User Reviews

This Hal Roach comedy short, Birthday Blues, is the one hundred eighteenth in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series and the thirtieth talkie. Dickie and brother Spanky witness their father being insensitive to their mother for reminding him it's her birthday and makes her send back her dress that arrived C.O.D. So Dickie resolves to buy one from a store but because of the price (which is more than a dollar) he-per Stymie's suggestion-bakes a cake with his friend and puts prizes in it. Some of those prizes were put in unexpectedly by Spank and Jacquie so some of those items were real surprises! I'll stop there and just say this was another hilarious short which is tolerable at the end despite the not-very-believable turnaround by the father but does reflect a wishful thinking that was probably needed during those Depression times. So on that note, I recommend Birthday Blues. P.S. This was Jacquie Lyn's second and final Our Gang short. After her stepfather demanded more money than Hal Roach-or any other studio-could afford or were willing to give, Ms. Lyn simply lived a quiet life for decades before Lois Laurel-in showing home movies of her and Jacquie before Ms. Lyn's movie with Lois' father, Pack Up Your Troubles, was shown on the VHS tape, asked what happened to her and provided the address of the Sons of the Desert on screen. Ms. Lyn saw that and became a treasured guest at the club meetings for a few years before she passed away on March 21, 2002. Oh, and two of Stymie's siblings appear here-sister Carlena and, in his film debut, brother Bobbie as Cotton.

If you're an Our Gang fan, there's no better way to celebrate your birthday than with this classic Birthday Blues from 1932. It features Dickie Moore, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, George "Spanky" McFarland, Dorothy DeBora, Kenneth "Brisbane" McComas and Jackie Lyn Dufton (both their last episode), Bobbi "Cotton" Beard and Pete the Pup. It also includes Hooper Atchley and Lillian Rich, as Dickie and Soanky's parents, alumnae Donald Haines, Mildred Kornman and Edith Fellows, Carlena Beard, Marcia Mar Jones Harry Bernard as the Store manager and a cameo from Gordon Douglas as the Delivery boy. Plot summary: Dickie, Spanky and their parents sit down for breakfast. Spanky is forced to eat mush, which he hates. His father snaps "You'll eat it and like it!" "Well, maybe I'll eat it," Spanky retorts, "but I won't like it!" Dickie feeds Pete some of his sausage. Spanky pretends to be Pete and when Dickie catches on, he adds tobasco sauce to spice them up. Spanky runs to the water cooler! Meanwhile, their parents have an argument. It's their mother Lillian's birthday and John, their father, has forgotten again. When a delivery boy tries delivering a dress she ordered, John refuses it, reducing Lillian to tears. Dickie promises to get Lillian a dress and she kisses him. Later, Dickie and Spanky go to the store and select a 1922 model dress. Unfortunately, they don't have $1.98 to pay for it. Stymie suggests they bake a cake with hidden surprises and sell each piece for 10 cents. So Stymie and Dickie try baking a cake and add objects to the cake like a hairbrush, a whistle and a pipe. Spanky and Jackie add some more objects like bubbles, powder, a snake, a long string and a mouse trap. The cake nearly explodes leaving a mess and makes some crazy noises! So the kids come and pay for the cake. When Dickie has enough collected, he runs to the store and picks up the dress. When he returns, he witnesses some of the kids are angry with some of the prizes and a cake fight erupts! John comes home and witnesses the fight and enraged, immediately throws all the kids out. Then he questions Dickie about inviting the kids and harshly spanks him. Lillian asks why he let all the kids in the house, he confesses he did it so he could afford a dress for her. John and Lillian hug Dickie. The next morning, John apologizes to Dickie and he forgives his Pop. Lillian has decided to wear her new dress to church. She has trouble walking in her new shoes to church, which Dickie says the store owner threw in for free! What I liked: I liked the sound effects of the cake, like "Wawawawa!" and "Weeee-woooowww!"(supposedly the actor who played Soanky's Uncle George in The Kid From Borneo supplied them). I liked Lillian's performance as their mother. She's sweet, cheerful and sensitive. I also liked the transformation of Dickie's father John from a grumpy skinflint to a more loving man. Jackie was cute with her expressions and her accent "Aww doe tow!" Spanky was great with his smart allecky remarks "All I got was a belly ache!" Stymie was great with his suggestions and misinterpreting the baking instructions "Set on stove" and he sits on the stove! Finally, Dickie steals the show as the generous son who wants to please his mother. 9 pieces of cake out of 10!

I thought this was a warm-hearted and funny addition to the Our Gang series of comedy short. In it, a couple of kids find out that it's their mother's birthday, so they decide to throw her a surprise party and bake her a cake, with predictably terrifying results.

The story has an interesting back story with an extremely negative portrayal of the boys' father, given to corporal punishment and aggression throughout. The opening dinner table sequence is my favourite part, particularly that hilarious gag with the Tabasco sauce. The kitchen sequences are full of good-natured slapstick including a nice run of the old 'making a cake' sequence which is as messy as you'd imagine. The child actors work hard in this one and the end result is pleasantly amusing.

. . . and suspenders, shoe laces, bubble bath, loafers, bar soap, hair brushes, mouse traps, gloves, balloons, and Tabasco Sauce, MGM's food stylists strive to top themselves during BIRTHDAY BLUES. Probably HAPPY DEATH DAY's birthday gal thought that her poisoned cupcake was the pits, but she can thank her lucky stars that she did not get an invite to this Little Rascals Party. Our Gang stirs in everything save the kitchen sink amid their cake batter (and the basin omission is not for lack of trying). It's Dickie's mom's natal date, but HE gets the birthday spanks from Dad. Father seems to be a streetcar conductor as of this episode. If so, he's headed down the wrong track by making Mom send her birthday dress back on a Saturday. As sure as God made little green men, the next day is Sunday. Mom insists upon strutting into church adorned in her birthday suit, newly provided by Dickie. Maybe this is a tad more stylish than the emperor's infamous new clothes, but not by very much. Mom's also probably shod in shoes provided by Dickie's BIRTHDAY BLUES cake, which would make the family parade a literal cake walk.

"Birthday Blues" is an American black-and-white film from 1932, so still relatively the early days of sound film and one of the dominating (recurring) forces in film back then were the Little Rascals and here we have another film with the that runs for slightly under 20 minutes as they mostly do. The title already gives away that it is birthday time, but not for one of the Rascals, but for his mother actually. And it's Dickie's. The Rascals shorts frequently have one member of the gang in the center and this time it is him, one of the few (male) Rascals who led a life that wasn't cut really short for whatever unnatural reason. Dickie wants to get his mother a present as his dad seems to be ignoring her (birthday) completely. Kind boy he is. But things are not always the way they seem as the ending tells us. The best moment of it all by today's standards is when we hear how they considered 2 dollars (or 1,99) a decent amount of money. O tempora, o mores. Anyway, I personally am not the very biggest rascals fan and this one here could not change it for me. Hasn't aged too well in my opinion sadly, especially in terms of the comedy. And boy this one had a few annoying sound effects really. How could anyone find these funny. I give it a thumbs-down. Watch something else instead.