The date was May 26, 1984. A time when many TV series were wrapping up their seasons. Ronald Reagan was president. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was a box office smash that weekend. The Los Angeles summer Olympics was just two months away. The 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion was ten days away. Michael Jackson was, well, Michael Jackson. Deniece Williams topped the charts with "Let's Hear it for the Boy", which was from the movie Footloose. There was a lot of songs from Footloose on the top 40 that weekend. But a certain character really was footloose on that spring day that was the highlight of my TV viewership. And she wasn't dancing. With the 32-year anniversary of that memorable Saturday approaching on Thursday, i thought I'd share this entry.
It was on the Little Rascals animated series. The episode in question was "Cap'n Spanky's Showboat" (the seventh U.S. broadcast), which featured an infamous series of scenes where Darla's bare feet were shown, despite wearing her traditional pink dress. However, I do admit, when I first saw the close-up of Darla's bare feet on a February 1983 broadcast of that episode, I apparently found such close-up disgusting, despite that the brushes strapped to her feet may be reminiscent of wearing sandals. That was different times back then. But just recently, on May 19, 2016, over 33 years later, I decided to "defeat the demons" and give that scene a second chance by viewing it on my downloaded copy. Now, I have better feelings about it, and now I find Darla's bare feet very pretty and look almost realistic, unlike with other Hanna-Barbera properties such as Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones and Smurfs, to name a few. Darla's barefootedness was apparently the inspiration for my avatar in a virtual world whose picture is shown in the sidebar under "The Darla" section. Though the character's toes appear shorter, and my avatar's toes are long. But then again, girls who are six years old do tend to have shorter toes than when they are older.
It is pretty clear that I hated seeing bare feet in general when I was much younger. I was 10 years old when I first viewed that episode in February 1983. Currently, in 2016, I am 43 years old, going on 44. I still do hate seeing real life bare feet, though in cartoons it is acceptable, but I have no problem with female bare feet in real life, but only if she is wearing sandals or flip-flops. I find it funny that it took 33 years for me to overcome my hatred for the close-up of Darla's bare feet, but better late than never. Plus, one user commented on one of my works of art that barefoot is better and more healthier, and approves of Darla's barefoot look.
Darla's bare feet were rarely shown in the series. In fact, aside from a brief time in "Cap'n Spanky's Showboat", Darla's bare feet were prevalent on only one other episode in the series - "The Irate PIrates" - which was set on a beach and not only was Darla barefoot for the entire 11 minutes, but that particular episode holds the distinction of being the only time Darla was donned in a bikini, and not seen in her traditional wardrobe for a full 11-minute cartoon in the series. Viewers would be seeing Richie Rich before Darla appeared in her traditional wardrobe that week.
On a side note, Earl Kress, who worked on the Little Rascals animated series and other Hanna=Barbera series (and sadly passed away in 2011), claimed in May 2008 that he didn't like the character art from that particular series, which was credited to Iwao Takimoto. Contrary to Earl Kress's lack of appreciation for the artwork in the animated Little Rascals series, which he found extremely complex and very difficult to design, I think the artwork was far better than any other Hanna-Barbera series, Also, one thing to take into consideration, the artwork may have been designed in Asia, possibly South Korea, and it may be possible that Asian character designs are more advanced and look a lot better. I would take Darla Hood's bare feet over Daphne Blake's any day. Despite the artwork being far better, the series didn't get the respect it deserved, and was cancelled in 1984 after a short run of two years. It's a shame, because that was my most favorite animated series of all time.
And despite my hatred for barefoot close-ups prior to 2001, they did rebroadcast "Cap'n Spanky's Showboat" during the second season of the series in 1983-1984, and the episode had appeared on various sites since July 2014. For some reason, something about that particular episode must have drove the ratings up, even for just the times that particular episode had aired. But still, that episode is the most vivid memory I have of the entire series.
EDIT: On the site where the episode exists, it has reached a milestone as of this edit (May 21, 2016). The episode had reached 500 views. As Buckwheat would say at one point in the episode, "Not bad if I do say so myself."
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