Spanky and Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach’s Rascals) is a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach….the series was produced between 1922 and 1944 and is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way….as Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular children rather than have them imitate adult acting styles.  In addition, Our Gang notably put boys, girls, whites and blacks together as equals….something that broke new ground according to film historian Leonard Maltin.  That had never been done before in cinema, but has since been repeated after the success of Our Gang.