dinner. The reason is is because his wife is going out to adopt children. The wife was going to do this as a surprise, as she doesn't know that Mr. Morton overheard the conversation between her and the physician. So the plan is Mr. Morton does not want children, so he's trying to trick his wife by making her see that the children are chaotic, so she won't adopt any children. How is he going to do this? Well, he basically goes insane and starts ripping the entire place apart, trying to destroy his home so that he can blame it on the gang. This way, his wife will decide not to adopt children, and he can continue on his prescription. I really don't get this at all because when the wife returns, regardless of the place's a mess, if she changes her mind, she's going to have to bring the kids she just adopted back. So I don't know; this episode's a little messed up once you break it down. Well, the kids think this guy's a lunatic, and at some point, he hears Froggy's voice and tries to give him some medicine, but the gang thinks he's trying to poison Froggy, so they tell him not to drink it. The kids are scared for their lives, so they run around this mansion, and we get this little Scooby-Doo bit with the running chase loop through multiple doorways. So apparently Alfalfa, his twin brothers, are just snacking on this guy's strongest dose of pills, which I'm pretty sure that would not be good for them at all. This is a life-or-death scenario, but wait, the twist is the doctor was just giving him placebo pills because Mr. Morton isn't really sick; he just needs a child in his life. So this whole episode is about trying to convince this wealthy older couple that they just need to adopt children so that Mr. Morton will be happy; hence the name of the episode, *Kitty Cure*. This is Alfalfa's last episode, but let's think about this for a moment. Okay, so Alfalfa, which, by the way, what kind of name is that? Alfalfa is a sprout; he's cck as representative of this. So why would they use that symbolism? Well, Alfalfa's, or Carl Switzer's, very next role in Hollywood was a lesser-known movie that came out the same year as *Kitty Cure*. Now here's where it gets interesting; this movie is definitely a spin-off from the Our Gang series, meaning Alfalfa is still called Alfalfa in this movie, and he has the same cic… it's about to get pretty deep, so let's talk about it. The movie in concern is called *Barnyard Folly*. Remember I was talking about these Folly shows earlier? Well, literally this movie is about an orphanage. One of the first shots showed that this is the Farmdale Orphanage, and we have a bunch of orphans working on a farm, which is exactly what the early episodes of Our Gang show. So this movie, which is not very well known, shows us more light on this whole situation. Well, like I said, this is a Little Rascals or Our Gang spin-off; even Pete the Dog, with the black circle around the eye, is in this movie. So how do you explain that? It'll be too much to break down this movie in its entirety, so I'll just mention some notes real quick. First off, the movie starts with them singing; there are these girls singing like chickens, which is super weird. Then they have this voting system for these orphans, but basically, this is another radio show contest sort of thing; not really, but it's similar. Radio is looking for the creator of a popular song, and this creator is a long-lost brother who is entitled to a very large $20,000 estate. Well, this song is a song that the orphans were just singing, so the orphans are like, “Oh, they're talking about Papy,” which interestingly, this radio program is suspect to me too, as if it was made just for orphans; it's called The Inheritance Program. I don't know; that's just a vibe I got from it. Bubbles, which seems to be the main character played by Mary Lee, knows who they're talking about because the song sounded familiar to all the orphans. Next scene, the directors of the institution are trying to ask this Papy Cheshire character, which is the long-lost brother according to Bubbles, and these directors are asking for some money, but Cheshire is busy helping a kid's leg. Herum Crabtree is one of these directors of the orphanage; possibly a Herum-a-Beth reference, but also Miss Crabtree is one of the famous teachers from the Little Rascal series, so not sure what that's all about. Happy Cheshire is actually Zebia Cheshire. Basically, they need money from Cheshire, which is the Papy of the orphanage; all the kids love him, and he cares for them. He gave his money to the orphans as a loan so that they could start making their own business and being self-sufficient. He wanted to help them get a better life, but the directors don't see the orphans as people; they literally can only think of money, and they're like, “Uh, no, we hate this idea.” Cheshire says that they shouldn't think of them as something you just feed and provide shelter for and then get rid of once they get old enough. Papy wants to treat them as if they were his own, but the directors do not want this and hate the idea so much that they would fire Papy, who apparently has been taking care of these orphans for a long time at this institution. Well, the song that the brother made was called *Barnyard Follies*, which was what they were singing at the beginning, and he calls into the radio to get his money, but the directors hear how much he's going to win and start scheming behind his back. So this is kind of weird; they show up to get this estate, and it's actually called The Peep, which is a nightclub for adults. Papy and Bubbles come to visit this place, and Papy's peeking through a tiny hole watching women dancing. Bubbles is like, “Can…

You see, and Pappy's like, yeah, I can see, chuckling and makes this weird reference to chickens. That he didn't know what kind of chicken they'd be. I think he's making an orphan reference here, where he says the chicks from the farm grow up to be "These Fine chickens," basically a reference to these adult dancers. Pappy plans to close the club, so he approaches the Peep-In's group of performers and the director, Jeff Hill, to settle their contracts for their release. The entertainers refuse the offer, and Pappy insists that they come to Farmdale to work for him for the remainder of their contract. What ends up happening is that Pappy doesn't get as much money as he thought, so he can't pay the directors or the performers. So what do they do? Well, the orphans put on a stage show called "Barnyard Follies." So again, a bunch of orphans putting on a show for money. I won't go much more in detail, but there is this weird part where one of the directors of the orphanage is trying to adopt a child to gain the favor of Pappy Cheshire. This is just so creepy to me, like old, rich lady coming in with these fancy clothes and wanting the orphans to impress her so that she'll pick one. Well, she starts with Alala, and Alala says, "Look, you don't want me, lady, I'm the problem child." She attempts to trick the children into liking her so that she can adopt them, and she does this throughout the movie, which is just bizarre because it's like they don't even care. This rich lady isn't going to take care of these kids, and sure, the majority of the kids don't want to go with her, but still, it's just a concept of some rich folks coming in and adopting a child willy-nilly that kind of reveals how things really went. You weren't always adopted by a loving family. Which is even weirder when you get to the scene where they all sleep in the same room, and Bubbles is singing this strange Lollipop Land song, some weird Candy Paradise thing to give the illusion that the orphanage is such a lovely place. So yeah, very weird movie. Al Alfalfa even sings in his off-pitch style. Dog goes into a box with cross schools, and the teen orphans later in the movie end up performing the Barnyard Follies just like the nightclub, which makes the reference from the Peep-In much more apparent when he was comparing the ladies to chicks. To me, many of these skirts are way too short. I don't care what area it is; it just seems bizarre to me, and The Little Rascals also did this in several episodes as well. There's also this one performance in the movie about popping corn. It's this weird song, but we see a cauldron, and corn is spelled with a K. They don't seem to be singing about normal corn. Why a cauldron? And what's up with those weird cows in the background? The movie basically ends where we discover that the directors did not care about the orphans at all, and they were making money off them. That's why they didn't want them to be self-sufficient. These orphans were just another business for them.

So why are we talking about this movie? Because I'm saying this is the same world from The Little Rascals. This is what happens to Alfalfa after the "Kitty Cure" episode. He gets returned and becomes an orphan again. That's the theory, anyways. As why wouldn't we get any explanation on what happens to Alfalfa? And the dog is in this movie too, which is the symbol of an orphan who is in the club, which they even have a "4 Club" in this movie too. Okay, well, let's finish discussing Alfalfa. So we know in real life he was a mason. In a spin-off movie of The Little Rascals, we find out Alfalfa is an orphan, and there's something else that is super interesting about all this. Well, one of the reasons I began researching the show is because a commenter told us of a very intriguing episode. Apparently, there is an episode of The Little Rascals that features a cabbage dealer. From what this comment details, the kids run into a salesman with a top hat and a turnip cart; he's selling babies with cabbage leaves around their neck. And as Alfalfa and the crew see this, they make a plan to free the babies. Honestly, the description sounds like a Little Rascal episode, and I'm not sure how you would mistake such details like that, including Alfalfa, such an iconic character. So I don't think this commenter just made this up or is misremembering. I do think there is an episode or movie that has the scene of babies being sold in a cart. That's not something you forget easily. But the issue is I've watched every Alfalfa episode and every talking--there is no episode that has this scene. I started thinking that maybe it was from the silent era, but how would you misremember Alfalfa? So perhaps this could be a movie that Alfalfa was in outside of The Little Rascals. It also very well could be a piece of lost media. Maybe it was broadcasted at some point, and it was an episode that existed before the MGM fire, which that's a whole another rabbit hole we can talk about that in a bit, but I'd really like to see if you guys are willing to help find this episode or whatever this scene may be. It would be pretty insane to find such a reference. I've extensively looked through archives, the Our Gang Wiki, and there's nothing that describes the scenario. However, there is something that I found that may serve as a clue. Well, apparently Alfalfa, or Carl Switzer, was in a 1942 movie, 2 years after "Kitty Cure," in "Barnyard Folly," called "Miss Wigs of the Cabbage Patch." I'm starting to think that this is another piece of lost media, as I've looked everywhere for a copy of the 1942 "Miss Wigs of the Cabbage Patch," and it doesn't seem to exist online. I mean, nothing--no VHS, no DVD, no online streaming. There's no way for me to watch it. So if you happen to have access to the 1942 version, please let us know. But what we do know is that "Miss Wigs of the Cabbage Patch" is a 1901 novel by Alice Hegan Rice, which, on the surface, is about a Southern family who humorously are coping with poverty. It was extremely popular during its time; it was adapted to film several times. So obviously, this is an important book. It was actually even a Broadway show in 1904. Apparently, Rice was inspired to write the book during her philanthropic work in Louisville, Kentucky, a slum area where she met an optimistic and cheerful woman who was a model for the book's main character. So wait, this is based on a true story to a certain degree. What is it about? Well, in the 1901 novel, there isn't really anything on orphans; it doesn't say anything about adoption, but we do get a description of what a Cabbage Patch is: "Quote, the Wiges lived in the Cabbage Patch. It was not a real Cabbage Patch, but a queer neighborhood where ramshackle Cottages played hopscotch over the railroad tracks. There were no streets, so when a new house was built, the owner faced it in any way his fancy prompted. End quote." Interestingly, Miss Wigs takes care of these children on her own, and even the oldest is like the man of the house. So it seems like a weird scenario to me. Even in the movie, Miss Wigs is pretty old, and this also connects with the old woman who lives in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn't know what to do, which interestingly, how Roach has another movie that's pretty good called "Babes in Toyland," which is like this early fantasy movie, but I just thought it was weird that Laurel and Hardy play these orphans who live in the shoe with this old woman, and they work in a factory. There's also this super creepy Mickey Mouse in this movie. I don't know, random tangent, but to me, that's what the Cabbage Patch is. When you break it down, it's a poor neighborhood where orphans or parentless children live for a while, just like Dorothy from "Wizard of Oz." And also notice how the Cabbage Patch is on the railroad tracks, so orphan trains go through there. Perhaps if you were to just read the novel, some may think that's reaching. Well, let's look at some of the films that are online. Strangely, they're all very different. Some of them have completely different beginnings on how they end up at the Cabbage Patch, which leads me to believe there may be some more source material. But anyways, I couldn't find the 1914 silent film. There is a description and a few pictures, but this one seems to have strayed away from the novel or something because it goes into this whole circus story. The 1919 film is online, and this is where we start to see the connection between orphans and cabbage patches. The plot revolves around an orphanage that is about to give up a boy for adoption, but one of the older orphan girls does not want to leave his little boy because she loves him, and so she takes the little orphan boy, and they escape. They meet a guy that's on his way to see his aunt at the Cabbage Patch, and so he's like, "I'm going to take you back to the orphanage, but first, he's got to go to the Cabbage Patch." So once he gets out of the car, the orphans run off and end up finding their way to Miss Wigs' house. Well, the cops are looking for these orphans, and the older son is like, "Please, Ma, can we keep them?" And so Miss Wigs hides the orphans in her home and lies to the police. So she does take in orphans. So yeah, the main character from the 1919 movie is an orphan that comes to help bring growth to the Cabbage Patch. To me, seems super weird, and this is with Margaret Clark, who also played Snow White from 1916. There's also the 1934 film, which is also on YouTube, which is not about orphans, but Miss Wigs is about to get evicted. To me, the weird part is that I'm pretty sure the girl, Tabitha, orders a husband, like picks him out of a catalog or something. And I get it, like things were different back then, but this whole thing doesn't seem right. The guy shows up to the door, and they have no relationship or anything; he's just like, "Oh, can you cook?" But she can't cook, so she has to lie to be able to get this husband. To me, it seems like this is programming or something to her. It's an accomplishment to get a husband; she'll become wealthy, supported, but does she understand what love is? I don't think so. So yeah, that's the basic gist of the movies, but I can't find the Alfalfa version from 1942. There aren't even any pictures. I found a few on eBay of the actors together, but I couldn't find any screens from the movie, which is bizarre considering they have shots for the 1914 silent film. There's also hardly any information on it on the Wiki. Only thing of value is this one review on IMDb talking about how rare it is, and in this review, he basically says that Alfalfa is one of the children in Miss Wigs' home, that they seem to be children who just happen to be around or perhaps street kids that Miss Wigs takes care of. So yeah, another piece of lost media. We see there is a connection between orphans and cabbage patches. Even Alala from The Little Rascals is connected to the Cabbage Patch.

Well, let's come back to the episodes now. One of the things I need to mention is that there are a lot of lost episodes. Episodes have been edited, and we must also consider that perhaps some were destroyed on purpose. When it comes to such a vast series that goes back to the early 1920s, we're talking possibly up to hundreds of hours of film if we include the silent and lost films. Simply keeping these films costed money, so you have to think there has to be shots, maybe even entire episodes, that never made it to the modern day. One of the big reasons for this was the 1965 MGM vault fire, which is said to have started from an electrical short that ignited the stored nitrate film. Apparently, this fire also killed at least one person. Hundreds of films were destroyed, including many older Our Gang shorts. What I find interesting is that some of these episodes have descriptions and seem to be very interesting episodes. Perhaps there are cases where episodes were deliberately destroyed because their symbolism or message was too blatant. One of these episodes that I found interesting was "Heebie Jeebies," which is an older episode from 1927 that contains a hypnotist. The children are hypnotized to become animals. Farina makes up as a black cat that licks up the real kitten's milk, and Ruffles his back in comic indignation. The monkey takes some daring swings on the chandeliers while the little fat doggy bites all the society ladies on the hands and other unmentionable locations. "A clean, clever farce which will intrigue the children." Um, that sounds like a really weird episode. We can never view it because it was lost in the 1965 vault fire. Seems convenient if you ask me. There's also the Yale versus Harvard lost episode, which I'm sure would have some type of club references in it. "Alfalfa and Muddy" is another lost episode from 1928, and interestingly, the description says, "The Gang live at the Grmercy Orphanage operated by Grandpa and Grandma Evans. Next door to the orphanage lives Amanda Schultz, a child-hating spinster who has a drawer filled of confiscated baseballs that she has taken from the kids. However, Amanda starts acting nice towards the gang after she receives a telegram stating that she must acquire a child of her own in order to inherit a nest egg from a rich uncle. Grandpa Evans is suspicious of Amanda's actions and tells the kids to make life miserable for her. The gang sticks Amanda with pins, attack her chauffeur with a peashooter, and set her front ablaze. Then a rival gang arrives, and a mud battle ensues. Amanda joins the mud bath and ends up winning it for the gang. This experience softens her as she realizes the gang made her feel like a child again." This lost episode is the original "Second Childhood" episode with Alala where they make the older lady act like a kid again. So "Second Childhood" is a remake talkie of this lost silent episode. But the real question is why do they remove the orphanage part? "Crazy House" is a 1928 lost episode where the gang are invited to lunch at Jean's house, which has been rewired for an April Fool's party. Then we have "The Holy Terror" from 1929, which featured a gorilla suit. The plot revolved around Mary Ann becoming a serious problem to other gang members, and so Joe Cobb is given the job of training and controlling her behavior, whatever that means. So I don't know, I found that very interesting that some of these lost episodes are quite bizarre, and it's possible that perhaps they contain things that someone didn't want us to see. To me, that's something that's rarely considered when it comes to lost media. For some reason, no one's willing to ask that question, but to me, it's completely plausible. Okay, but before we talk about Spanky's episodes, let's finish off with some of the newer episodes after Alfalfa, because they kept going after he left. For example, "Fighting Fools," where they're literally doing some type of fake war. It's kind of like the Civil War, and they're all wearing hats just to give this impression that the wars are staged here. Here's an interesting episode, "Baby Blues." Somehow the crew ends up thinking that every fourth child is Chinese, and so Mickey's freaking out because he doesn't want an Asian brother, but then Spanky introduces them to Lee Wong, which is a Chinese friend that we've never met. It's actually kind of sweet. They go and get a nice dinner and realize, you know what, it won't be so bad to have a Chinese brother. There's another reference to the All For One club in the "Y Old Men Rolls" episode. Seems kind of weird with the pyramid stage, and there's a mention of the burning of Rome. Oh, and this episode has another blackface scene. Really? There's an episode with an AI robot. I thought that was kind of weird. In "Helping Hands," Spanky starts an army, and they have an infantry reserve. "Infant Come Back." Miss Pips has the same orphanage older guy who is really mean, but this time he takes away their favorite teacher. "Melody's Old and New." There is a choo-choo song, which will become relevant in a moment, and they are the bums of Greenpoint football, so they are bums going to the press. Makes a reference to the Gas House Gang, which is another subject connected to Alfalfa as he's in the movie "Gas House Kids" from 1946, and it's about a group of unruly New York children from the gas house district. This one's super weird because they print the newspapers with their butt, and the goat ends up eating the newspaper, but the final text says, "The goat is mightier than the pen," which seems to be a strange, subtle reference. So the secret society is mightier than the truth of what happened. Then there's the "Don't Lie" episode, which is another monkey-based episode. They think Buckwheat is telling lies, and so they take him blindfolded into a haunted house. So there's that haunted house symbolism again with some type of initiation, and here the monkey slaps Buckwheat's butt and tries to kidnap him. Then Buckwheat takes an oath to never lie again, although he never lied in the first place. In "Surprised Parties," Froggy dresses as a girl. This is where we start to see the transition of Froggy becoming the lead character of the show. And "Rover's Big Chance," they're playing baseball, and the Gas House Gang is like the rival gang to the Our Gang now. There's a new dog, and it seems that this is the new crew's dog. If it's the gang's dog, that means it's a street dog that they take care of. Remember, dog equals orphan, and they don't even have a license for the dog. Well, the whole episode is about turning the dog into a movie star and are getting the dog to do what they wanted to do. And interestingly, the ending of this short has to do with they've ventriloquist. What is a ventriloquist? Someone who controls a doll to do exactly what he wants. The very next episode is called "Mighty Like a Goat," like I said, many of these episodes feature goats strangely. Well, they get their clothes dirty, and they use some stinky cleaner to get rid of the dirt. Then they go to the movies, and it's a murder mystery. Again, a murder every 2 minutes. Then the movie ends with their clothes in a grave, and the children are naked. Seems weird to me. In "Unexpected Riches," there's a black joke from the 1940s involving what the gang would get if they were rich and found Captain Kid's treasure. Apparently, Buckwheat would get a bunch of watermelon and fried chicken, so I guess that's a very old stereotype. Mickey wants to give back to his parents, which I'm pretty positive are his adoptive parents as he literally says, "Y'all been so good to me since I was a kid," meaning they didn't have him as a baby. Interestingly, there's a "Family Troubles" episode that involves a girl running away from home and joining the gang because she didn't get enough attention. Mickey says, "Don't do that; they're going to put you in the orphan house." So wait, how would Mickey know about that? He knows because he's an orphan himself. And the girl's like, "I don't care; I'm disgusted with life," so she wants to go to the orphanage. Well, they end up going to try and get her adopted, but the girl's parents figure out that she went missing, and they think the gang kidnapped her. So it does end on a good note, but what kind of storyline is this? It makes no sense unless you understand the secret of the show. Well, actually, in this episode, they start this whole adoption process at Miss Jones's, which is a couple with no kids, and they do this adoption bit as if they've heard it before. They are sales-pitching a child to be bought essentially because if you're taking the child, you have to spend money to support it; it's an expense. They're trying to sell the child basically. So the lady pretends adopts her, but she's really mean, so they just leave to the streets as if they're used to this type of behavior. They are the street gang, and they eventually go to a cave. Then they cook some food, smoke out the cave, and they have this coal on their face. Then there is the "Farm Hands" episode where they're all sleeping on the same bed. Sure, kids do this at sleepovers, but this is also something that orphans do when they have nowhere to sleep. Now at this point, the show begins to get a little propaganda because you can see the influence of the war on the episodes, but in "Election Days," it's mainly Froggy and Mickey now, and Froggy is the head of the All For One Club. This kind of proves that it's not just a friend club. Think about it; if you and your friends made a club, this isn't going to pass down.

To the Next Generation that makes no sense if it's just a fun club that you and your friends made. So how did this All for One Club survive for over a decade? Perhaps it's because there's something else going on. Well, in this episode, they divide the secret society club into two different orders: One for All and All for One. In my opinion, the most adult or explicit episode of them all is perhaps the episode “Little Miss Pinkerton.” Literally, someone gets shot and killed in this episode, which surprised me. And the kids get kidnapped by robbers. The guy got shot while the kids were there, and it's not a joke at all. No other episode features violence like this one, and they even consider shooting the kids. They decide to keep them alive because their plan is to kidnap them and drop them off at another town, making them orphans once again. Interestingly, there's even a part where one of the bad guys tries to use Froggy as a shield while the cops are chasing and shooting from behind. The episode ends with Froggy taking the key out of the car and swallowing it; he gets his stomach pumped and then swallows the key again while giving a demonstration on what he did to escape.

Okay, so I guess that's enough with the newer episodes, but I should mention that the very last Little Rascal's episode is called “Tale of a Dog.” Hmph. Why would they call it that? Perhaps there's some meaning to this dog. Well, this episode starts out with an orphan in a train yard with the dog. The black child, Big Shot, is going to leave on the train, so he's a street kid, and he has to part ways with the street dog, which will leave this dog alone on the streets. So Buckwheat gets the dog and names the dog Smallpox, for some reason. The crew ends up thinking that Buckwheat literally has smallpox when Buckwheat tells them over the phone about the dog, and this literally ends up causing a citywide panic because the kids tell the police about this. Anyway, it's a weird episode, but it ends with the gang realizing that, oh, it's not smallpox, it's a street dog. And what did they decide to do? The crew is going to feed and take care of his dog forever, meaning it will be a street dog forever. That's the last episode, which, to me, is another attempt to blatantly explain the symbolism behind the dog.

Now, if you're still skeptical, hang on, because that was just the newer episodes. The answer comes when we start to go into the past and dissect the older episodes. So let's go ahead and start with Spanky. So there's no question Spanky is an orphan, and I think I have enough evidence to show that thoroughly just by examining the episodes. Spanky's first appearance is in the “Free Eats” episode. It's about a big dinner and free show for poor kids of the city: baskets of food, toys, and games. They aren't just poor kids; they're orphans. We find out that the lady doing this dinner is only doing it so that her husband can win politically. An older kid is dressed as a baby, but it's weird; they kind of look like babies. Something's off about that, and they can talk—baby smoking cigars. The baby steals money from the sky, which is pretty funny, but the other kid has this grown-man voice. The voice layering is pretty crazy. So yeah, the babies are orphans or orphan thieves; they are full-grown adults smoking cigars. He even has a gun. But Spanky saves the day. The show ends with explaining that they're midgets. So the question is: Are midgets small men that look like babies, or are they babies or young orphans that act like men from having to survive by stealing? Remember, the incubators would grow these babies to enormous size. Perhaps that explains why these street gangs in real life were smoking cigarettes and acting like full-grown men.

Then there's the episode called “Spanky,” which is the first Spanky-centered episode, and we see Spanky's family, which will change as we proceed. Spanky, the orphan, has a mom in this episode. He takes a bath, and his brother is Breezy. Apparently, there's also some blackface within this episode, and Stymie plays Uncle Tom and gets whipped. There's also some more cross-dressing, even a shot where you see a cage on the head, which seems symbolic. Spanky is making a mess at home during all this, and so they're having this show in the living room of this big house downstairs. So Spanky's upstairs. It seems to be an orphanage; it is a couple's house, but still, how are they going to let the street gang in, and they would have to practice for this show? So this can't be the first time they've done this. Well, interestingly, the very next episode is called “Choo Choo,” which is a remake of an earlier silent film. It's about a group of orphans that's on a train moving to their new home—orphan trains. And a group within these orphans is like, “Oh, let's leave the train and go be cowboys and fight Indians.” So they make their own gang, and these orphans switch with the Little Rascals; they switch places. They're both orphans, and they swap places. Spanky's here too, randomly, which seems weird because he's way too young. So the crew gets on an orphan train by switching places with orphans.

In the episode “Pooch,” we get some more dog symbolism. Stymie has been the gang leader for a while now, and for some reason, Spanky's out here with Stymie. He's a little too young, if you ask me, so he must be a street orphan at this point. They're going house to house begging for food, like a dog for dog food. Imagine that in the modern day: if you just had two poor kids or orphans show up at your door asking for food—wouldn't happen. She even calls him a beggar. Well, they're stealing for the dog, but they're really stealing for themselves because they eat the dog food too. So are they dogs? There's even a shot where Spanky's in a cage barking like a dog, and Pete is Stymie's dog. They were going to gas him, but the dog got away. I thought that was a weird reference to include.

Then there's the “Hook and Ladder” episode, which is a firefighter club with chiefs—the hats with the X and backward S seems strange. And why is Spanky here? He's way too young to be hanging out in the streets like this. But wait, what's going on? They're sleeping here. They even forced Spanky to take medicine. Apparently, Spanky has worms. The medicine that they give is most likely castor oil, which will connect with a future episode in a moment. So yeah, Spanky is an orphan here. They live in this farm barn orphanage together—some type of farm that they turn into a house. There's also this cart in this episode that's pulled by a goat. Make of that what you will. But towards the end, Spanky chugs his medicine bottle, and when asked what happened, he says, “I gave it to the worms.” So we find out this whole fireman thing was so that they could earn a reward; they saw a listing in the newspaper that asked for help with the fire. So essentially, they're doing this whole thing so that they can make money to survive.

Next, we have “Free Wheeling,” where we see the castor oil once again. So yeah, Dicky is an orphan here too, and he has his own nurse or nanny—must be some fancy orphanage. Well, he's a Little Rascal and has this brace on his back because his mom or adoptive mother doesn't want him to be able to move freely. She even calls his friends or the gang a bunch of street urchins. So there you go; they're street orphans. So now it seems Dicky is the leader of the orphan crew, which makes no sense if these are his real parents. If he was just adopted, it would be more clear. Also, Stymie's mamy does their laundry, so they are rich parents. Why would a rich kid be associated with street urchins? The next episode is “Birthday Blues,” and apparently, now Spanky is living with Dicky, so they adopted Spanky. Wait, hang on, these are new parents for Dicky too, so that means they're both living with a new family. As I was describing, they were Little Rascals or bad-behaved street urchins, so they keep getting sent back for a newer, more behaved model. He even says, “Ma,” it's not his real mom; he just says that for each new family. This is a street kid—an orphan. Oh, so Stymie pulls his little brother, Cotton, by a throat—kind of weird, cuz they're trying to feed all these other kids or orphans. But Dicky brings the street gang to his new home, and they've ruined the place, so he gets punished. But Dicky gets out of this by giving his mother a dress or some shoes or something, that so when they go to church, the whole church is shocked or laughing. So the mom gets really embarrassed. They don't say this; the idea is, once you start to catch on, “Oh, those Little Rascals,” now they're going to become orphans again.

Then there is the “Aladdin’s Lamp” episode, where there are a couple of Aladdin or wish-based episodes throughout the series, but in this one, they're all wishing for a bunch of things because they're orphans. Well, this episode has some weird racial humor. Spanky decides to wish for a monkey, and then he starts chanting that he wishes Cotton was a monkey—some more monkey jokes. What's weird is that Cotton actually gets swapped for a monkey, and they all believe it. This episode ends with an artwork featuring a checkerboard pattern in a pillar. The next episode is “Fish Hookie.” The crew is on the street again with Spanky. Farina is in this one, and they're skipping school or don't want to go to school anymore. Interestingly, some older kids show up, and it's Joe Cobb from the silent era. They want the new Our Gang to go fish hookie with them, meaning these kids from the older Our Gang episodes are not going to school anymore and are already off working at this age, which would make sense for this time period. Miss Crabtree is no longer the teacher anymore; it's a new teacher, Miss Cornman. Corn with a K. The truant officer and Miss Cornman are from the earlier episodes as well. Mickey Daniels plays the truant officer, and Mary Kornman was one of the first of the crew. So we're seeing essentially what these orphans or street rascals become once they grow up, as they're actually playing themselves and not playing new roles. This actually connects with one of Hal Roach’s other shows called “The Boy Friends,” which is like the teen version of Our Gang. One thing that I thought was weird is, for a brief period during the early 1930s, Hal Roach made the most of talkie technology by opening some of his comedies not with painted title cards but having the credits spoken in tandem by fancifully attired twins Beverly and Betty May Crane. By 1931, the novelty had worn thin, and Roach reverted to conventional title cards. Interesting that their last name is Crane. Well, the strangest short from this “Boy Friends” series is the last episode, but I can bring that up in a moment.

Okay, so back to The Little Rascals. So the next short after “Fish Hookie” is called “Forgotten Babies.” Somehow, the crew is taking care of babies. Are they forgotten babies? Well, they try to get rid of the babies so they can go swimming, and Spanky says something about shooting the S.T.S. They even mentioned the S.T.S. delivered the babies or something like that. Now, in this episode, Spanky’s not Dicky’s brother. Dicky threatens to tell the cops about Spanky, so they’ll put him in jail. The baby also looks like Mickey from newer episodes. They also say, “For the love of Pete,” in this one—that’s a weird thing to say. And then there’s babies in cages again. Why does Spanky or even Dicky have to take care of these babies? There’s also a radio show—random—about murder again, and the cops show up because they think a man is killing a woman, but it was just a radio show.

Okay, now “The Kid from Borneo” is next, and this is a super weird episode. Pretty sure Spanky and Dorothy have new parents. There are orphans on the street, and this wild man is a cannibal with a skull for a necklace. Yes, he eats humans, but they play this off as if he just eats anything, or he really likes candy. But it’s weird because the kids think that he wants to eat them. There are multiple things to note from this episode, but one connection goes back to that series, “The Boy Friends,” that I was just talking about. The last episode is about this wild man stuff too, but they’re more explicit with it, and Mickey Daniels gets cooked in a cauldron. This whole episode is bizarre. It’s called “Wild Babies.” It takes place in a dream where Mickey and Alabama attempt to steal a song from an island tribe. They’re on this island, and there are all these strange creatures, just like the zoo episodes from Little Rascals, where they paint and dress up normal animals to be exotic. But it’s weird to see the symbolism repeated, so they must be referencing something with this whole bit. Anyways, back to “Kid from Borneo.” So yeah, these kids think they’re about to be eaten by this wild man—take notice of his outfit; this will be important for later. Spanky’s like, “No wild man is going to eat me up.” It’s definitely possible that he could eat the kids because, cuz he eats a massive amount of food, including a can of sardines with the can, a whole link of sausages, and a massive piece of baloney. He even holds a knife at some point, so pretty sure that’s what he’s trying to do. He definitely had enough room for a child, it seems. Anyways, the mother thinks this wild man is her brother, and she gets scared to death. This whole time, the street gang is just destroying the entire house, and then the father of the household gets defenestrated, and then Spanky does the same to the wild man. Those Little Rascals! Now time to find a new home.

Okay, the next episode is “Mush and Milk,” which is one of the orphanage episodes. So there are actually a few episodes where the street gang lives in an orphanage. There’s no explanation either. Why is Spanky in an orphanage in this episode? Didn’t he just have a family? Well, they all live up in the same room with a bunch of beds with a mean old lady teacher or nanny. The summary says it’s a boarding school, but then why would Stymie, Spanky, and Dicky all be here? Also, at the end, we find out that the older guy is waiting on a back pension so him and all the children can live well. Wait, why can’t the children live well? The joke of this episode is that they’re eating mush, and they’re tired of eating mush, but then they make the mush and mix in plaster powder, resulting in their meal becoming too hard to eat.

“Bedtime Worries” is the next episode. So Spanky has a new family; he got adopted. He says, “Mama,” but that’s not his mother. It’s a new house. Spanky’s trying to let the dog stay over, and there were kidnappings on the newspaper. Why is the dog still associated with this? Perhaps it means that Spanky will become an orphan again as he belongs to the club—the street gang. So his dad’s trying to get some rest, and Spanky hears Pete the dog with the circle eye out the window, which isn’t their family dog; it’s a street dog. And so the father’s starting to get fed up with Spanky because he won’t go to sleep and keeps calling for help. Then a thief randomly comes to the house, but the father doesn’t come this time because he’s had enough, and so the guy tries to rob the house. Then the gang comes to the window with the dog, and they need a place to stay, and Spanky lets him sleep over. Spanky then hits his dad with a vase, and the dad is like, “Spanky, did you throw this vase?” Now Spanky is going to go visit the burglar in jail because he’s a Little Rascal.

Next is “Wild Poses.” Laurel and Hardy are actually in this one as babies, and Spanky is still with the same parents from the last episode. Spanky is getting a family photo because he’s a new orphan, so they haven’t given him up yet. The husband doesn’t like his wife, it seems. There’s even a “one hour later” transition, like SpongeBob. And so Spanky basically won’t sit still for the photo and eventually punches the photographer in the face. Then there is “Mike Fright,” which is where the crew plays for a radio show again. Then there’s “High, Neighbor,” where it seems Spanky is back on the streets with a dog. He seems pretty young, so is his last family just letting him go hang out with these street orphans? It’s basically a derby episode, and at the end, the rich neighbor gets his pants ripped off by Stymie. Then they go down this huge hill and run a bunch of people over.

Next is “For Pete’s Sake.” Remember, with the weird God/divine references with Pete—“For the love of Pete,” “For Pete’s sake.” Well, we have kids feeding babies medicine again—orphanage. They end up going to Leonard’s father, who owns a toy store. They want to trade Pete for a doll, but Pete ends up breaking a vase, so he takes the doll back. Then Pete destroys the place, and so he returns Pete back to the gang. The whole reason they wanted this doll is because this bully kid lassoed the doll that this little girl or orphan had, and the rope wraps around the head of the doll as he lunges it into the street to get run over—his head smashed. The kids are shocked, and so, in order to make this little sick girl happy, which for some reason is their responsibility, they went through this whole journey to trade Pete for a doll. The ending, I believe, is Buckwheat hanging on a rope with a doll and then a handshake.

“The First Roundup” is about the kids going camping and centers around Wall-E. And his mom’s like, “Are you just going to let them go out at night like this?” And his father says that they’ll be back in an hour, but the kids are acting like they want to go out there for a week all alone. Spanky wants to stay out there. Why are the little kids out here? Well, in the very next episode, this rich boy, Wall-E, has a new mother, but he’s still a part of the gang. It’s almost as if one of the kids gets adopted, and the rest of the gang goes and stays with whoever gets adopted, usually by a rich family. Then the family or couple who adopted the child will give the orphan back once they realize he belongs to a street gang. This one’s some weird donkey chase episode. Wall-E lets the gang into the house, and eventually, the donkey knocks the mother into a fountain, and she spews water out of her mouth. The laugh for “Alder Brother Donkey” is Mickey Daniels. Seems that the spewing the water part may have been edited out.

Okay, so the next episode is “Washy Irony.” Wall-E is now Waldo, and he has a new mother, but he’s still playing with the gang. They’re playing football and getting dragged by the dog. There’s also another goat; they actually get a ride from the goat around town. Then they drink water and do this weird spit-cleaning thing. Then there is the “Mama’s Little Pirate” episode. Now this one’s crazy. So Spanky has a new family—I mean, what are we on now, like three different parents? And his new father is reading a newspaper about treasures found in a nearby cave. He steals a candle, and they’re going into the cave, and he wraps a rope around Buckwheat’s neck to keep a path. Buckwheat is a girl in this episode, too, and they actually pull on the rope and make Buckwheat—the girl—fall in a hole. Pretty bizarre. What are we, men? Spanky also astral projects in this episode, which I thought was pretty crazy—or an out-of-body experience, you could say. They go into an underground cave to find gold, and they get lost because they pulled on Buckwheat, dragging them along, so they are lost. But then they find a door underground, and a giant lives down here. The Little Rascals basically has everything, even giants. So yeah, he then grabs the kids and hangs them on meat hooks to be eaten. I could imagine this being pretty traumatizing for a child, and there are also glue traps, so there’s no way for them to escape. But right before Spanky was going to be eaten, he wakes up. Was it just a dream? What are we, men, or mice? So that means they’re mice, and the giant was treating them that way. So were the orphans mice? Well, the very next episode compares the children to shrimps. It’s episode 133, called “Shrimps for a Day.” This is two episodes before Alfalfa’s first episode. We start off with a view of the Happy Home Orphanage, and the gang is living here. Wait, so that proves it. Why is Spanky here? This is the old guy that I was talking about earlier that was asking for rent and trying to take the…

Teacher away? Well, he's the man running this orphanage, for taking care of the children. He's this very cruel, child-hating old man. So I'm not sure why this isn't more clear, or mentioned in the summary of the series, or in the new movie. How could the gang all be at this orphanage? Remember, once an orphan, they're always an orphan. So that means Stymie, Scotty, Spanky, Buckwheat, and even Leonard from earlier are orphans now. These are orphans or street urchins that are constantly being relocated because they are so misbehaved. But perhaps there's more to it than just that. Spanky is still acting up, which is crazy. So that means his last family gave him up for some reason. That sick girl from earlier that they were taking care of to get the doll? Well, yeah, she was an orphan because she's in the orphanage with Spanky now, too. So this guy is treating the children horribly; it's pretty harsh the way he treats the children, if you ask me.

Well, the orphanage is invited to a rich dinner party. And at this party, a couple is trying to find one of the orphans, and they find a magical lamp. Then they wish to become children again, and it actually comes true. And these are the midgets in future episodes. But in this episode, they were converted into children. Then they get rounded up and mistaken for orphans, so they are taken back to the orphanage and see for themselves how bad this place really is. There's this weird scene with the bullies, and there are multiple orphans per bed. Spanky has another candle in this episode when they're trying to leave, and then there's this weird scene also where they're forced to take castor oil. I was talking about this earlier, and Spanky isn't having any of it and pushes it into Mr. Kutch's mouth. The two adult children eventually get out and wish to be adults again. Now they've exposed what kind of stuff goes on in this place, and they even say it's like a jail. It ends with Spanky wishing Mr. Crutch to be a kid, and then he beats him up.

Also, there actually was a Little Rascals or Our Gang movie. Well, I guess it's considered a spin-off, but Spanky, Buckwheat, and Alfalfa are in it, and it's called *General Spanky* from 1936. Now this movie was actually pretty hard to find; it's not online, but I ended up watching it. And the whole storyline is that Spanky is a shoe-shining orphan; Buckwheat plays a runaway slave, and some of his parts got edited out of the movie. While Spanky goes up to the sky with a top hat to shine his shoe, we come to find out that this older gentleman, Marsh, is also an orphan. I'll save the summary so that we can move on quickly, but overall, it's a pretty good movie. The only thing that I want to bring up is that the whole plot is centered around orphans in their secret club. Spanky literally plays an orphan in this movie. Also in the movie, their club is called the Royal Protection of Women and Children Regiment Club of the World in Mississippi River. They literally do initiations in a secret cave, and then Spanky initiates Marge and eventually the general. There are oaths, actually blood oaths, and then they do this whole crowning the king initiation. They do this initiation in oaths in a secret cave, and they must not reveal any secrets or the location of the club. So yeah, it kind of reiterates what I was saying about the orphans in a club.

There are still many more episodes that I haven't mentioned, but I'll just get to some of the older talkies. Oh, and I didn't mention *Little Scenter* has some weird cult baptism with a solar eclipse; it just has like a completely different vibe to it, and it actually scares the kids, too. But let's rewind a bit, and let's talk about the first talkie. The first talkie is called *Small Talk*, and they are all orphans, and it actually says that in the summary of this short. It's about orphans wanting to be adopted by nice families and wishing for something better than spinach. Weer, the youngest, is adopted by a wealthy couple, and then all of the gang come visit Weezer. So this is exactly what I was saying earlier. Then Mary Anne is adopted, and then the couple's friends adopt the rest of the children, and Finina is adopted by the maid. So Joe, Weezer, Mary, and Pete's here, too. Everyone in this episode is an orphan, and let's keep in mind that's the first talkie.

The next episode is called *Railroad*, in which seems like another nod to the orphan trains. Well, there are actually several train episodes that revolve around them playing on the rail tracks. Why are these kids out here playing around with trains? And there's this weird bit that's even in the early silent films, too, where they run over one of the gang members, or the train. They're fine because there's enough space under the train as it passes, but still kind of strange. They're also going super fast in this episode, too. Then there's *Lazy Days*; the black children are taking care of animals on a farm, and there's even babies crying. Then there's the episode *Bouncing Babies*. Mary and Weezer are at their new home; the dog, Pete, is here for some reason. Well, Weezer decides to take a PEB doll that's crying back to the hospital in exchange for a goat. So Pete's tied to the crib, and they drag this doll out to the streets. He goes to the hospital and asks for a goat for the baby. Where would he get such an idea like this? Then the mother finds out and still lets him cross this busy street several times. Looks pretty dangerous for such a little kid to be out there with the dog alone. But remember, this means he's a street kid, a full-grown adult in a kid's body. The cops even try to arrest him, treating him like a normal civilian.

*Moan and Groan Incorporated* is an episode about a lunatic that moans and groans, and there's this strange Chinese finger stuff; not sure what's going on there, but there's another baby here. What's the gang doing back on the streets? There's also this weird scene with this guy upside down, and his keys are hanging by a chain as he's upside down, standing on his head, blowing a whistle. But he's an officer, not a nursemaid, which is actually what he was doing. So that would mean they were orphans. There's also this weird, creepy guy. Why is Weezer and Mary over here? And Finina actually hangs from a rope for a second and also hops in an oven at some point. The *First Seven Years* episode is probably the first talking; she loves me, not B. I'm pretty sure there's another one from the silent era. Then there's *The Wind Blows*, which has a black girl and white face. Interestingly, we see a black family home in this episode. Then there is *The Teacher's Pet*, which they're making references to the children as pets. Jackie is in love with Miss Crabtree, and what's with these names? Chubby, Weezer--like their names, including Spanky, Alfalfa--are proof that they're orphans. Why do they have these weird names? In school, out, we have Miss Crabtree. Crabtree is the last name of Herum in *Barnyard Foles*. They're talking about getting married, and Verina is like, "I'm going to raise all my kids the same," and that he doesn't want to get married. So he's assuming you can have or obtain children without a woman. It also seems that the teacher is providing for these kids by giving them rides and even apples out of the window, as if they were poor or orphans.

*Little Daddy's a Suspect* episode. So in this one, we see a black church congregation, and Verina's a janitor. They're talking about taking Stymie to the orphan home. They can do this because they are constituted authorities. Bina's taking care of him, but they're trying to find him a real home now. So they're orphans. Stymie doesn't understand at all. So F praises the God because Stymie is a bad kid, or kind of backs up, so he asked for him to get a good home. But Stymie doesn't understand; he's getting adopted or needs to get adopted. So here's proof of what *Little Rascals* mean: they are little rascals that are misbehaved, and they can't get fully adopted, which is what happens when Finina bites the guy trying to adopt Stymie. He literally says, "You little rascal!" So they all team up on this guy to prevent Stymie from being adopted. Pretty sure in this episode the teacher's like their babysitter; she takes care of these poor children with no parents.

The *Fly My Kite* episode is another suspicious short. Literally, according to the summary, all these kids are living with Grandma. She's not anyone's child's Grandma, but everyone's Grandma. So another orphanage episode. One thing I caught, which could be nothing, is that when the Grandma falls over in her chair, there's clearly a circle with a pentagram. It doesn't seem by accident to me; it's only for a quick second; you probably wouldn't notice it if you were watching from a distance. Bina calls her Grandma, so I would assume they adopted. Well, in this episode, it's weird because the Grandma, out of nowhere, starts doing back flips; it's kind of surreal. So this Top Hat guy comes in and tries to kick his mom out, but guess what? The reason he's doing this is because she's not his real mom, so he was an orphan, too. Now he doesn't want to take care of her anymore, especially since she's inviting these street orphans to play. She has no place to go, no money, so they want to send her to a country home, someplace you don't want to go when you have no money--the poor farm. We find out that Grandma has a lot of money in bonds, and eventually they put this on a kite, but when they realize they take the kite back down, and I'm assuming the Grandma's going to spend less money on the orphans.

The next episode is *Big Ears*. Weezer has a new adopted family. Now they fight too much and have just about had it with each other. Stymie's mom says he has worms. Well, this whole episode is about Weezer becoming an orphan if his parents divorce. Why would he become an orphan if they divorce, and how would they know that? It would make sense if something like this has happened before. They say, "Poor Weezer won't have no family," and they're going to send him to the orphan home. The plan is he's trying to make himself sick so that his new parents will stick together and take care of him, and he ends up drinking poison and landing in the hospital. The parents promise never to fight again, and then the dog is making this sound, so I doubt they will keep that promise, meaning he will still be an orphan because he's a little rascal. Okay, so let's move on.

*Dogs as Dogs*. They treat the children like dogs, or more dog symbolism. The kid is referred to as, "You bring me more coffee." So Weezer is sleeping with the dog again, meaning that's the symbol for orphan. If the dog is there, they are still orphans. Dog is dogs, but already Weezer has a new home, so he ended up back at the orphan home, meaning his parents gave him back. Now it's this single mom that spanks Weezer because he's letting the street dog into the house. So yeah, the dog is literally an orphan. Remember that black circle for later. Weezer's brother is like, "She's my real mother," so he gets treated better, but I don't know if that's true at this point or if he's the oldest orphan and has been there since he was little, so he doesn't know. Stymie shows up, so he must still be a street orphan, and he calls the nanny an old pelican, hoping that she's fed Weezer because she's so mean. Weezer's brother gets fed well while he eats mush, which is another nod to orphanages. Then eventually the dog gets accused of eating a chicken, and this guy tries to shoot Pete, the orphan dog, but this is because Weezer's older brother lied about Pete eating the chicken. At the end of the episode, another lady, apparently Weezer's aunt, has come in, and now she's his new mother. So that's about three times Weezer has moved families because he's a little rascal.

In *Reading and Writing*, Weezer has a different nanny in a different home. He calls this lady Mom, not Auntie, so he's in another home, and the dog's there, so orphan. He's going to school for the first time, and they steal some apples, which is another orphan thing. This episode features The Secret Order of the Winking Eye and the High Master Mogul. Okay, so that's pretty much all the talkies. There are a few I didn't mention, but I just wanted to compile all the very weird episodes and symbolic references so that you can see it all at once. Something very strange is going on with the show, but we're still not done; we haven't talked about the silent film era. It would be too much to break it all down, so I'm only going to mention a few of the most insane ones. There are a couple that I'm fairly certain will shock you, and one in particular that most of you will find pretty disturbing, and we can end with that.

Interestingly, there's a silent film called *The Fourth Alarm*, which features Coney Island, and they're feeding medicine to a baby with a worm. They also sleep in a barn with a cross on the top. Lots of goats in these early silent films. The original *Fourth Alarm* was firefighters, which is another common theme where these orphans have to work together to put out fires. Okay, so it's about to get way worse, so hope you're ready. Well, in 1922, there was *Young Sherlocks*, and they have this scene where there's a secret session of the Mystic JJJs. This episode is very occult and unsettling. A group of men kidnap a girl, and it's super creepy. They hold her for ransom, and the horse, or kid, saves the day. They even tie this girl up and handle her pretty abruptly, so the kids end up shooting them, saving the day, and getting a bunch of money. Then they buy a city and name it Freet Town. So this is basically like a reset city; they are repopulating the city with orphans.

*Boys to Board* is about orphan trains. They also mentioned that the wild Indians don't exist anymore, which I thought was weird; some ODed to the vanishing Indian myth. In *Dogs of War*, there's another fake war and dog reference, and Harold Lloyd is filming a movie in this one. There's a scene where a man is strangling a little girl in this one. In *Baby Brother*, they decide to make their own orphanage. *Sundown Limited* is the exact same train episode where the black kid gets run over, but this time it's Joe. Interestingly, there's a short called *Lodge Night*, which I'm telling you, it gets pretty bad. The orphans are part of a secret club called the Cluck Cluck Clams, which is a spoof of the KKK. So yeah, these secret society references go back to the first episodes or films from the silent era, and even in this one, there's an initiation, and if Joe Cobb doesn't show up, he will be killed, or at least they threaten him with that, and we see these skull crossbones, which suggests that there are some symbolism with the exert crosses. And I thought this was strange is that there's a separate black club that has the exact same writing as the future clubs with the backward S and the spelling style. This is the Emancipation Hall, and then after the scene, we move to the Royal Temple of the Supreme Cluck Cluck Clams, which is another barn. There's even a shot where we see Exalted Ruler with the handshake sign. Yeah, so this whole secret society, it's not just a club anymore; they have robes and regalia. Pete's even at the ceremony, but yeah, then Joe Cobb shows up, and they initiate him into this weird orphan secret club. Also, there are some black children in this KKK club, and one of the leaders is holding a knife and asks if Joe will give up some blood to sign his oath. So what's going on here? It's that or he has to kiss the Royal Queen of the Clu Clu Clams. Okay, but that episode isn't the only one.

I did want to mention the episode *The Cobbler*, which is another orphanage where the owner is waiting to get a back pension again. So that's from the early silent film era. But to me, the most bizarre and disturbing episode of them all is called *Tired Businessmen*. There isn't really any detail on the summary, which isn't common, but I'm telling you this is the craziest episode I've seen, and it explains the meaning of Pete. So just a warning, this one's pretty shocking. We learn about a Manhattan Club, and there's the goat again. They're going through initiations, and they're about to initiate Joe Cobb, but this is where it gets crazy. This initiation begins, and Joe has to shake hands with this bizarre demon statue with horns. They call this thing King Kazucas. Wait, hold up. Why do they have to shake hands with this scary thing? It's definitely some type of demon, and look at the wall; there's a skull and crossbones with a swastika. Where would orphans learn such a thing? So what they do is they spin Joe around, and then they spank his butt. Remember the paddle from earlier? What's even going on? I couldn't believe it when I was watching it. They even electrocute Joe, or the chubby kid, and then guess what they do? They paint a black circle around his eye. Then it says, "I'm a member now." The black circle is the same black circle that's on Pete, so this is what it means: an orphan that's been initiated into a secret club, an orphan that has shaken hands with a demon and then been spanked. This is literally a humiliation ritual where they throw eggs at Joe's face. Then after the initiation is done, they threaten to chop off his appendix if he ever speaks about what happened during the ritual. Bro, this is not for kids. So he has to keep silent about all of it a secret. Then he pretends to be a cop. Apparently his father's off somewhere because he's not home, and so Joe pretends to be a cop to scare the other orphans, and they believe it. So now he makes his way to the top of the club. I would love anyone who knows a lot about the show to explain to me what this episode is about because that's what I got from it. I don't see how it could be interpreted any other way, which then raises even more questions. Why is this show about orphans in a secret society being moved around constantly?

Now some of you may be like, "Okay, well, I don't get it. So what if they're orphans?" Well, let me explain. The idea is that this is not explicitly mentioned in the summaries of the show, and it's definitely not categorized or remembered that way at all. Most people remember it as a classic old-time show with children just being children. It's not mentioned in the summaries of the show that they are parentless or even in a secret society. It's not mentioned in the forums; it's not mentioned anywhere that I could find that these kids are orphans, although it's blatantly a part of the lore. Once we establish that they're orphans, the show takes a new perspective because they're constantly being moved to different living situations and parents, which makes it really sad and not funny at all. There are many early movies about orphans. How could this early period of Hollywood be considered progress or the Golden Era, yet there are countless references to orphans living on the streets? Perhaps this was reflective of the time, and there were a bunch of orphans that needed parents in the early 1900s. But where did these orphans come from? I'm not going to go into the whole Little Rascals curse stuff. Well, you can go down that route and come to your own conclusions. I'm not saying it's true because there are some members who lived happy lives. However, some of the cast died in tragic ways. So yeah, that's about it for now. I just sort of wanted to go over some of the weirdest episodes of this classic TV show that's obviously about orphans. If anyone knows what that episode is with the cabbage dealer and Alfalfa, we'd love some help with finding whatever that may be. It could be another movie, or perhaps Alfalfa wasn't in it, and it was another character. But here's the description just in case you want to search for it. Let us know if there's anything else involving the Little Rascals, cabbage patches, or orphans in early Hollywood that would be of interest. We're very thankful for all your comments, so please let us know what you think. If you wish to support us, please consider checking out our first book, which is on the cabbage babies. Thanks for watching, and all we can hope is that our minds may be unveiled. Let go of everything you think to be true, relax the mind, and ask the question: Do I truly understand what this reality is?