Yep. THAT Robert Blake. His birth name is Michael Gubitosi, so his character's name was "Mickey". Mickey was brought in to replace Porky after Eugene Lee, the child actor playing Porky, grew taller than Spanky McFarland in 1939 despite Lee being six years old and Spanky being ten.

Classic radio as well - most of the sitcoms on radio moved right over to TV with the same characters and situations (and the concept of the studio audience laughter/laugh track) in tact.

She wasn't a star when she was in those shorts, of course, and quite a few Our Gang kids went on to become Hollywood stars, either as kids or adults: Jackie Cooper, Scotty Beckett, Philip Hurlic, Dickie Jones, and of course Robert Blake. Spanky McFarland was quite a star in his own right in the 1930s as well.

In the old Fawcett stories, Billy Batson and Captain Marvel are the same person with different personalities (there's one bizarre Christmas story where Billy and Cap are trying to buy each other gifts, and Billy has to keep changing back and forth so that each of them can get through their holiday shopping lists).

If they did this for the original kids from the original Little Rascals/Our Gang shorts, of the ones who played familiar characters, there would really only be three: Robert Blake (Mickey), Sidney Kibrick (Woim), and Jerry Tucker.

Also, people who were 70 years old - aside from seeing MGM Television's Our Gang syndication package on TV - would very well have seen reissues of the MGM Our Gang shorts in theaters, or read Our Gang Comics, which didn't change its name to Tom & Jerry Comics until 1949.

Not exactly. This is long, but exacting.

There are a few other girls in the film with minor parts (and Raven-Symone has a cameo in the film). Darla's the only one who made the poster.

This is actually directly addressed in an issue of "JSA". Atom Smasher asks Black Adam why doesn't he change his name back to "Mighty Adam" (his name as a hero before his corruption) if he really wants to prove to the Justice Society and the world that he's reformed (ha!).

I'm not sure if you read the New 52 story to its conclusion, but it made it quite clear (in my opinion, from page 1, but certainly by the last few installments) that Billy Batson was indeed a good kid at heart, but on who'd had horrible experiences in foster care and orphanages that made him bitter and emotionally…

Warburton would have been a great choice years ago, but at nearly 50 he might be aged out of the part.

It's likely to be separate actors, but whoever gets cast as Billy - if they plan on making it a franchise - will probably be a short/small young adult, like Tobey Maguire (who was damn near 30 playing 16).

The creators of "Scooby-Doo", Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, plainly stated in multiple places that the "Scooby-Doo" kids are based on the "Dobie Gillis" kids, "modified somewhat". Velma as Zelda makes more sense when you see Sheila James wearing an oversized sweater in a few "Dobie" episodes that looks an awful lot like…

The first season and a half is consistently good (and surprisingly well-crafted re: the handling of the narrative and editing). It takes a dive when Dobie and Maynard enter the Army just past the middle of season 2, has more of a standard 60s sitcom feel for season 3, and is, to be kind, a mess during much of season 4.

One of the few shows I own the complete set of. Maynard, Zelda, and "Chastworth Osbourne, Jr., the fourth richest boy in the world!" are three of my favorite TV characters ever, and even a lot of the recurring actors like Tommy Farrell as beatnik record store owner Riff Ryan, Marjorie Bennet as the Gillis' least…

The final 16mm broadcast prints may have been low-res, but, like most sitcoms of the time, "The Addams Family" was shot on standard 35mm black-and-white film, which was later used to make new analog and later digital masters when tape became the preferred broadcast delivery format