Few theme songs are as easy to hum as the bouncy “Good Old Days” tune that opened every episode. Hal Roach launched his Our Gang comedies in 1922, and the shorts ran until 1944. When they reached television in the 1950s under the name The Little Rascals, a whole new generation fell for Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla and Buckwheat. Afternoons after school were never quite the same.
What made those films special was how real the kids felt. They squabbled and schemed. They formed clubs and built rickety go-carts, and they always looked out for one another. Here is what became of the Little Rascals cast after the cameras stopped, and the answer to the question fans still ask most.
Is Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer still alive?
With his famous cowlick and his off-key crooning, Alfalfa was the gang’s lovesick lead from 1935 to 1940. Carl Switzer left the series at 12 and kept working in films such as Going My Way and It’s a Wonderful Life. He also had six appearances on The Roy Rogers Show. His final film role came in The Defiant Ones in 1958. Away from the screen, he bred hunting dogs and worked as a hunting guide. His clients reportedly included Roy Rogers and James Stewart.
Switzer died on January 21, 1959, at just 31. According to Wikipedia and HISTORY.com, he was shot during a dispute over $50 he had spent recovering a lost hunting dog. A jury ruled the shooting justifiable homicide.
Is Darla Hood still alive?
Darla was the dark-haired sweetheart every boy in the clubhouse wanted to impress. She joined in 1935 and stayed until 1941. As a teenager, Darla Hood formed a vocal group called the Enchanters, and she later sang in nightclubs and on television. Her voice turned up in commercials for Campbell’s Soup and Chicken of the Sea. In one of her last jobs, she voiced the mother of Spanky and Porky in The Little Rascals Christmas Special, which aired in 1979.
Hood died on June 13, 1979, at 47. She had undergone an appendectomy, and an autopsy found she had contracted hepatitis from a blood transfusion during the operation.
Is Allen “Farina” Hoskins still alive?
Farina was one of the gang’s original stars of the silent era, appearing from 1922 to 1931. Allen Hoskins aged out at about 11 and toured in vaudeville with his sister. He served in the Army in the Pacific during World War II.
Hoskins left Hollywood in 1952 and built a meaningful second career helping people with disabilities through sheltered workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1975, he was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. He died in Oakland on July 26, 1980, at 59.
Is Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas still alive?
Buckwheat’s “O-tay!” became one of the most quoted lines in the whole series. Billie Thomas stayed with Our Gang from 1934 to 1944, a full decade. He served in the Army from 1954 to 1956. After that, he chose a steady life behind the camera as a film lab technician at Technicolor, where he worked on reels for Jaws. He said acting had felt like a “rat race” with no security.
Thomas died of a heart attack at his Los Angeles home on October 10, 1980. He was 49. Just a few months earlier, fans at a Sons of the Desert gathering had given him a standing ovation that moved him to tears.
Is Matthew “Stymie” Beard still alive?
Stymie, with his trademark bowler hat, was a fan favorite from 1930 to 1935. Matthew Beard struggled after the roles dried up. He battled heroin addiction for years before finding recovery at the Synanon program in the 1960s, and he later spoke to others about drug abuse.
His comeback in the 1970s included a recurring role as Monty on Good Times. Beard died in Los Angeles on January 8, 1981, one week after his 56th birthday.
Is George “Spanky” McFarland still alive?
Spanky led the gang from 1932 to 1942, appearing in roughly 95 of the films. George McFarland joined the Air Force in 1952. Typecasting made acting work hard to find when he came home, so he took jobs at a soft drink plant and a popsicle factory. He went on to host The Spanky Show on a Tulsa TV station in the 1950s. Later he rose to national sales training director at Philco-Ford, and in 1985 he helped launch The Nostalgia Channel.
A close friend shared the story of Spanky’s later years with this site. McFarland made his last TV appearance as himself on Cheers in 1993. He died suddenly at his home in Grapevine, Texas, on June 30, 1993, at 64, reportedly of a heart attack. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the following year.
Are Joe Cobb and Jackie Condon still alive?
These two were mainstays of the silent years. Joe Cobb was the gang’s chubby, good-natured kid from 1923 to 1929, and Jackie Condon appeared in every one of the Pathé silents. Condon graduated from Hollywood High School in 1936. Both men later worked at Rockwell International. Cobb was an assembler at its North American Aviation division until he retired in 1981.
Condon died of colon cancer on October 13, 1977, at 59. That makes today the 49th anniversary of his passing. Cobb died on May 21, 2002, in Santa Ana, California, at 85.
Is Mary Ann Jackson still alive?
Mary Ann Jackson made 32 films with the gang between 1928 and 1931. She walked away from Hollywood as a child and later worked at the May Company department store in Los Angeles. She raised two children in the San Fernando Valley.
In 1990, she learned that Jackie Cooper had nursed a big crush on her while they filmed together. Jackson died of a heart attack at home on December 17, 2003. She was 80.
Is Tommy “Butch” Bond still alive?
Tommy Bond first played a regular kid named Tommy, then came back in 1937 as Butch, the bully who made Alfalfa’s life miserable. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he became the first actor ever to play Jimmy Olsen in the 1948 Superman serial. All told, he turned up in 27 of the shorts.
Bond later spent decades as a television director and producer. He died of complications from heart disease on September 24, 2005, eight days after turning 79.
Is Eugene “Porky” Lee still alive?
Porky was Spanky’s little sidekick, best remembered for his “Otay!” duets with Buckwheat. Eugene Lee appeared from 1935 to 1939, then went to public school and grew up as Gordon Lee. He became an educator at an alternative high school in Colorado.
In the 1980s, he started appearing at Little Rascals reunions and greeting fans. Lee died in a Minneapolis nursing home on October 16, 2005, at 71. His 72nd birthday was nine days away.
Is Jackie Cooper still alive?
Jackie Cooper was in 15 shorts between 1929 and 1931 before the movie Skippy made him the youngest Best Actor nominee in Oscar history, at age nine. He went on to star in the sitcom Hennesey and won two Emmys for directing episodes of M*A*S*H and The White Shadow. He also served in the Navy during World War II and stayed in the reserve until 1982, retiring as a captain. A new generation knew him as Perry White in the Superman films.
According to the Bangor Daily News, Cooper died on May 3, 2011, after a brief illness. He was 88.
Is Robert Blake still alive?
Long before he was a TV detective, Robert Blake was a kid named Mickey Gubitosi. He played Mickey in 40 of the MGM shorts from 1939 to 1944 and became the series’ final lead character. He broke through as a grown actor in In Cold Blood and won an Emmy for Baretta.
His later life was marked by the 2001 death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. Blake was acquitted of her murder in 2005, though a civil jury later found him liable. He died of heart disease on March 9, 2023, at 89.
Is Sidney Kibrick still alive?
Sidney Kibrick played Woim, the loyal sidekick of Butch the bully. He made his debut in the 1935 short “Anniversary Trouble,” alongside his older brother Leonard and future Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel. He also acted with Shirley Temple in Just Around the Corner. Still, he left acting by the time he was 15. He studied at USC and built a long career as a real estate developer in Southern California.
Kibrick was the last of them. According to FOX 11 Los Angeles, citing The Hollywood Reporter, he died at a hospital in Northridge, California, on January 3, 2026. He was 97, and his daughter confirmed the news. His passing means no member of the featured Our Gang cast is still living.
One more thread closed this year. Margaret Kerry, who danced in three Our Gang shorts as a little girl and later became Disney’s live-action model for Tinker Bell, died on June 11, 2026, at 97. The gang is gone now, but every rerun still finds new kids ready to join the club.
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