11 July 2026

The Facts Behind the First News Stories about an “Our Gang Curse”

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My last two postings have posited that the long-lived public discussion of an “Our Gang curse” started with a couple of wire-service artic...
10 July 2026

“Possibly the most pathetic group of Hollywood ‘has-beens’”

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Yesterday I quoted the February 1959 story from the the Associated Press’s Hollywood columnist Bob Thomas that began: The recent deaths of ...
09 July 2026

“Death has taken a second former member of the ‘Our Gang’ movie comedy cast”

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Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer died of a gunshot wound during a fight on 21 Jan 1959. Switzer had been a big star in the Our Gang film series from...
03 July 2026

Credit Where It’s Due

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I view the public discussion over fair credit for Rachel Hope Cleves’s Charity and Sylvia in Tillie Walden’s Charity and Sylvia from a pa...
02 July 2026

Can This Marriage Be Saved?

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On 1 July, the Comics Beat published an article about the disagreement over fair credit for Rachel Hope Cleves’s Charity and Sylvia in Ti...
01 July 2026

“The possibility of rendering Bryant and Drake’s relationship in a graphic novel”

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Looking at the history of the new Charity and Sylvia graphic novel by Tillie Walden might shed light on the brewing controversy over its d...
30 June 2026

Two Takes on Charity and Sylvia

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In recent years, publishers have worked with historians to adapt their scholarly studies into other types of books, more welcoming to teena...
04 June 2026

“Expands into a fluffy cloud when microwaved”

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In yesterday’s New Yorker crossword puzzle, clue 27 Down was: Brand-name bath bar that expands into a fluffy cloud when microwaved I’ve a...
22 May 2026

Ernie Morrison’s Tutor, Miss Zenobia Frierson

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I first mentioned that Ernie Morrison had an individual tutor while he worked at the Hal Roach Studio back here . At that time, I knew tha...
11 May 2026

“The following routine hardly constitutes a ‘vacation’”

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In March 1924, for the first time in more than six years, eleven-year-old Ernie Morrison didn’t have a movie to make. He had no call time ...