Author Archive: Retro

The kids in the tenements have no place to play except in streets where traffic is a hazard. Mickey gets the idea of building barricades to give our gang space to play at an intersection, but a beat cop, the nasty “Hard-Boiled” McManus, puts a quick end to that. A sympathetic constable and a detective who has kids of his own give our gang a chance to help law enforcement. The little rascals wear uniforms and keep an eye on things: Joe, for instance, eyes the bananas at Tony’s fruit stand. When the now-fired McManus returns and seeks revenge, the junior police force and their adult colleagues are put to the test.

An unethical merchant moves into town and steals customers from the widowed owner of an established store; the gang steps in to help.

The kids are playing baseball when a man dressed in Middle-Eastern clothing comes out and tells them to be quiet. They join Mary, Farina, and Scooter in the gang’s hide-out while Mary is reading ghost stories. While on the other side of the wall, the Arab-looking man is cheating people out of their money by staging a fake séance using state-of-the-art special effects. The cave entrance for the gang’s hide-out collapses, so they light candles and dig into the wall, entering into the house. Those, he deceived realize they are being cheated and run to get the police to catch and book the criminals. One criminal finds out that the kids are in the house, and dresses up in a ghost costume and chases the kids throughout the house.

Farina has a nightmare in which he is chased around by giant versions of the gang.

A kindly old schoolteacher helps the gang escape from a cruel boarding school, but they wind up in a bootlegger’s booby-trapped house.

After Farina and Joe’s dog Oleander is taken to the pound, the kids have to raise enough money to rescue him.

The gang wages war using old vegetables as munitions. Later, they ruin a movie in progress when they double-expose the film.