Uncle Tom's Uncle

Production Notes[]

Length: Two Reel
Producer: Hal Roach
Director: Robert F. McGowan
Photography: Art Lloyd
Editor: Richard Currier
Titles: H. M. Walker
Writer: Hal Roach
Released: May 30, 1926
Studio: Pathe Exchange

Main Cast[]

Supporting Cast[]

None known

The Short[]

Plot: The Rascals are putting together a play based on Uncle Tom's Cabin in Mickey's barn, but Joe is distracted by the chore his mother gave him of cleaning out the junk in the back yard. A lot of kids have come to watch the play armed with old fruit and firecrackers to ruin the play or celebrate it being a flop, even as Mickey sticks his head from the curtains to tell the audience how serious the scenes are. They jeer and attack every blooper and distraction, joined by Mango up in the rafters throwing eggs. Mickey, however, just barely manages to persevere by wearing a catcher's mask to deflect the flying objects. He just barely reaches the scene where Joe as Uncle Tom dies in the play, lifted by ropes up to heaven where Mary plays an angel. Joe's mother is still screaming at him to do his chores so he hurries off to do them to get her quiet, just before the audience of kids pelts Mickey and his actors with a sea of garbage. The goat is by now discovered to have consumed stump powder, and the audience clears out with the Gang chased by the goat carrying a candle in his mouth. It eventually veers off into a tunnel in a hillside and blows it up, emerging moments later to push the gang off a low ledge.
Quotes:

"Uncle Tom's Cabin had been translated and played in forty-two languages; the gang decided to make it forty-three." - Opening Narration
"I can't die now, my mother is calling me!" - Joe Cobb

Notes/Trivia:

This is the first known short for several Rascals including Robert Mallon, Peggy Eames and Elmer Lowry as Scooter.
The gang would put on another performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin in Spanky.

Sequence[]

Previous Short: Baby Clothes
Next Short: Thundering Fleas