Trivia: When Scotty Beckett was three years old, his father was hospitalized in Los Angeles. During a visit, Beckett entertained his convalescing dad by singing several songs. A Hollywood casting director overheard the boy and suggested to his parents that Beckett had movie potential. The wide-eyed, tousle-haired youngster made his screen debut opposite Ann Harding and Clive Brook in 1933's Gallant Lady. In 1934, he was signed by Hal Roach for the Our Gang series; in the 13 two-reelers produced between 1934 and 1935, Beckett appeared as the best pal and severest critic of rotund Gang star Spanky McFarland. This stint led to such choice feature-film assignments as Anthony Adverse (1936) (in which Beckett played the out-of-wedlock son of Fredric March and Olivia De Havilland), Marie Antoinette (1938) (as the Dauphin) and My Favorite Wife (1940) (as one of the two kids of Cary Grant and his long-lost wife Irene Dunne). In 1939, Beckett briefly returned to the Our Gang fold, playing "Alfalfa" Switzer's brainy Cousin Wilbur in a brace of one-reelers. Beckett was frequently called upon for "the leading man as a child" roles, playing youthful versions of Louis Hayward in My Son, My Son (1940), Don Ameche in Heaven Can Wait (1943), and Jon Hall in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1940). As he matured, Beckett was often cast as obnoxious younger brothers, notably in the 1943 Broadway play Slightly Married and the 1948 Jane Powell vehicle A Date with Judy (playing the sibling of none other than Elizabeth Taylor). On radio, Beckett played Junior Riley in the popular William Bendix sitcom The Life of Riley, and on television he was seen as Cadet Winky in the early sci-fi series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. Scotty Beckett's last film was 1956's Three For Jamie Dawn.

Trivia: Juvenile performer Carl Switzer and his brother, Harold, began singing at local functions in their Illinois hometown. While visiting an aunt in California, the Switzer boys accompanied their mother to Hal Roach Studios, then proceeded to warble a hillbilly ditty in the Roach cafeteria. This performance won them both contracts at Roach, though only Carl achieved any sort of stardom. Nicknamed "Alfalfa," Carl became a popular member of the Our Gang kids, his performances distinguished by his cowlicked hair, vacuous grin, and off-key singing. Few who have seen The Our Gang Follies of 1938 can ever forget the sight of Alfalfa being pelted with tomatoes as he bravely vocalizes the immortal aria "I'm the Bar-ber of Sevilllllle!" The boy remained with Our Gang when Roach sold the property to MGM in 1938; his last Gang short was 1940's Kiddie Kure. Switzer found it hard to get film roles after his Our Gang tenure, especially when he began to mature. By the early '50s, his movie appearances had dwindled to bits. Switzer's handful of worthwhile adult film roles include a 100-year-old Indian in director William Wellman's Track of the Cat (1954); he was also a semi-regular on Roy Rogers' TV series. Throughout most of the 1950s, he supported himself as a hunting guide and bartender. Miles removed from the lovable Alfalfa, 32-year-old Carl Switzer was killed in a boozy brawl over a 50-dollar debt.

Trivia: Appeared as a background actor in the 1934 Our Gang (Little Rascals) shorts The First Round-Up, For Pete's Sake and Washee Ironee before landing the role of Buckwheat.Joined the U.S. Army at age 23 in 1954 and earned a National Defense Service Medal and a Good Conduct Medal in 1956.Chose a career in film editing with the Technicolor corporation instead of acting upon returning from active duty.Was moved to tears when he received a standing ovation at a Little Rascals reunion at the Sons of the Desert convention in 1980.The Buckwheat Scholarship for students at California State University Northridge was established in his honor by his son Bill Thomas Jr. in 1992.

Trivia: American actor Jackie Cooper was in movies at the age of three; his father had abandoned the family when Jackie was two, forcing his mother to rely upon the boy's acting income to keep food on the table. Shortly after earning his first featured part in Fox Movietone Follies of 1929. Cooper was hired for producer Hal Roach's "Our Gang" two-reeler series, appearing in 15 shorts over the next two years. The "leading man" in many of these comedies, he was most effective in those scenes wherein he displayed a crush on his new teacher, the beauteous Miss Crabtree. On the strength of "Our Gang," Paramount Pictures signed Cooper for the title role in the feature film Skippy (1931), which earned the boy an Oscar nomination. A contract with MGM followed, and for the next five years Cooper was frequently co-starred with blustery character player Wallace Beery. Cooper outgrew his preteen cuteness by the late 1930s, and was forced to accept whatever work that came along, enjoying the occasional plum role in such films as The Return of Frank James (1940) and What a Life! (1941). His priorities rearranged by his wartime Naval service, Cooper returned to the states determined to stop being a mere "personality" and to truly learn to be an actor. This he did on Broadway and television, notably as the star of two popular TV sitcoms of the 1950s, The People's Choice and Hennessey. Cooper developed a taste for directing during this period (he would earn an Emmy for his directorial work on M*A*S*H in 1973), and also devoted much of his time in the 1960s to the production end of the business; in 1965 he was appointed vice-president in charge of production at Screen Gems, the TV subsidiary of Columbia Pictures. From the early 1970s onward, Cooper juggled acting, producing and directing with equal aplomb. Modern audiences know Cooper best as the apoplectic Perry White in the Christopher Reeve Superman films. In 1981, Cooper surprised (and sometimes shocked) his fans with a warts-and-all autobiography, Please Don't Shoot My Dog. Cooper died in May 2011 at the age of 88 following a sudden illness.

Trivia: Actor Sherwood Bailey is best known for playing the rusty-headed befreckled boy Spud in the Our Gang series. As an adult, Bailey left acting and became a civil engineer.

Trivia: The son of a Los Angeles minister, three-year-old Matthew Beard won out of 350 kids to replace Allen "Farina" Hoskins as the resident black child in Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies. Nicknamed Hercules in his first two-reeler, Teacher's Pet (1930), Beard was thereafter known as Stymie because of his innocent offscreen habit of confounding his elders. Wearing an oversized derby hat (borrowed from Roach comedian Stan Laurel), the clever, resourceful, eternally grinning Stymie quickly became one of the most popular Our Gang kids. After appearing in 36 Our Gang shorts, Beard began freelancing in 1935, playing small roles in big films like Captain Blood (1935), Jezebel (1938), The Great Man Votes (1939), and Stormy Weather (1943). Alas, after dropping out of high school in 1945, he fell into a bad crowd, spending the next two decades in and out of jails for committing crimes to feed his drug habit. Miraculously, Beard completely turned his life around in the mid-'60s when he entered the drug rehab organization Synanon. Looking remarkably like the eternally optimistic Stymie of old, Matthew Beard made a successful show business comeback in the 1970s, appearing in such films as The Buddy Holly Story (1978) and such weekly TV series as Good Times and The Jeffersons.

Trivia: Tommy Bond was five years old when he began posing for magazine ads in his native Dallas. Discovered by a talent scout for Hal Roach Studios in 1933, Bond and his grandmother headed to Hollywood where he was immediately put to work in Roach's Our Gang films. After playing a cherubic, tousle-headed kid named Tommy for two seasons, he left the Our Gang series to freelance at other studios, building up a reputation as one of Hollywood's most reliable movie brats. He was brought back into the Our Gang fold in 1937; this time around, he was cast as scowling neighborhood bully Butch, one of the series' most memorable and sharply-defined characters. He continued to play Butch in 1940, by which time Roach had sold Our Gang to MGM. During this period, he also bedeviled such adult comedians as Andy Clyde, Charley Chase, Laurel & Hardy, and Walter Catlett. Despite the nastiness of his movie characters, Bond was well known as one of the nicest and most well-adjusted juvenile actors in the business. His best friend was his onscreen "worst enemy," Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer; in fact, whenever Switzer began misbehaving or cutting up on the set, it was usually Bond who calmed him down. Long after their Our Gang days, Bond and Switzer co-starred in PRC's Gas House Kids films, a ripoff of Monogram's Bowery Boys. Though most of his 1940s roles were bit parts, Bond landed a meaty supporting role as cub reporter Jimmy Olsen in Columbia's Superman serials. Graduating from Los Angeles College in 1951, Bond left acting to work as a property master at L.A. TV station KTTV, a job that later expanded to all the TV outlets owned by KTTV's parent company Metromedia. Long married to a former Miss California, Bond retired in 1990. Still as nice and unassuming as ever, Tommy Bond has become a welcome addition to many a film and nostalgia convention, and has made innumerable personal appearances in connection with his 1993 autobiography, You're Darn Right It's Butch!

Trivia: The "blonde bombshell" among the Our Gang kids, Jean Darling spent two years with the group from 1927-1929. She later played the young Jane Eyre ([1934] Virginia Bruce starred as the adult Jane), after which she retired from film. Surprisingly, the former moppet star became a competent Broadway ingenue and originated the role of Carrie Pipperidge in the original 1945 Broadway production of Carousel. Her final screen appearance was in 2013's The Butler's Tale, a short, silent film that made reference to Darling's beginnings in the industry. She died in 2015, at age 93.

Trivia: American actress Darla Hood is best remembered for being the adorable childhood sweetheart of "Alfalfa" (played by Carl Switzer) in the mid 1930s version of the "Our Gang" series of comedy shorts. She got her start in the series in 1935 when she was only four and went on to appear and occasionally sing in dozens of episodes for the next ten years. Hood also sometimes got roles in feature films such as Born to Sing (1942). She left films at age 14. Later she had a career singing television commercial jingles. She also occasionally took tiny roles in feature films.

Trivia: Wide-eyed little Bobby Blake began his acting career as an Our Gang kid and eventually matured into one of Hollywood's finest actors. Born Michael Gubitosi, the boy was two years old when he joined his family vaudeville act, "The Three Little Hillbillies." The act was doomed to failure, as were most of the pipe dreams of the Gubitosi family. Relocating from New Jersey to California, Michael's mom found work for her kids as extras at the MGM studios. The young Gubitosi impressed the producers of the Our Gang series, and as a result the six-year-old was elevated to star status in the short subjects series. Little Mickey Gubitosi whined and whimpered his way through 40 Our Gang shorts, reaching an artistic low point with the execrable All About Hash (1940). During his five-year tenure with the series, the boy anglicized his professional name to Bobby Blake. Freelancing after 1944, Blake's performing skills improved immeasurably, especially when he was cast as Indian sidekick Little Beaver in Republic's Red Ryder series. He also registered well in his appearances in Warner Bros. films, playing such roles as the younger John Garfield in Humoresque (1946) and the Mexican kid who sells Bogart the crucial lottery ticket in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Though sporadically happy in his work (one of his most pleasurable assignments was the otherwise forgettable Laurel and Hardy feature The Big Noise, 1944), Bobby Blake was an unhappy child, weighed down by a miserable home life. At 16, Blake dropped out of sight for a few years, a reportedly difficult period in his life. Upon claiming a 16,000-dollar nest egg at age 21, however, Blake began turning his life around, both personally and professionally. He matriculated into a genuine actor rather than a mere "cute" personality, essaying choice dramatic roles in both films and TV. He starred in the Allied Artists gangster flick The Purple Gang (1960), played featured roles in such films as PT 109 (1963), Ensign Pulver (1964), and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and guest starred on dozens of TV shows. In 1963, he was one of 12 character actors amalgamated into the "repertory company" on the weekly anthology series The Richard Boone Show; he spent the next 26 weeks playing everything from agreeable office boys to fevered dope addicts. His true breakthrough role came in 1967, when he was cast as real-life multiple murderer Perry Smith in Richard Brooks' filmization of In Cold Blood. Even after this career boost, Blake often found the going rough in Hollywood, due as much to his own pugnacious behavior as to typecasting. He did, however, star in such worthwhile efforts as Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) and Electra Glide in Blue (1973). Blake achieved full-fledged stardom at last with his three-year (1975-1978) starring stint on the TV cop series Baretta, adding to his already sizeable fan following via several lively, tell-all guest appearances on The Tonight Show, The Merv Griffin Show, and several other video chat fests. Despite his never-ending battles with the ABC executives during the Baretta run, Blake stuck out the series long enough to win an Emmy, and even got to direct an episode or two.Forming his own production company, Blake made several subsequent tries at TV-series success: Hell Town (1985), in which he starred as a barrio priest, lasted 13 weeks, while the private-eye endeavor Jake Dancer never got past its three pilot films. He has been more successful with such one-shots as the TV miniseries Hoffa (1983), in which he played the title character with chilling accuracy, and the 1993 TV biopic Judgment Day: The John List Story, which earned him another Emmy. His later film appearances were in hard-nosed character parts, such as 1995's The Money Train, and he landed a plum (albeit terminally odd) lead role in David Lynch's postmodern thriller Lost Highway (1997), as a clown-faced psychopath who plays bizarre mind games with a suburban couple. Though he's managed to purge some of his personal demons over the years, Robert Blake remains as feisty, outspoken, and unpredictable as ever, especially when given an open forum by talk show hosts. In 2001, Blake generated headlines once again, though this time off-camera and in an extremely negative vein. The mysterious murder of wife Bonnie Lee Bakely sent the tabloids into a furious frenzy of speculation and accusation. Arrested for the murder of Bakely in April 2002, Blake's future looked increasingly grim as evidence continued to mount against him. Nevertheless, in March 2005 the actor was completely exonerated of all accusations surrounding Bakely's death and narrowly escaped a life sentence in prison. His on-camera activity remained extremely infrequent, however. Late in 2005, the press reported the outcome of a civil trial involving Bakely's homicide, in which Blake was required to pay an estimated $30 million to her children.

Trivia: At age one he debuted onscreen (playing John Barrymore as a baby) in The Beloved Rogue (1927), then appeared in a number of films as a toddler. He stayed onscreen through his childhood and adolescence, becoming one of Hollywood's favorite child stars. He appeared in many Our Gang comedy shorts and more than 100 feature films. He was less successful as a teenage actor and young adult, and he retired from the screen in the early '50s. He went on to teach and write books about acting, edit Equity magazine, perform on Broadway, in stock, and on TV, write and direct for TV, produce an Oscar-nominated short film (The Boy and the Eagle), and produce industrial shows; he wrote the book Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (But Don't Have Sex or Take the Car) (1984), an insider's account of the hazards of being a child star. He was married to actress Jane Powell from 1988 until his death, at age 89, in 2015.

Trivia: Pudgy-faced little Harry Spear grew up near the Hal Roach lot in Culver City. He reportedly appeared in a couple of Westerns prior to making his debut with the Our Gang team in The Glorious Fourth (1927). The tyke went on to appear in a total of 31 comedies, including five talkies before retiring at the old age of eight. Reportedly continuing his show business career in vaudeville, Spear made a screen comeback playing a bit part in The Patsy (1964).

Trivia: Although not an original member of Our Gang, Joe Cobb was certainly the series' first fat kid, and in many ways, also the funniest. The son of non-theatrical parents, young Cobb was discovered visiting the Hal Roach studios and assigned a role in a Snub Pollard short entitled A Tough Winter ([1922] the title was used again for a 1930 Our Gang short featuring Cobb's successor Chubby Chaney). He joined the Gang soon after and appeared in a total of 86 shorts. By 1929, however, Cobb's weight had skyrocketed to 120 pounds and he was no longer cuddly. Always popular with Roach himself, Cobb would be back for several reunions, including Fish Hooky (1933), and continued to play bits in films until at least 1944.

Trivia: The son of a Naval officer, American actor Johnny Downs was hired as one of Hal Roach's "Our Gang" kids in 1923. Alternately playing heroes and bullies, Downs stayed with the short-subject series until 1927, appearing in twenty-four two-reelers. He honed his dancing and singing skills on the vaudeville stage, working prominently on Broadway until returning to Hollywood in 1934. Downs became a fixture of the "college musical" movie cycle of the late '30s, usually cast as a team captain or a cheerleader. He returned briefly to Hal Roach to star in a 45-minute "streamlined" feature, All American Co-Ed (1941), shortly before his movie career began to decline. Working in vaudeville, summer stock, and one solid Broadway hit (Are You With It), Downs made a short-lived movie comeback in supporting roles and bit parts in the early '50s. Johnny Downs' biggest break in these years came via television, where he launched a long-running career as a San Diego TV host and kiddie show star.