Calling All Kids (1943)The Our Gang kids salute the armed forces in a stage show. Director:Sam BaerwitzWriter:Sam Baerwitz |
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Title: Calling All Kids (1943)
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Cast
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| Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson | ... |
Buckwheat
(voice)
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Joan Blake | ... |
Audience Member
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| Robert Blake | ... |
Mickey
(as Bobby Blake)
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Janet Burston | ... |
Janet /
Carmen Miranda
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Mark Daniels | ... |
NBC radio announcer
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James Gubitosi | ... |
Audience Member
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Jackie Horner | ... |
Eleanor Powell
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Marlene Kinghorn | ... | |
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Billy 'Froggy' Laughlin | ... | |
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Marlene Mains | ... |
Virginia O'Brien
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Tommy McFarland | ... |
Audience Member
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David Polonsky | ... | |
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Eleanor Taylor | ... |
Middle Marine
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| Billie 'Buckwheat' Thomas | ... | ||
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Frank Ward | ... |
Second Marine
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Storyline
The Our Gang kids salute the armed forces in a stage show.
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Details
Country:
USALanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
24 April 1943 (USA) See more »Company Credits
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To those who've seen and remember this "Our Gang" comedy, "Calling All Kids" has the distinction of being (sadly) the VERY LAST musical short in the series - but it went out with a bang!
The skit with Mickey (Robert Blake) and Froggy was funny, and so was Marlene Mains' impression of Virginia O'Brien (especially when she sang the line about "....We'll spend our evenins' rememberin' things like, gas-o-line") and Janet Burston's of Carmen Miranda. And the young man who was doing the impression of Fred Astaire doing the "Torpedo Dance" (from "Holiday Inn") was Dickie Love, who wasn't credited in the press book or in Leonard Maltin and Richard Bann's 1992 "Little Rascals" book.
And Maltin and Bann's negative critique of "Calling All Kids" in their "Little Rascals" book only made it more funny and enjoyable; they claimed this short had nothing to do with the style of the earlier "Our Gang" shorts and that there was "an unpleasant air of phoniness" throughout the film (e.g. Maltin cites some "camera trickery" in the recruiting sketch, particularly when Froggy changes costumes behind the curtain - it was more rough editing than it was cinematography - and the real Rochester Anderson's voice was dubbed for Buckwheat's "'impression'" of Rochester). Apparently Maltin and Bann were too perturbed by what they saw that they forgot to mention in their (caustic) review "Calling All Kids" was the final "Our Gang" musical episode made.
Well, Mr. Maltin, if you're reading this, let me ask you: Which would you rather have, a sick and perverse piece of garbage like "American Beauty" (which, mercifully, I NEVER saw and DON'T EVER intend to see) - or a nice, clean, and innocent (as well as patriotic and historic) "Our Gang" musical short the whole family can enjoy?
Contrived or not, I'd take "Calling All Kids" ANY and EVERY time!
(As for "unpleasant airs of phoniness," Mr. Maltin, may I suggest you, as well as the other person who didn't find this comment useful, watch just about any rerun of "The Lawrence Welk Show." Notice especially in some of the song-and-tap-dance numbers the tap sounds were dubbed in, and that the performers weren't wearing tap shoes; also, in one particular episode one of the singers forgot to lip-sync to some of the lyrics while a tape of him singing was still playing! Now THAT'S phoniness!)