Don't Lie

This is one of the Rascals shorts that really puts me to shame. What's worse than parents trying to teach kids lessons, than kids trying to teach kids a lesson. Buckwheat is a pathological liar, that's why the gang doesn't believe him when he says he saw a monkey spook at the old haunted house. The gang tells him to leave because he lies so darn much. They decide to dress Froggy as a monkey spook and give Bucky a scare. When they tell to Froggy to hide in the house until Bucky shows up Froggy encounters the actual monkey and is hung up on a coat hook. The gang thinks it's still Froggy, but they get hung up too. A circus manager shows up and explains that thats a monkey that escaped from the circus, and a reward for somewhat finding they get free tickets to the circus. This puts me to shame. This has got to be one of the worse Our Gang shorts. It's odd why Spanky and Buckwheat stayed for so long. Spank stayed for 11 years and Buckwheat stayed til the series ended. Whatever puts money in their pocket the probably thought.

This entertaining short will teach kids that telling lies will get them into alot of trouble, when Buckwheat witnesses a monkey in the haunted house and goes to tell the gang, Spanky, Froggy and Mickey do not believe him, so they dress Froggy, like a monkey to teach Buckwheat, a lesson. When the real monkey shows up, Buckwheat is scared and frightened and runs for his life, and at the end of the short, Buckwheat finally learns his lesson. Just then, a lion shows up and Buckwheat tells the gang, no one believes him, then the lion roars and the gang runs for their lives. This movie is a good educational Our Gang Short.

An OUR GANG Comedy Short.

The Gang is trying to teach Buckwheat to `DON'T LIE.' Well & good, but how is he going to convince them he's just seen a large chimpanzee sitting at the haunted house?

Billy Laughlin as gravelly-voiced Froggy steals the show. Made after MGM got direct control of the Gang, and with the kids themselves noticeably growing up, it bears scant resemblance to the Rascals' classics of yesteryear.

Let's book back to the early years of Buckwheat....

In the Hal Roach days, all Buckwheat had to do (and presumably could do) was spout catch phrases like "here I is" and "O-tay!," while acting as Porky's comrade. His "character" was firmly established.

Then along came the MGM Our Gangs. Apparently, Buckwheat was getting too old for his catch phrases, so he just became just another supporting (and at times peripheral) member of Our Gang. I guess the writers couldn't figure out what to do with him.

Along came "Don't Lie" in which Buckwheat assumed the persona of a scared, bug-eyed, overreactive little guy, especially in the haunted house scenes. Now, of course, nowadays, they couldn't get away with this because it would be politically incorrect today. But at the time Buckwheat was imitating what many Black actors of that time did. And he did it quite well. His best moment is when he first sees the "monkey-faced spook": the camera pans down to a close-up of his feet which run in place for several seconds. Hilarious!

As a whole, this film has a few flaws. One flaw emanates from the unlikelihood that the Gang would be afraid of a chimp (which objectively wasn't all that big and scary). Another problem is that seems strange for the chimp to be wearing a chimp mask over his face. That part was left unexplained. Froggy, dressed as an ape in order to scare Buckwheat straight, does the classic mirror gag with the chimp. The only problem is that it wasn't done in a very funny way. Finally, one gag that should have worked involved the kids who, after seeing a lion, escaped their club house by crashing through a wall leaving cut-outs of themselves behind. So why didn't it work? Because it's obvious these cut-outs were prepared in advance, making the whole joke seem fake.

This short is distinguishable mainly for Buckwheat's performance. He really does a decent job!

This M-G-M comedy short, Don't Lie, is the two hundred sixth entry in the "Our Gang" series and the one hundred eighteenth talkie. Spanky, Mickey, and Froggy hang a portrait of George Washington on their clubhouse wall in order to convince Buckwheat to never tell a lie again. Bucky arrives telling he's just seen a chimpanzee, which he did, but they don't believe him. So to scare him, Froggy dresses as such and hides in the spooky house. I think some quotes from the Leonard Maltin/Richard W. Bann book "The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang" is in order here: "If there's anything worse than an Our Gang comedy with adults trying to teach the kids a lesson, it's an episode with the KIDS trying to teach someone a lesson." "Having hosted several menageries' worth of animals over the years, it seems inconsistent for them to be so frightened of one medium-sized chimp-Spanky, particularly, since he spent many of his early Rascals films sharing scenes with monkeys." Let me add that it's obvious that the "chimp" was actually a human in disguise, making it even more ridiculous. And, finally, this quote: "The finale matches the rest of the film-completely unconvincing, uninteresting, and unfunny." 'Nuff said!