SCHOOLDAY LOVE (Campbell comedy 1922)

[David Denton]

Another kids and animals comedy from William Campbell. IMDB says it stars Coy Watson Jr, Doreen Turner and Lawrence Licalzi; I have no idea. I think the hunter might be Jack Cooper and the bear is a hoot!

http://eye.openbeelden.nl/media/687103/ ... olday_Love

[Richard M Roberts]

Yep, Jack Cooper is the hunter (he was also in the Campbell Comedy A RAG-DOLL ROMANCE) and that's Dave Morris as the top-hatted teacher.

Hmmm, more evidence that Hal Roach's "brilliant and original" idea for Our Gang wasn't all that "brilliant and original", there are definite borrowings of style and gags from both the Campbell and the Chester "Snooky" comedies that both pre-date the Rascals (not to also mention that Edgar Comedy with Johnny Jones, EDGAR'S HAMLET, which also pre-dates Our Gang). Note the dog-powered car here. This will be discussed more in-depth in Volume Two of my Comedy trilogy.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Gary Johnson]

While it's true that Roach's series is not the first nor original kid series (there was so much onscreen comedy at the time that everyone borrowed from each other), watching this short drives home what made OUR GANG so special and unique. There is a baseball sequence in this short and it is played by a menagerie of animals. The kids sit in the stands and watch. That would never happen in OUR GANG. Animals took part in their games, but the focus was always on the kids. This short and many that followed always struck me as Sennett shorts with interchangeable kids substituting for the adult clowns.
Mickey Daniels, Farina and Mary Kornman were not Sennett clowns, they were actual kids enacting in an exaggerated view of childhood. That was the vision of the Roach studio.

[Richard M Roberts]

While it's true that Roach's series is not the first nor original kid series (there was so much onscreen comedy at the time that everyone borrowed from each other), watching this short drives home what made OUR GANG so special and unique. There is a baseball sequence in this short and it is played by a menagerie of animals. The kids sit in the stands and watch. That would never happen in OUR GANG. Animals took part in their games, but the focus was always on the kids. This short and many that followed always struck me as Sennett shorts with interchangeable kids substituting for the adult clowns.
Mickey Daniels, Farina and Mary Kornman were not Sennett clowns, they were actual kids enacting in an exaggerated view of childhood. That was the vision of the Roach studio.

Actually no, "Kids N' Animals" was exactly the format Roach sold Pathe' on when Our Gang began as a series, and if you look at early entries like FIRE FIGHTERS and ONE TERRIBLE DAY and others from 1922-23, the animals are getting equal footing with the kids. This was due to the staggering popularity of the Chester and Campbell comedies, which were actually Educational's most popular series in the beginning, and others. Comedy Historians always marvel as to the number of short comedies made with animals in the 1920's, usually missing the obvious reason as to the plethora in that they were extremely popular with audiences. Universal was doing well with both Joe Martin the Orangutan and the Baby Peggy and Brownie the Wonder Dog comedies, and the Snooky the Humanzee comedies were so popular with both audiences and exhibitors that when C. L. Chester moved distribution to Federated in 1922 and decided to save a few sheckels by using more anonymous critters then Snooky in his first few shorts, there was such an exhibitor backlash that Chester had to make a big publicity splash guaranteeing that Snooky would be returning to the Chester comedies (there's even a picture of Snooky signing his new contract in the trades).

As time went on, it became quite apparent to Roach that it was too timely and costly to make the Our Gang comedies with the animal sequences, both kids and animals took more time, money and patience to shoot a comedy with, that he spun off the animals into the Dippy-Do-Dads series and let the Rascals work on their own (save for various dogs and occasional other critter cameos). However, the Dippy-Do-Dads also proved too costly and long-scheduled to justify their expense, and perhaps animals by themselves didn't have the charm that kids and animals had, so that series was short-lived.

In any case, I'm not going to give away much more neat info soon to be found in Volume Two of my magnum opus just because you don't get the point, so I say stay tuned for it's publication and you'll learn more.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Gary Johnson]

Oh, I get it, alright (....I always get it....from you). Roach started out making a kid and animal series just like everyone else was doing, but quickly began reversing themselves and changed the formula to concentrate on real childhood traumas -- like washing your neck before supper. And it caught on so fast that the other studio's began dropping their funny animal series and copied the Roach formula.
So in a roundabout way OUR GANG was "brilliant and original".....after some trial and testing. In the same way the Laurel & Hardy series evolved.

Now back to your book and stop giving away all of the plot points.

[Richard M Roberts]

Oh, I get it, alright (....I always get it....from you). Roach started out making a kid and animal series just like everyone else was doing, but quickly began reversing themselves and changed the formula to concentrate on real childhood traumas -- like washing your neck before supper. And it caught on so fast that the other studio's began dropping their funny animal series and copied the Roach formula.
So in a roundabout way OUR GANG was "brilliant and original".....after some trial and testing. In the same way the Laurel & Hardy series evolved.

Now back to your book and stop giving away all of the plot points.

Nice try, but no----actually the Campbell Comedies as they come to light show they were indeed dealing with real childhood traumas (in fact, some them, like MONKEY SHINES (1922) and A RING-TAILED ROMANCE (1922), both of which I have prints of, have stories with VERY serious, life-threatening-to-the-characters plots) as do the Baby Peggy comedies. (Educational's Big Boy series veered into serious territory as well), you see, it actually helps to have seen a lot of these comedies before making such pronouncements. Even the Snooky comedies have the infamous cross-dressing chimp saving so many infants in distress that they start to make a joke about it in the comedies.

This is not to belittle the Roach Studio and especially Robert McGowan's accomplishment in making the Our Gang comedies an excellent and successful series, it's just time to put to bed the oft-quoted Hal Roach myth about "looking at the kids playing in the vacant lot from his office window and realizing they were more interesting than the story conference he was having and thus God created Our Gang", it's a pile of hooey like a lot of Roach stories, what he was actually doing was what any good film producer worth his salt was doing in Hollywood, noticing a trend in his area of business and figuring out a way to latch on and do it better then the competition, in Hollywood, success is always better than being "brilliant and original".

And no, the animal comedies did not disappear when Our Gang took off, producers continued to make them all through the silent era, Fox's late 20's Animal Comedies were actually another "kids n animal" series that did quite well and made some pretty funny comedies like CAPTAIN KIDDS KITTENS (1927) and FOLLOW THE LEADER (1928). There were plenty of comedy dogs, heck, Pete the Pup had his own series before joining Our Gang, Snooky was till so darn popular that Chester reissued all those shorts in the early sound era, just so they could compete with the Tiffany Chimps and the Dogville comedies.

Shall we go into the Three Little Bruins, SPEAKING OF ANIMALS or even LANCELOT LINK SECRET CHIMP!


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Gary Johnson]

But those are all novelty series that you are citing. One joke comedies where monkeys are dressed up as movie producers and jackasses play congressman. Sure you've seen more of them than I have, but even you have to admit there's not a high level of humor in those. Put it this way, I prefer the kid comedies that purposely ape OUR GANG, like HEY FELLAS and BIG BOY. Those can have goofy charm and wild slapstick. I lost interest in this Campbell short the moment the lead boy met the lead girl and greeted her with a kiss as if he were Valentino. I start getting that queasy "Baby Burlesk' feeling when directors think it is funny making children substitute for adult actors.

Speaking of Baby Peggy, it looked like her when the little girl was sitting on the horse with that beret hat.

[Richard M Roberts]

But those are all novelty series that you are citing. One joke comedies where monkeys are dressed up as movie producers and jackasses play congressman. Sure you've seen more of them than I have, but even you have to admit there's not a high level of humor in those. Put it this way, I prefer the kid comedies that purposely ape OUR GANG, like HEY FELLAS and BIG BOY. Those can have goofy charm and wild slapstick. I lost interest in this Campbell short the moment the lead boy met the lead girl and greeted her with a kiss as if he were Valentino. I start getting that queasy "Baby Burlesk' feeling when directors think it is funny making children substitute for adult actors.

Speaking of Baby Peggy, it looked like her when the little girl was sitting on the horse with that beret hat.

The Fox series wasn't, it was actually a very good kids 'n' animal series with strong gags and good storylines, as well as good kid actors, George Marshall supervised them, no slouch in the comedy department there.

Your queasiness with the Campbell comedies is your problem, and they are light years ahead of the Baby Burlesks, the kids in the Campbell Comedies are still kids, not pretending to be adults. Speaking of the Baby Burlesks, that's a chapter I can guarantee you will not be seen in my Educational book, no one can ever pay me enough to make me watch those again.


RICHARD M ROBERTS