Circus Fever

In 1936, there was an Our Gang comedy ("Spooky Hooky") where the kids pretended to get sick in order to sneak away to see the circus. Well, the idea wasn't original, as a very similar plot can be found in 1925's "Circus Fever".

When the story begins, the kids learn that the circus will only be in town for one performance...and it will be during their school day. So, Joe, Mickey and Jackie come up with the idea of faking illness in order to sneak off to the circus after they see Pineapple (Ernie's replacement) and Farina (here, playing a girl) will with a weird white-spotted illness. So, the trio paint themselves with red paint and pretend to be sick. Well, not surprisingly, the doctor sees right through this and he and their mothers decide to teach them a lesson.

While I liked the portion of the story involving Joe, Mickey and Jackie, I felt a bit uneasy about the beginning with Pineapple and Farina. While normally I don't see the Our Gang films as being racist (heck, after all, they black kids were friends and equal to their white friends), here there are a couple cheap comments about watermelon and shooting dice. Additionally, their mother clearly is a white guy who's painted black with burnt cork....and it also appears to be a guy! It's hard to defend this other than to say it was a different time and with different attitudes. Still, the rest of the film is cute and well worth seeing.