Saturday Morning

Saturday Morning (1922)

** (out of 4)

Early Our Gang short has the kids finding themselves unloved at home so they decide to run away. Their plan doesn't work out too well especially when they decide to go hunting and end up having a baby bear come after them. It's funny but when you discuss this long-running series from Hal Roach you're going to find people who love them and hate them. You might find some who love the silent era Gang but hate the sound era or vice versa. I'm somewhere in the middle but I'm not sure how many people could defend this early film. At just over 15-minutes it's short enough to where you won't get bored but sadly there aren't too many laughs to be found. What we basically have is a fairly simple story of the kids growing tired of the "chores" they have to do on Saturday mornings so they run away. There are a few minor gags here as Mickey (Daniels) doesn't want to take a bath so instead he scrubs down his pet frogs. This, of course, causes his mother to give him a beating, which certainly didn't get any laughs. The second half of the film really doesn't have much happening as we get several scenes of the kids walking around with a bear following. Cute but not funny. Saturday MORNING is certainly worth viewing if you must see every short in the series but there are much better films out there.