Fast Company is the sixteenth short in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series created by Hal Roach. Many of the boys here want to go swimming but Mickey has to make a delivery. On the way, he encounters a rich boy waiting at a station for his mom and as they get to talking they trade places since Mickey has never seen the inside of a hotel and the rich kid just wants to play. When the rich kid returns to the gang with the goat-pulling wagon, however, they resolve to go where Mickey is which is where the fun really begins...Plenty of very funny gags abound like Joe's heavyset parents arguing with the mother using a rolling pin to hit her husband that-when the target's head gets it-causes the appliance to jump up and down, Farina tries to drink some water from a hose that keeps squirting and unsquirting because of the other kid turning it off and on and when "she" finally gives up says to Ernie (via inter-title) "'At ol' water kaint make up its mind!", a hotel monkey using firecrackers to surprise many of the adult patrons, and the gang trying a pipe that later gives them a really unwelcome feeling. Long considered lost, I found Fast Company on YouTube with, I guess, the best prints that were available and with the wonderful LeRoy Shield score from the "Little Rascals" talkies added for sheer pleasure. Regular director Robert McGowan had suffered an injury when a camera platform collapsed just before this short began filming so Charley Chase (under his real name Charles Parrott) was hired in his stead though he couldn't finish it since he also had meetings with executives at Pathe, Roach's distributor at the time. So a year later, McGowan completed it and, with the help of Mrs. Roach, secured cameos for her children with Hal, Hal Jr., 6, and Margaret, 4. When Mr. Roach saw them in the screening room, he was pleasantly surprised. So on that note, I highly recommend Fast Company.
