This is my opinion of “Pete’s Big Break”, an episode of the animated Little Rascals television series, produced jointly by Hanna-Barbera and King World. Ron Kurer has encoded it in RealVideo (from a noncommercial VHS recording of an ABC-TV broadcast, obviously, since the Little Rascals cartoons to my knowledge have not been sold on VHS or DVD) and allowed me to place a copy on my site.
For the sake of authenticity, I really should have used the Capone Medium font on the Little Rascals title image at the top of this page. But because Capone Medium is a commercial font, I have used the 20th Century Font by Ray Larabie.
I know of a Shockwave game that would be a suitable companion to this cartoon. The idea of the game is that a dog has buried five oddly shaped bones in a lawn, and the player uses the mouse to unearth the bones while leaving as few holes as possible.
Summary: After Pete rescues a puppy from a stream, he and the kids are invited to appear in a live television commercial for Castle brand dog food. Unfortunately, Pete eats so much dog food during rehearsal that Alfalfa must substitute for him.
Comments: Considering that this portion of my site is a celebration of the life and career of Patty Maloney, this particular cartoon does not give Darla Hood enough screen time. A better choice would have been either “Beauty Queen for a Day”, in which Darla enters a pageant to oppose the new girl in town (Patty in a dual role!), or “Trash Can Treasures”, in which Darla adopts a stray horse.
Due to deteriorating 20-year-old videotape, the esthetic quality suffers also: The animation is watchable, but the audio is not very good. The few times Darla speaks, she is barely more intelligible than Porky. To think that Darla was one of Patty’s most plausible roles!
Final Word: After more than two decades without Alfalfa, Darla and Spanky, this is better than nothing. Cartoon Network missed its opportunity in 1994 when the live-action feature film was released, so CN should negotiate with Hallmark or King World for the cable TV rights to the Little Rascals cartoon series. I hope Mr. Kurer is able to make a RealVideo file of an episode that features Darla more prominently. Anyone for Patty’s non-animated series Short Ribbs or A.J.’s Time Travelers?