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: 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: 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: 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: 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.