Big Ears is a 1931 Our Gang

Our Gang

Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...

short

Short subject

A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

 comedy film

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 directed by Robert F. McGowan

Robert F. McGowan

Robert Francis McGowan was an American film director and producer, best known as the senior director of the Our Gang short subjects film series from 1922 until 1933.-Career:...

. It was the 108th (20th) Our Gang short that was released.

Plot

Wheezer's mother and father continue to fight in an unconvincing and thoroughly hammy fashion over many different silly things, such as the coffee being too cold or the toast being burned. Wheezer overhears his father telling his mother that he is getting her a divorce. Not knowing what a divorce is, Wheezer tells Stymie, Dorothy, and Sherwood. They speculate on what a divorce means, at one point deciding it might be something good. Then Donald tells the gang what a divorce is, and people start sobbing. He even tells Wheezer that he will have no father anymore. His mother might either remarry and give him a stepfather and states that his step father beats him regularly. He also says that maybe his mother will throw him into an orphanage and not want him anymore.

Wheezer is frightened so he concocts a plot to make himself abominably sick so that his parents will come together out of concern from him. Wheezer visits a bathroom and his friends pour all the medicine in the medicine cabinet down his throat to make him ill, along with amounts of lard. He indeed gets sick and his plan presumably works. His parents kiss and make up and promise to never fight again and that they love Wheezer very much.

Cast

• Bobby Hutchins - Wheezer
• Matthew Beard - Stymie
• Dorothy DeBorba
  Dorothy DeBorba
  Dorothy Adelle DeBorba was an American former child actress who was a regular in the Our Gang series of short subjects as the leading lady from 1930 to 1933.-Early life:...
  
   - Dorothy
• Sherwood Bailey
  Sherwood Bailey
  Sherwood Bailey was an American former child actor. His parents were non-professionals. He is most notable for appearing as the red-headed, freckle-faced bad boy and enemy of the gang, Spud in the Our Gang short subjects series from 1931 to 1932.Bailey's most notable appearance was that of the...
  
   - Spud
• Donald Haines
  Donald Haines
  Donald Haines was an American child actor who had recurring appearances in the Our Gang short subjects series from 1929 to 1933.-Our Gang:...
  
   - Donald
• Pete the Pup
  Pete the Pup
  Pete the Pup was a Pit Bull character in Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies during the 1920s and 1930s...
  
   - Himself
• Ann Christy
  Ann Christy
  Ann Christy was an American motion picture actress.-Career:Born Gladys Cronin in Logansport, Indiana, Christy left Indiana and relocated to California where she attended Polytechnic High School in Los Angeles. With plan to pursue a career in business, Christy was persuaded by her friends to try...
  
   - Wheezer's mother
• Creighton Hale
  Creighton Hale
  Creighton Hale was an Irish-born American movie actor who worked in the silent film era.-Career:While starring in Charles Frohman's Broadway production of Indian Summer, Hale was spotted by a representative of the Pathe Film Company...
  
   - Wheezer's father
• Gordon Douglas
  Gordon Douglas (director)
  Gordon Douglas was an American film director, who directed many different genres of films over the course of a five-decade career in motion pictures. He was a native of New York City.-Hal Roach and Our Gang:...
  
   - Orderly
• Wilfred Lucas
  Wilfred Lucas
  Wilfred Lucas was a Canadian stage and film actor, film director, and screenwriter.-Career:A native of Ontario, Canada, Lucas headed to New York City to work in the theater, making his Broadway acting debut in 1904 at the Savoy Theater in the production of The Superstition of Sue...
  
   - Doctor
• Johnnie Mae Beard - Stymie's mother
• Dickie Jackson - Kid at hospital (scene deleted)