EDIT: Hey if you were wondering what ever happened to Alfalfa, aka Carl Dean "Alfalfa" Switzer, read this:
On January 21, 1959, Switzer and his friend Jack Piott arrived allegedly drunk at Moses "Bud" Stiltz's home in Mission Hills, California, to settle an alleged debt owed to Switzer. Previously, Switzer had borrowed a dog from Stiltz which was lost, but eventually found, Switzer paying the man who returned the dog $35 and buying him $15 worth of drinks from the bar he was working at. Switzer went to Stiltz's house to collect the money "owed" him. He banged on Stiltz's front door, demanding "Let me in, or I'll kick in the door.". Once Switzer got inside he and Stiltz got into an argument. Switzer informed Stiltz that he wanted the money owed him saying "I want that 50 bucks you owe me now, and I mean now,". However, when Stiltz refused to hand over the money, the two engaged in a physical fight. Piott allegedly bashed Stiltz in the head with a glass-domed clock, which caused Stiltz to bleed from his left eye. Stiltz retreated to his bedroom and returned holding a .38-caliber revolver, but Switzer immediately grabbed the gun away from him, resulting in a shot being fired that hit the ceiling. Switzer then forced Stiltz into a closet, despite Stiltz having gotten his hands back on the gun. Switzer then allegedly pulled a switchblade knife and screamed, "I'm going to kill you, [1]." and was attempting to stab Stiltz with it, but just as Switzer was about to charge Stiltz, Stiltz raised the gun and shot Switzer in the groin. Switzer died of massive internal bleeding and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. He was 31 years old.
instantcast.com
I was thinking Cane could get Alfalfa to be his spokesman or VP and Bama could get Buckwheat then we could have the VP debates between Alfalfa and Buckwheat, but alas, sadly neither is available, RIP.
Alfalfa: Thomas died of a sudden heart attack in his Los Angeles apartment on October 10, 1980.
George Robert Phillips "Spanky" McFarland : popularized the expressions "Okey-dokey!" and "Okey-doke!" McFarland died suddenly of a heart attack on June 30, 1993, at age 64. McFarland's nickname "Spanky" is said to have arisen from repeated warnings by his mother not to misbehave during one of the initial discussions with Hal Roach in his office. As the story goes, he had a habit of reaching out and grabbing things, and on doing so his mother Virginia would say, "Spanky, spanky, mustn't touch!" Spanky himself refuted this version in his later years, saying instead that the name was given to him by a Los Angeles newspaper reporter.
Eugene Gordon Lee (Porky)
In 2005, after battling lung and brain cancer, Lee passed away at the age of 71.
Bobby Hutchins (Robert E. Hutchins)(Wheezer): he was given the nickname of Wheezer after running around the studios on his first day so much that he began to wheeze. Hutchins was killed in a plane crash on May 17, 1945, while trying to land a B-26 Marauder in the Merced Army Air Corps Field in Merced, California, during a training exercise.
Jean Darling is one of the few living Our Gangers from the original series.
Darla Jean Hood : Hood was busy organizing a 1980 Little Rascals reunion for the Los Angeles Chapter of The Sons of the Desert when she underwent minor surgery at a North Hollywood hospital. Following the procedure, Darla contracted acute hepatitis under suspicious circumstances and died suddenly on June 13, 1979. She was 47.
Mary Ann Jackson
In 1990, she was delighted and amused to learn that during their stint with Our Gang, Jackie Cooper had been "desperately in love with her". She did have fond regard for her days at the Hal Roach Studios and was impressed with her large fan following. Asked to recall her thoughts on the gang, she responded, "Everything I have to say about [Hal] Roach and the gang is 'nice'. There's not one bad thing I can think of. It was just fun and fun and fun."
Mary Ann Jackson died of a heart attack at her home on December 17, 2003. Her sister Peaches died shortly before her, on February 23, 2002 at her home in Hawaii.
Pete the Pup was a famous dog character in Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies (later known as The Little Rascals) during the 1920s and 1930s. Otherwise known as "Pete, the Dog With the Ring Around His Eye", or simply "Petey", he was famous for having a circled eye that was added on by Hollywood make-up artist Max Factor[citation needed] and credited as an oddity in Ripley's Believe It or Not. The original Pete (sired by Earl Tudor's "Black Jack") named Pal the Wonder Dog had a natural ring almost completely around his eye; dye was used to finish it off.
When he was about six months old, he made a cameo appearance in the Harold Lloyd classic The Freshman, in the 1925.[1]
Pal first started out as "Tige" in the Buster Brown series in the 1920s, It was during this time that he obtained the circled eye, and when he was recruited to appear in the Our Gang comedies later that year, Hal Roach simply left it on, creating one of the most recognized dogs in film history.
Trainer and owner Lt. Harry Lucenay used one of Pal's offspring as Pete in the series after Pal passed away. This dog, named "Lucenay's Peter", was dual-registered as an AKC American Staffordshire Terrier and as a UKC American Pit Bull Terrier.[citation needed] Lucenay's Peter was whelped (born) September 6, 1929, and bred by A. A. Keller. A few other dogs played Petey, but Lucenay's Peter was the most famous. After being fired from the Our Gang series in 1932, Harry Lucenay retired Peter to Atlantic City, where he was photographed with children at the famed Steel Pier. Roach used a number of unrelated bulldogs to portray Pete in Our Gang until 1938.
Pete became as recognizable and popular as the kids in the gang. Pal the Wonder Dog appeared in Our Gang comedies until 1930, and according to Our Gang member Jean Darling died mysteriously. Urban legend has it that Pal died after someone fed him meat laced with glass. This is completely unproven, and the conventional thinking is that Pal died of natural causes/old age. Lucenay's Peter continued on and died of natural causes in 1946, two years after the Our Gang series ended.
 |
