At least they could have recognized some of the living legends surviving from the first films.” “They have no respect for the old-timers. “It’s real cold,” he says of Universal’s attitude. They could have had us at least sitting around, or just walking by. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but there’s a lot of us still around. I called for months, when I first heard about it. “I called the studio, casting, whatever, told them who I was, offered to be a consultant or something, nothing happened. “I tried to get in touch with them,” Jackson says with a note of indignity.

He replies with an emphatic “no” when asked if he’d been contacted by Universal to participate in the film. Jackson lives in Compton, where he has a stage workshop, continues to get small roles in films and television and performs as a jazz musician.

One survivor, Eugene Jackson, 77, was the original Pineapple from the silent Our Gang comedies (1924-26). Roach himself nearly outlived them all, succumbing in November, 1992, at the age of 100. McFarland, a Texas businessman who had enjoyed a revival in celebrity for his childhood role as the plucky, chubby president of the He-Man Womun Haters Club, died of a heart attack in June, 1993, at age 65. The best-known cast members, Carl (Alfalfa) Switzer, Darla Hood, William (Buckwheat) Thomas and George (Spanky) McFarland, have died. The list of Gang graduates includes the famous-actors Jackie Cooper and Robert Blake-and other players who long ago gave up show business. As a result, Satterfield’s group maintains an extensive network of contacts with the surviving Gangsters. “I’d say they were a little ticked off, especially since it’s a group that’s been so faithful to the memory of the original films.”īecause Hal Roach produced Laurel and Hardy as well as the Gang, the child actors were used in the comedy team’s films. “None of the original Rascals were included,” says Bob Satterfield, a former Grand Sheik of the Sons of the Desert, a group of Laurel and Hardy film buffs. The omission is doubly hurtful, the surviving cast members say, because the new film was directed by Penelope Spheeris, who made such a point in her last film, “The Beverly Hillbillies,” of including TV-show star Buddy Ebsen in the film. However, it’s their nickel, they can do what they want to do.”

“He contacted (the studio) and was invited down to visit the set, but he felt they didn’t want us involved. (son of the late Bill (Buckwheat) Thomas), who’s a police officer in Los Angeles,” Bond says. Bond is also known for his role as Jimmy Olson in two late ‘40s Superman serials, before leaving acting for production. Bond, now 68 and a retired television production executive living in Madeira, Calif., is currently touring for his newly published book of memoirs, “Darn Right It’s Butch,” and publicizing Cabin Fever Home Video’s release of 48 restored “Our Gang” episodes.

The cast of the original little rascals