Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
60 free Little Rascals trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Hal Roach got the idea for Our Gang in 1921 while watching some kids argue over sticks of wood in a lumberyard, and the series he built from it ran for 220 shorts, two studios and 22 years before becoming The Little Rascals in TV syndication. This Little Rascals trivia quiz covers all of it: the silent-era gang of Sunshine Sammy and Farina, the sound-era stars Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Darla and Porky, Petey the Pup and his painted eye ring, and the 1994 Penelope Spheeris film with its go-kart called The Blur. Some questions are easy: what the little kids said instead of 'okay', which club Spanky ran, who played Alfalfa's date in It's a Wonderful Life. Others go deeper: which short won the series its only Oscar, what MGM paid for the whole franchise in 1938, which British comic ran a licensed strip, and how much the child stars were paid in residuals for decades of reruns (the answer is not a happy one). Every answer has been checked against a source and each question shows its citation and a short explanation once you answer. Otay?
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which producer, also behind Laurel and Hardy, created the series after watching kids argue over sticks?
Hal Roach
He had just auditioned a child actress he thought was over-rehearsed and over-made-up, and decided a series of kids being themselves would work better.
Q 02In which year was the first short in the series released?
1922
One Terrible Day, actually the fourth short made, reached theatres first on 10 September; the pilot titled Our Gang followed in November.
Q 03How many short films were made over the series' 22-year run?
220
There was also one feature spin-off, General Spanky, and more than 41 children served as regular cast members over the years.
Q 04Which company distributed the silent shorts before Roach switched to MGM in 1927?
Pathé
The MGM deal brought bigger budgets and packaging with MGM features for the Loews theatre chain.
Q 05For how much did Roach sell the whole production unit, name and contracts to MGM in May 1938?
$25,000
MGM did not want the series to end when it split with Roach, so it bought the property outright and kept making shorts until 1944.
Q 06Which former fireman directed most of the shorts until 1933, encouraging the kids to improvise?
Robert F. McGowan
The children rarely saw scripts; he explained each scene just before shooting and gave directions through a megaphone.
Q 07Which future director of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington wrote for Roach's comedy shorts?
Frank Capra
Leo McCarey, Walter Lantz and Frank Tashlin also passed through the writing room at various times.
Q 08Which two future child megastars auditioned for the series but never got past the audition stage?
Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple
Rooney went on to star in the rival Mickey McGuire shorts, the series' main competitor.
Q 09Which cast member, billed as Sunshine Sammy, was Hollywood's first Black long-term contract actor?
Ernie Morrison
A solo series about his character was cancelled after one short because theatre owners were wary, and he became a focus of the new gang instead.
Q 10How were the actors who played Chubby, Stymie and Buckwheat all recruited?
They won large-scale talent contests
Thousands of children auditioned in national contests as older cast members aged out; each of the three replaced a departing regular.
Q 11What was the gang's famous ring-eyed dog originally named when he joined the cast?
Pansy
He was an American Pit Bull Terrier who soon became known as Pete the Pup, the series' most famous pet.
Q 12Which Hollywood makeup artist is credited with applying the ring around Pete the Pup's eye?
Max Factor
The first dog, Pal, was born with a ring three-quarters of the way round one eye; later dogs needed the whole thing painted on.
Q 13Before playing Pete, the dog Pal the Wonder Dog played Tige in which rival kids' comedy series?
Buster Brown
Roach later poached that series' director Gus Meins too; Pal also appeared in Harold Lloyd's The Freshman as a puppy.
Q 21In which state was Spanky McFarland born?
Texas
He was born in Dallas in 1928, and a cenotaph for him has been approved at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
Q 22According to McFarland himself, who actually gave him the nickname Spanky?
A Los Angeles newspaper reporter
The popular story about his mother threatening a spanking in Roach's office is one he flatly contradicted.
Q 23Spanky McFarland's final television appearance in 1993 was a cameo in the cold open of which sitcom?
Cheers
The episode was 'Woody Gets an Election'; he died that June, and a Walk of Fame star followed posthumously in January 1994.
Q 14What was the title of the series' first sound short, released in April 1929?
Small Talk
It ran 25 minutes, and it took McGowan and the kids about a year to fully adjust to talking pictures.
Q 15Leroy Shield originally composed the theme 'Good Old Days' for which Laurel and Hardy feature?
Pardon Us
With its saxophone solo it served as the series' theme from 1930 until 1938.
Q 16In Teacher's Pet, School's Out and Love Business, Jackie Cooper's character has a crush on which teacher?
Miss Crabtree
June Marlowe played her; Cooper soon left to star in Paramount's Skippy and Roach sold his contract to MGM.
Q 17Alumnus Jackie Cooper is best known to later audiences for playing which character in the Superman films?
Perry White
He also directed episodes of M*A*S*H and Superboy and pursued a parallel career as a U.S. Navy officer.
Q 18Which gang bully later played Jimmy Olsen in two 1940s Superman serials?
Tommy Bond
He was an intermittent gang member from 1932 and returned as the bully in the 1937 short Glove Taps.
Q 19How old was George McFarland when he joined the gang as Spanky late in 1931?
3
He stayed 11 years, becoming the series' biggest star and popularising 'Okey-dokey!'
Q 20As a toddler, George McFarland appeared on hometown billboards advertising what?
Wonder Bread
He also modelled children's clothing for a department store, so he was used to cameras before he ever met Roach.
Q 24Which two alumni are the only ones to have received stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
Jackie Cooper and Spanky McFarland
McFarland's came posthumously in 1994; most of the children got nothing beyond their weekly salaries.
Q 25Where were brothers Carl and Harold Switzer performing when Roach discovered them in 1934?
In the studio's public cafeteria
The Illinois family were sightseeing; after the tour, the boys launched an impromptu act in the Our Gang Café and Roach signed both.
Q 26Carl Switzer was actually an experienced singer. How was Alfalfa's squeaky, off-key singing achieved?
The accompaniment was played slightly above his range
He was usually handed Bing Crosby and Pinky Tomlin numbers and made to strain for the high notes.
Q 27Which on-screen nemesis was Carl Switzer's best friend among the cast off camera?
Butch
The two got on, he said, because 'neither of us could replace the other'; it was their fathers who feuded over screen time and pay.
Q 28In which 1946 classic does Carl Switzer appear as Donna Reed's date at a high-school dance?
It's a Wonderful Life
He was typecast after the series, appearing mostly in bit parts and B-movies before becoming a dog breeder and hunting guide.
Q 29Carl Switzer's 1959 death got little coverage because he died the same day as which director?
Cecil B. DeMille
Switzer had appeared uncredited as a slave in one of the director's last films, The Ten Commandments.
Q 30What garbled catchphrase, first uttered by Porky, became the trademark of the gang's 'little kids' team?
O-tay!
Both boys had speech impediments as small children, and their tag-along team regularly outsmarted the big kids.