Trivia: American actor Spanky McFarland (born George Emmett McFarland in Forth Worth, TX) was the most popular member of the Our Gang children's comedy troupe. He got his start while still a baby as an advertising model for a bakery in Dallas because he looked so fat and happy. It was his pudginess as a toddler that led him to the Our Gang series of shorts when he was hired to replace Joe Cobb as the tubby child. In addition to appearing in that series, McFarland also appeared in a few feature films and in other shorts. By the mid-'40s, his acting career was over and he found gainful employment elsewhere.

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: 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: 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: Freckle-faced child actor Sidney Kibrick, like his older brother Leonard Kibrick, made his mark on movies as a member of Hal Roach's Our Gang (aka, Little Rascals) comedy troupe. His older brother Leonard cut a memorable figure in a handful of shorts made between 1934 and 1936 as the gang's resident villain, before being supplanted by Tommy Bond in the role of Butch. Sidney had been in the shorts as well from 1935, in small, barely seen roles, but that transition was his call to near-center stage, as he took on the part of Butch's burly sidekick, The Woim. The subsequent shorts depicting Butch's conflicts with series "leading man" Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer came to define the later -- and, in many ways, best-loved -- period of the Roach-produced shorts, and he became so thoroughly identified with the role that some reference sources refer to him as Sidney "Woim" Kibrick. He continued in the Our Gang shorts through 1939 and "Time Out for Lessons," by which time the series had already seen its best days. There were other roles in slightly bigger pictures, such as It Happened in Flatbush and Flight Lieutenant (both 1942), but Kibrick left pictures after an appearance in the Little Tough Guys/Dead End Kids feature Keep 'Em Slugging (1943).

Trivia: Dimpled American silent-screen comedian Ruth Hiatt starred opposite Raymond McKee in Mack Sennett's 1926 Our Gang rip-off, The Smith Family series. By then, the 20-year-old actress was already a tried and true veteran, having begun her screen career at the age of nine with the Lubin Company in 1915. Voted a 1924 WAMPAS Baby Star by the Hollywood publicists (along with, among others Clara Bow), Hiatt starred opposite Lloyd Hamilton and Harry Langdon. In her feature debut, she was His First Flame (1927) (Langdon's of course) and was then teamed with strong-man Joe Bonomo in The Chinatown Mystery (1928), a fast and furious serial made for pennies by Poverty Row entrepreneur Trem Carr. In a (posed) scene-still from this hair-raising chapterplay, Bonomo is seen attempting to rescue Hiatt from a fast-approaching train, and she looks much the worse for wear. Hiatt, whose career in comedy two-reelers lasted well into the '30s and included The Three Stooges' Men in Black (1933), was married three times and eventually retired from the screen in the early '40s to operate a professional makeup business.