Our Gang

:"The Little Rascals" redirects here. For other uses of the title "The Little Rascals", see The Little Rascals (disambiguation).

Home video releases and rights to the films

16 mm, VHS, and DVD releases

From the 1960s to the 1980s, copies of all eighty Hal Roach Little Rascals talkies, and a handful of the silents, were available on 16 mm film through Blackhawk Films. The only edits made to the films werethe replacements of the original Our Gang title cards with Little Rascals titles Like the other Little Rascals distributors, Blackhawk was required to use custom title cards in place of the originals, and the conversion of Railroadin, whose soundtrack could not be found, into a silent. In the early 1980s, Blackhawk made two-thirds of the Little Rascals shorts available by catalog on VHS home video. Blackhawk Films was acquired in 1983 by Republic Pictures, who repackaged about thirty Little Rascals shorts in various VHS compilations for sale in retail stores in 1984.

Related Topics:
1960s - 1980s - 16 mm film - Blackhawk Films - VHS - Home video - 1983 - Republic Pictures - 1984

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Cabin Fever Entertainment acquired the Little Rascals home video rights from Republic in 1993, and between 1994 and 1995 issued all eighty Roach talkies in a twenty-two volume Little Rascals VHS tape set. Each volume, hosted by film historian Leonard Maltin, featured four digitally restored and uncut shorts, complete with their original Our Gang title cards. In 1998, Cabin Fever shut down and sold the Little Rascals home video rights to Hallmark Entertainment, who reisssued the first ten volumes of the Cabin Fever VHS set, and released two Little Rasclas DVD compilations. A third DVD, entitled Little Rascals Collectors' Series Volume III, will be issued on November 13, 2005, and is to include ten sound shorts.

Related Topics:
1993 - 1994 - 1995 - Leonard Maltin - 1998 - Hallmark Entertainment - November 13 - 2005

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Meanwhile, MGM has released several non-comprehensive VHS tapes of its shorts, as well as the feature General Spanky. There are many other unofficial Our Gang and Little Rascals home video collections available from several other distributors, comprised of shorts (both silent and sound) which have fallen into the public domain.

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Status of ownership

Currently, the rights to the Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts are scattered. Hallmark Entertainment holds the theatrical and home video rights to the Roach-produced Our Gang shorts, which it acquired after absorbing both Hal Roach Studios estate and Cabin Fever Entertainment in the late 1990s. King World continues to hold the rights to the Little Rascals trademark and the Little Rascals television package; it offers both original black-and-white and colorized prints for syndication. King World's Little Rascals package was recently featured as exclusive programming (in the United States) for the American Movie Classics network from August 2001 to December 2003, with Frankie Muniz as the host.

Related Topics:
Hallmark Entertainment - 1990s - Colorized - United States - American Movie Classics - 2001 - 2003 - Frankie Muniz

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The MGM-produced Our Gang shorts, General Spanky, and the rights ot the Our Gang name have been owned by Turner Entertainment, today a subsidiary of Time Warner, since 1986. Turner made a deal with King World in the early 1990s to jointly market the Little Rascals and Our Gang films and properties, instead of competing with one another. The MGM Our Gangs now appear regularly on the AmericanLife TV Network, and periodically on the Turner Classic Movies cable network.

Related Topics:
General Spanky - Turner Entertainment - Time Warner - 1986 - 1990s - AmericanLife TV Network - Turner Classic Movies

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The widely-circulated rumor that entertainer Bill Cosby bought up the rights to Our Gang to keep the racial stereotypes off of television is false. Cosby has never owned any rights to the series at any time {{ref|Snopes}}.

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