Robot Wrecks

Robot Wrecks should have been a great Our Gang entry--- the basic idea of building kid's robot slave in the days soon after the World of Tomorrow sounds pretty cool. Alas, sounds can be deceiving. Robot Wrecks blows the premise by bastardizing the robot by stuffing it with Billy Ray "Boxcar" Smith and allegedly fueling it with "invisible rays" and then selling it to one of their usual foes, Freddie "Slicker" Walburn (who's atypically gullible here). Voices are obviously dubbed, the acting is excruciating to watch and the only remotely funny aspect is that the writers could get even kids to recite the dialog (blame Hal Law and Robert A. McGowan). Sadly, future MGM Our Gangs would rival this deplorable production. If I could give this less than 0 stars I would.

ROBOT WRECKS is a mediocre entry in the "Our Gang" series, made during the declining years of the once excellent short comedies. The aging "second generation" cast members look awkward, particularly Spanky McFarland, who is really too old to portray a kid. The plot is according to a well-worn formula, with the gang building their own backyard version of something they have seen. It's all familiar, with predictable results. The studio was trying to introduce another new generation of child actors to the series during this time period, but the originality of the characters seen in the earlier films just wasn't there. The best examples of the earlier films (1930's era) featured the gang doing their thing without any adult presence in evidence. The 1940's films are full of adult characters, and their presence is a big detraction. If you want to catch the true peak of the series, watch the films made from 1929 through the mid 1930's, and don't bother with later series entries.

Our Gang is at a department store watching a robot demonstration. The robot, Volto, pushes a lawn mower around. The kids decide to make their own robot. Slicker tricks the kids and sells them a box of invisible rays. Slicker's friend Boxcar had put on the robot costume and pretended to make it work.

It's an Our Gang short. It's not anything special but it has an easy charm. I don't know why a department store would do a fake demonstration of the robot. Are they selling robots? The demonstration should have been about the appliances. The robot should have been a side show. Quite frankly, it should have been a giant rudimentary toy robots. The presenter could get frustrated with Our Gang and kick them out of the store. That would be a good catalyst for them to make their own robot. The rest is good kiddie fun.

Hoping to get out of doing chores, Spanky, Froggy, Buckwheat and the rest of the gang build a robot, but their mechanical man doesn't work until Slicker sells them some invisible 'magic-rays', which eventually prompts the automaton to run amuck. Typical 'Our Gang' hijinks. The best part is the complex (and heavily armed) protocols necessary to access and transport the wealth contained in the 'Club Treszuree', the price of Slicker's help. A moderately funny entry with some of the better known 'Rascals' from the end of the long running, constantly changing, series of comic shorts. Billy Laughlin (Froggy) was a one-of a-kind talent, too bad he died so young.

It's kind of neat that when kids see something they find fascinating, they decide to duplicate it, in their own kid way. Here it is a robot that catches their eyes. They decide they can gather some junk and make their own. Soon, one of the older kids gets the idea of conning them into thinking they can sell an invisible substance that will make the mechanical man work. Of course, Boxcar, the toady to the big guy, is inside and he goes berserk. They are made to pay a price and shown that what they did was lazy. Actually, what they did was creative and imaginative, even though they got bilked.