Author Archive: Retro

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.

The gang forms a fire department; they end up thwarting a bootlegger, but not before their pet animals get drunk on his moonshine.

The gang’s teacher (James Finlayson) is trying to win a trip to Europe. He does win, but the gang accompanies him as well, which causes his trip to become a nightmare. The group treks through Venice, Rome, Pompeii, Naples, and London. Finally, the entourage ends up in Paris, where Farina manages to falls off the side of the Eiffel Tower. Finlayson tries desperately tries to rescue Farina, leading him to wake up from what was apparently a daydream caused by the gang tossing sleeping pills into his water.