The Little Rascals (1994)

Hal Roach's Our Gang shorts of the 1920s, '30s and '40s had been running on television as The Little Rascals for decades when Amblin Entertainment brought the characters back as a feature. Penelope Spheeris directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Guay and Stephen Mazur, the first collaboration for a pair who went on to write Liar Liar and Heartbreakers. The film keeps the gang in an updated setting and re-stages several of the original shorts, with Travis Tedford as Spanky, Bug Hall as Alfalfa, Brittany Ashton Holmes as Darla, Kevin Jamal Woods as Stymie, Ross Elliot Bagley as Buckwheat, Zachary Mabry as Porky, Courtland Mead as Uh-Huh and Jordan Warkol as Froggy, his croak dubbed by E. G. Daily.

The story is the club versus romance. Spanky is president of the He-Man Womun Haters Club, misspelled on the sign, and Alfalfa has been chosen to drive The Blur, the club's undefeated go-kart, in the annual Soap Box Derby-style race. Instead he is caught with Darla, the members' sabotage burns the clubhouse down, and the lumber to rebuild costs $450, which Porky and Buckwheat somehow turn into $500. Bullies Butch and Woim steal The Blur, so the gang builds The Blur 2: The Sequel; Spanky and Alfalfa reconcile, ride it together and win by the width of Alfalfa's cowlick in a photo finish. The trophy is handed over by A.J. Ferguson, "the greatest racer of all," who turns out to be a woman, played by Reba McEntire, and the sign gets "Women Welcome" painted underneath. The grown-up cameos are a parade: Mel Brooks as a stingy bank teller, Daryl Hannah as Miss Crabtree, Whoopi Goldberg as Buckwheat's mother, Donald Trump as the rich kid Waldo's father, Raven-Symoné as Stymie's girlfriend, and the Olsen twins at Darla's sleepover.

The surviving original Rascals were not part of it. Bill Thomas Jr., son of the original Buckwheat, visited the set and came away feeling the filmmakers wanted none of the old cast involved. Eugene Jackson, the silent-era Pineapple, said: "It's real cold. They have no respect for the old-timers."

The Little Rascals opened to $10 million, fourth behind Clear and Present Danger, The Mask and Forrest Gump, and finished with $52 million domestic and $67.3 million worldwide. Variety's Brian Lowry wondered "whether an audience exists beyond nostalgic parents and their young children," and the Washington Post's Desson Howe called it "a see-through marketing impulse more than a creative venture"; Entertainment Weekly's Glenn Kenny found it "not half bad" and "a minor delight." Audiences gave it an A-minus CinemaScore, the 1995 VHS did the rest, and a direct-to-video sequel, The Little Rascals Save the Day, followed twenty years later.