This has to be one of my favorite later "Our Gangs," too.
To be sure, the funniest scenes are when: (1) the chickens swallow the jumping beans (how were they able to hop in the air like that?); (2) when Buckwheat thinks the cow can automatically put milk in the bottle and keeps waiting; (3) when Froggy rides the mule and thinks it's a horse (in fast motion) and then when the mule bucks Froggy off its back in slow motion; and (4) the hay-baler finale (I also thought it was funny when the mule saw each kid in a bale and the question mark was superimposed over its head).
Again, movie critics Leonard Maltin and Richard Bann's "dissing" of this short in their 1992 "Little Rascals" book only made watching "Farm Hands" even funnier; especially hilarious was when they claimed "(Director) Herbert Glazer (seemed to be) afraid of a little slapstick humor" and "(Glazer didn't want to) use the hay baler for an impossible but broadly funny kind of gag (but was) perfectly willing to use under-cranking to make the mule, and kids, run at double speed. This was MGM's idea of good clean comedy." Well, maybe it was, but in this case the comedy hit the bullseye!
The only debit, however, was when Mickey fell into the well. Indeed, that could've been made better by a splashing sound effect and water flying out of the well itself; that definitely *would* have added some comic punctuation.
One funny thought: When home computers were just starting to become popular in the mid-1990's, Apple, Dell, HP, or Gateway should have contracted with Ted Turner to use the last two scenes of "Farm Hands" for a commercial. When Mickey's uncle said, "Children! Come on back!," the last scene where the kids were running away in the hay bales could have been dubbed with them saying, "We'll send you an e-mail!," and maybe ending with a tag line saying "....it's better and faster than writing." So why didn't you think of that, Madison Avenue?
I'm glad Warner Home Video finally got this and the other MGM-produced "Our Gangs" (including the bad ones, alas) on DVD in their "Warner Archive" collection. The first chance I have a spare $40, I hope to purchase a copy (that'd mean I'd have to jump over the bad ones anyway; I asked Warner if it was possible to delete three shorts but they claimed it couldn't be done because "the masters are from original copies" (meaning, all 52 shorts were spliced together on one giant-sized reel? *BULL!*). Still, it would be worth it to see only the *good* shorts like this one).
I give "Farm Hands" an 8. Enjoy!
To be sure, the funniest scenes are when: (1) the chickens swallow the jumping beans (how were they able to hop in the air like that?); (2) when Buckwheat thinks the cow can automatically put milk in the bottle and keeps waiting; (3) when Froggy rides the mule and thinks it's a horse (in fast motion) and then when the mule bucks Froggy off its back in slow motion; and (4) the hay-baler finale (I also thought it was funny when the mule saw each kid in a bale and the question mark was superimposed over its head).
Again, movie critics Leonard Maltin and Richard Bann's "dissing" of this short in their 1992 "Little Rascals" book only made watching "Farm Hands" even funnier; especially hilarious was when they claimed "(Director) Herbert Glazer (seemed to be) afraid of a little slapstick humor" and "(Glazer didn't want to) use the hay baler for an impossible but broadly funny kind of gag (but was) perfectly willing to use under-cranking to make the mule, and kids, run at double speed. This was MGM's idea of good clean comedy." Well, maybe it was, but in this case the comedy hit the bullseye!
The only debit, however, was when Mickey fell into the well. Indeed, that could've been made better by a splashing sound effect and water flying out of the well itself; that definitely *would* have added some comic punctuation.
One funny thought: When home computers were just starting to become popular in the mid-1990's, Apple, Dell, HP, or Gateway should have contracted with Ted Turner to use the last two scenes of "Farm Hands" for a commercial. When Mickey's uncle said, "Children! Come on back!," the last scene where the kids were running away in the hay bales could have been dubbed with them saying, "We'll send you an e-mail!," and maybe ending with a tag line saying "....it's better and faster than writing." So why didn't you think of that, Madison Avenue?
I'm glad Warner Home Video finally got this and the other MGM-produced "Our Gangs" (including the bad ones, alas) on DVD in their "Warner Archive" collection. The first chance I have a spare $40, I hope to purchase a copy (that'd mean I'd have to jump over the bad ones anyway; I asked Warner if it was possible to delete three shorts but they claimed it couldn't be done because "the masters are from original copies" (meaning, all 52 shorts were spliced together on one giant-sized reel? *BULL!*). Still, it would be worth it to see only the *good* shorts like this one).
I give "Farm Hands" an 8. Enjoy!