There
is a thread on the Little Rascals forum at ProBoards suggesting
possible theories as to why the so-called animated episode, “The
Surgeon”, never aired on ABC. One speculation suggested that it
may have been scheduled to air late in Season 2, but due to content
not deemed appropriate for Saturday morning audiences as per ABC
standards, the episode was replaced with a repeat of the Season 1
episode “Cap’n Spanky’s Showboat”.
Another user claims that
it may have been just a 30-second vignette, as was listed in the
vignettes section on a website called Wingnut.
But
I do have a new speculation that now suggests that “The Surgeon”
may have been the title of a pilot episode supposedly produced as
late as 1981 or early in 1982, to see if a number of ABC affiliates
were interested in airing the Little Rascals animated series. While
nobody knows what happened during that particular episode, there must
have been something about the episode that sparked an interest in the
series. If true, the animated spin-off would pass the pilot stage,
ABC ordered 26 episodes each of 11 minutes, and 13 skits of 30
seconds each, for the 1982-83 season. The series premiere was
supposedly scheduled for September 11, 1982; but unfortunately, that
series premiere, along with ABC’s 1982-83 Saturday morning lineup
in general, was delayed two weeks possibly because of an animators’
strike.
As
for the content in “The Surgeon”, there are speculations on the
interwebs and on Facebook that suggest that a character may have been
injured or have accidentally swallowed an object (the latter of which
may be a callback to the Our Gang theatrical short “Bored of
Education”), and had to have surgery as a result. But while no
confirmation is revealed, maybe only the ABC affiliates know
something that we do not know. Unless a DVD set miraculously sees
the light of day (and sadly, Warner Archive posted on Facebook in
April 2016 that the series is not cleared for a DVD release), we will
never know what went on in that episode.
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