The Dead End Kids/The Little Tough Guys/The East Side Kids/The Bowery Boys

Currently dipping my toes into this iconic mine of termite art, starting with the East Side Kids where initially the featured players are Leo Gorcey and Bobby Jordan (no Huntz Hall at first). I’m learning not to expect anything special from the plotting, but instead to enjoy the rapport of the actors and the fleeting bits of Americana visible in the backgrounds. I only wish these were actually filmed in the Lower East Side instead of California, where they obviously were. Is the ‘Bowery Boys’ phase better than this, or simply stupider? I hear different opinions.

I could barely stand watching this when I was a kid, please let me know what you find. Seem to recall that one of my schoolmates was vaguely related to Huntz Hall, that's all I got.

Or maybe some relative of his lived on her block, even less.

Yeah, I remember when these came on TV back when I was a latchkey kid in the ‘70s it seemed like the very bottom of the barrel entertainment-wise. Watch this if you have absolutely nothing better to do. Now I appreciate the context and the concept better. But these East Side Kids films so far are more dramatic than comedic, wrt my expectations.

When Morbius and I were nippers they alternated on Sundays with Abbott and Costello, I think, so my dislike of them was enhanced by missing the other two. Angels With Dirty Faces was their debut, no?

No I think most of the main kids debuted in the Broadway show Dead End in ‘35 or ‘36. Then came a few Warner Bros films incl the one you mention.

Or maybe Abbott and Costello were on WPIX and the Bowery Boys on WNEW and if a sporting event like a Yankees game preempted the one I would be forced to watch the other or at least attempt to.

Oh right, thanks.

https://oldtimenyareatv.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/abbott-costello-or-the-bowery-boys/

It’s sad and sobering that so many of the kids died young

This guy seemed to live pretty long.

What guy

Oh wait, sorry, didn’t post the link, d’oh!

https://playbill.com/article/bernard-punsly-last-of-broadways-dead-end-kids-dead-at-80-com-117547

Ah yes. There was also Eugene Francis, who played the posh kid who wore suits and spoke proper English… I haven’t yet figured out why he hangs out with the other kids… but IRL he lived to the age of 100.

Punsly played “Ape” in the East Side Kids era

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/06/05/archives/television-this-week-of-special-interest-channel-information.html

11:30(2)●FACE THE NATION (4) First Estate: “Tr??nity Mis sions,” “The American Rabbi,” “Religious Interior Decoration” (7)Animals, Animals, Animals (R) (11)Movie: “Here Come the Co‐eds” (1945). Abbott and Costello (1¾ hrs.)

Afternoon

12:00(2)Newsmakers (4)The Health Field: “Breast Cancer” (R) (5)Movie: “Bowery to Bagdad” (1955). The Bowery Boys. And back, more ways than one (1 hr.) (7)●ISSUES AND ANSWERS (9)Hour of Power

That whole page is amazing tbh.

But in 1979
11:00(4)Flash Gordon (5)Soul Train (7)Spiderwoman (9)Movie: “Baron Blood” (1972). Joseph Cotten, Elke Sommer, Massino Girotti. Same old vampire schlepping (2 hrs.) (11)Mr. Wizard

11:30(2) Fat Albert (4)GodzIlla (7)Scooby and scrappy Doo (11) The Twilight Zone (13)Zoom (R)

Afternoon

12:00(2)Jason of Star Command (4)Johnny Quest (5)Movie: “Bowery Battalion” (1951). The Bowery Boys. As usual (1 hr.) . (7)Weekend Special: “The Horse That Played Centerfjeld” (Conclusion) (R) (11)Hee Haw: John Conlee, Susan Allanson, guests (13)Introduction to the Humanities

this guy has kind of an interesting overview.

Weekend Special: “The Horse That Played Centerfjeld” (Conclusion)

Think I might start a thread just for those listings.

TV Is the Thing (This Year): Old NYT Listings

So they crammed the Bowery Boys features into a one-hour slot; I was curious about that, since the movies themselves run about an hour in length.

In the Miami-Fort Lauderdale TV market back in the day there was one station that carried most of this content (Abbott & Costello, wrestling, Three Stooges, Universal horror - and I think the Bowery Boys), namely WCIX Channel 6, which was the only independent station on the VHF dial. They also ran their Abbott & Costello feature around midday on Sunday, and that would be followed by a Tarzan film at 1:30. "Creature Feature" was the horror film program (their bread and butter was old Universal and AIP features); that settled into a 10:30am Saturday time slot around 1977, continuing into the '80s through a name-change to "Science Fiction Theater."

I can't remember exactly when the Bowery Boys films were shown, but it must have been on the weekend during daytime. You might watch them if it was raining outside or something.

A big bunch of these just dropped on TCM on Demand or whatever they call it.

Like a dozen of them. With odd man out Daybreak Express along for the ride.

I really like the 1937 Dead End. As a kid I thought Bowery Boys were booooooring, but these days I'll watch pretty much any black and white film from the 40s/50s. I should give a few a shot.

If you're interested in them, read the Tarantino book; he's like a PhD when it comes to the various permutations and how they were different. (He writes about them in connection to the Stallone film Paradise Alley.)

Man, Leo Gorcey was married a whole buncha times.

His first wife Kay Marvis later married Groucho Marx. She and Gorcey have a wonderful dancing scene together in “Kid Dynamite”

Saw the content of that first sentence somewhere in the archives but not the second sentence.

Okay, it was you, of course, posting over here: Things you were shockingly old when you learned

I can’t keep up with myself

I remember seeing some "kids" things with Shirley Temple, I believe. Lets just say they have not aged well...