OT: Our Gang

[Duck Dodgers]

Do you think this will be a quality release?
I don't know this company.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Little-Rascals-Our-Gang-Shorts-Set/10081

[Tom Stathes]

Very questionable... and the wording is misleading, it says all Hal Roach produced shorts while it obviously omits all of the silent shorts. There were over 200 total Our Gang shorts produced, most of them by Roach.

[Vdubdavid]

Well, how many were talkies as opposed to silents? Maybe this set is only going to include the sound films.

[Tom Stathes]

Not looking at a filmography, off hand, it's probably the same amount each period or maybe a bit more silents.

[CueBallCat79]

Not looking at a filmography, off hand, it's probably the same amount each period or maybe a bit more silents.

How many shorts ended up on the Cabin Fever VHS sets. Is it all the Roach talkies and whatever small amount of silents that were on the tapes?

Even if it was the wording still doesn't make sense. How is this complete?

[Tom Stathes]

Precisely, it's less than HALF of the Our Gang series at best!

[MarkTheShark]

Do you think this will be a quality release?
I don't know this company.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Little-Rascals-Our-Gang-Shorts-Set/10081

There are 221 Our Gang films -- including 88 silent shorts (66 originally released by Pathe and 22 by M-G-M), 80 Hal Roach talkie shorts, 1 Hal Roach-produced feature film, and 52 M-G-M produced talkie shorts.

This sounds like it will include all 80 talkie shorts. I understand that Genius Entertainment now has a deal with RHI (the owner of most of the sound-era Hal Roach comedy films, formerly handled through Hallmark/Artistan) so this should be legit. If it's as good as the VHS series done in the mid-1990s, then this is a must have!

The Roach talkie shorts are the films generally known under the title The Little Rascals, so technically I guess they can call this "the complete Little Rascals." (Apart from about ten Roach/M-G-M silent shorts which were originally part of the 1950s TV package...only one or two of which made the Cabin Fever releases; the other silents were public domain Pathes.)

I really would love to see WB release a set of their Our Gang holdings, including the 52 M-G-M shorts and the General Spanky feature. Years ago Turner put out a Laserdisc box set that included some public domain silents, some of the public domain talkies and a bunch of hand-picked M-G-M shorts like Aladdin's Lantern, Men In Fright, etc.

With this news, I am actually optimistic that we might see a decent Hal Roach-era Laurel & Hardy talkie collection in the not too distant future. Let's keep our fingers crossed...

[Marty26]

There was also a movie produced in 1994 that attempted to give The Little Rascals a modern update.

[CueBallCat79]

There was also a movie produced in 1994 that attempted to give The Little Rascals a modern update.

But we don't talk about that. :p

Even if this only includes the 80 Roach talkies it's an easy buy for me as long as it's legit. Hopefully they'll be arranged in chronological order.

[Larry T]

Yeah me too- I would love to have a collection of these shorts properly restored to DVD. They are very clever, and represent a huge milestone in American filmmaking. Plus they also do a pretty good job of representing life in the Depression era.

This set might be worth looking into.

[jazzman78]

Are these suppose to be new transfers or the Cabin Fever version that were on VHS and Laser Disc. In a way it's good news since only half of them show up on previous release issues taken from the Cabin Fever set - with the Leonard Maltin intros.

[frootloops]

With this news, I am actually optimistic that we might see a decent Hal Roach-era Laurel & Hardy talkie collection in the not too distant future. Let's keep our fingers crossed...There is a fairly decent Hal Roach Laurel and Hardy collection available here.

http://dvd.ciao.co.uk/Laurel_And_Hardy_Box_Set_Twenty_One_Discs__5917078

[GarudaBoy!]

There is a fairly decent Hal Roach Laurel and Hardy collection available here.

http://dvd.ciao.co.uk/Laurel_And_Hardy_Box_Set_Twenty_One_Discs__5917078

Yeah, but if you don't live in Region 2, you'd need a multi-region DVD player to use with the L&H box set.

[Tom Stathes]

There was also a movie produced in 1994 that attempted to give The Little Rascals a modern update.
I loved this feature as a kid... for it on its own, not that I related it to the real Our Gang/Little Rascals series.

[trondmm]

Are these suppose to be new transfers or the Cabin Fever version that were on VHS and Laser Disc. In a way it's good news since only half of them show up on previous release issues taken from the Cabin Fever set - with the Leonard Maltin intros.

According to TVshowsOnDVD (http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/Little-Rascals-Complete-Collection-Box-Art/10146), all shorts are remastered, restored and uncut. The cover looks wonderful too.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.net/graphics/news3/LittleRascals_Complete.jpg

Unfortunately, it looks like the set vil be pretty pricey. MSRP is $90, and Amazon sells it for $63. After shipping and taxes, it'll cost me about $110, so I might have to pass on this one, but it definitely looks like a set worth having.

[Tom Stathes]

Granted, many of our financial situations may not be so great... but in theory little more than a dollar per short is pretty darn fantastic. Imagine paying $185 for a new 16mm print of one of these shorts :D

[Duck Dodgers]

Wow! Love it!!
Does this company got the rights to other classic material?

[Nelson]

Wow! Love it!!
Does this company got the rights to other classic material?

I still believe that Lionsgate Home Video has the video rights to the other Hal Roach material, but there's a lot of Roach fans that would love to see a deluxe Charley Chase collection of his sound comedies, since Chase is in high demand in today's market.

Speaking of dear ol' Charley, there's still no word on the Milestone video release of his silent shorts when, or if that collection will ever be released.The dvd set was supposed to be out three years ago(since several of the newly restored shorts began to air on TCM)and considering many of the prints are from MOMA, Library Of Congress and with finanical funding from Turner Classic Movies, this is a must have collection for Chase fanatics, if the damn company ever decides to release this.

And of course, there was another rumor that a company was going to release a box set of the entire(or what survives) silent Laurel And Hardy films.No word has been given as of this writing.