Mischief Makers (TV series)

Mischief Makers was a children's television series created by National Telepix that debuted on television syndication in 1960. The fifteen-minute series consisted of shortened Our Gang silent shorts that were originally released through Pathé, as well as various shorts from rival series including Mickey McGuire, Buster Brown, and others. Films from Hal Roach's all animal series the Dippy Doo Dads were also occasionally shown. The series ended production in 1961, but continued to be aired by certain local television stations well into the 1970s, and even during the 80's in Latin America.

The series mainly featured shorts from Hal Roach's Our Gang series, but shorts from other series were also sometimes shown. Each episode ran about fifteen minutes, with the featured short only being about twelve minutes in length (the shorts originally ran about twenty minutes long).

The shorts were always given a new, relatively simple title (i.e. Every Man For Himself became Shoeshine Shop). Most of what was deleted from the shorts were from the first half of the film, though some of the first half were retained in the episodes. The deleted footage sometimes wound up in other episodes, known as 'hybrid episodes'; these contained clips from more than one short. The original inter-titles were usually cut, though a few episodes did retain some of the titles. To compensate for the absence of the titles, most episodes were narrated by two kids who are identified as 'Bobby' and 'Bunny'. Bunny typically used the catchphrase "Skeedly Skeedly!". Carnival-like music (composed by Jack Saunders) and rather inappropriate sound effects were also added onto the films.

The animated opening and closing theme featured a song titled "Hip, Hip, Hooray". It was written by Jack Saunders and Phyllis Brandell Saunders. An instrumental version of this song was among the several soundtrack tunes added onto the silent films.

The animation was produced by Gene Deitch. It featured four animated characters in front of a picket fence doing various activities. The animated characters were a fat kid with a beanie hat (probably meant to be Joe Cobb, a girl (probably Mary Kornman), a freckled-face boy (probably Mickey Daniels), and a dog with a ring around his eye (obviously meant to be Pete the Pup).

...
Wikipedia