9002080771
DETROIT FREE PRESS
901014
Sunday, October 14, 1990
METRO FINAL
1F
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1990, Detroit Free Press
'20/20' GAFFE ISN'T O-TAY WITH SPANKY
Whenever I get a spare moment, I try to think deep and meaningful
thoughts, such as what is life, who invented the split pea, and, of course,
whatever happened to Buckwheat?
I thought I had the answer to the last one recently, when the ABC-TV show
"20/20," aired a segment claiming to have found Buckwheat, a former star of
the Little Rascals comedies. According to the show, Buckwheat was working as
a grocery bagger in Tempe, Ariz.
Naturally, "20/20" went to interview him. Buckwheat, whose real name was
Billy Thomas, said he had changed his name to Bill English and had stopped
signing autographs because it "interfered with my work." I guess bagging is
tougher than it looks.
Now, at first, this story struck me as something you'd see in the National
Enquirer. "BUCKWHEAT FOUND AT STOP-N-SHOP, SAYS TOMATOES ARE O-TAY!"
But hey, I'm the suspicious type. And since "20/20" is hosted by Hugh
Downs, who used to host "Concentration," a very serious show where two people
try to guess the secret of a giant 30-foot puzzle, and Barbara Walters, who
was last seen batting her eyelashes at Warren Beatty and saying, "You're
sensitive, aw-went you?", well, you figure they must be telling the truth.
I mean, they research these things, right?
You could look it up
As it turns out, the man "20/20" interviewed -- the man to whom it devoted
a whole segment on national television -- was not the real Buckwheat. He was
an impostor. A fake. The real Buckwheat would have stood up and said so,
except for one thing: He's dead. He died 10 years ago, of a heart attack.
Now. Call me a workaholic. But this seems like the kind of thing you might
discover in your research, no? There are books written on the Our Gang crew,
and the authors could have told you the bad news about Buckwheat -- and
Alfalfa and Froggy, if you wanted.
Also, there is a company called Buckwheat Enterprises, in LA, operated by
Buckwheat's real son, William Thomas Jr. I'm sure he would have provided
information about his father, and maybe a few posters, too.
But alas, "20/20," which got the grocery bagger story in a letter from a
viewer -- and we all know how those letters can be trusted, especially the
ones written in crayon -- well, old "20/20" laid an egg. Hugh Downs had to
apologize on Friday's show. The producer has reportedly resigned, so I guess
his next project, "Life On Mars," will be scrapped, too.
To be honest, a TV show making a boo-boo such as this doesn't really
surprise me. Many TV programs -- particularly talk shows -- are in such a
hurry to get high ratings they are often shoddy on research.
What surprised me was that anyone would pretend to be Buckwheat in the
first place. Especially if all it got him was a job in a grocery store. So I
called George "Spanky" McFarland, another ex-Little Rascal, who now lives in
Fort Worth, Texas. McFarland, 62, is pretty easy to find, except, obviously,
to the people at "20/20."
"That guy didn't even look like Buckwheat," he said. "These imitators are
all over. They pretend to be Buckwheat, or Darla, or me. One fellow in LA said
he was me and tried to become a movie producer. He was renting equipment and
everything. I opened my mailbox one day and I was getting his bills.
"Another time there was this woman in Florida who said she was me. And
people believed her. I mean, they could look at her and see she was a girl."
Remember Porky?
Spanky is pretty ticked off over this whole Buckwheat mess. He's also kind
of mad at "Saturday Night Live," which, in the early '80s, had Eddie Murphy
doing a regular spoof on Buckwheat, prancing around the stage saying "O-tay!"
"Buckwheat never said 'O-tay,' " Spanky said.
"He what?"
"He never said 'O-tay.' That was Porky."
"How could so many people be wrong?"
"They stuck a phony Buckwheat on network TV, didn't they?"
Good point.
Anyhow, Spanky said he was glad "20/20" apologized. He also said Porky and
Butch are still alive, in case you see any more reports.
All of which reminds me of that "Saturday Night Live" skit in which they
mocked (ironically) ABC's "Nightline," in a report claiming "Buckwheat has
been shot!" In the skit, the "murderer" is Alfalfa. He was mad because
Buckwheat put a frog down his pants in grade school. But in the end, Buckwheat
comes back to life. Why? Because Alfalfa put blanks in the gun!
Hmm. Maybe there's something to this. And I think we should investigate.
It may sound a little farfetched, but then again:
It's not as farfetched as "20/20."
COLUMN; TELEVISION; CRITICISM; RESEARCH; BUCKWHEAT