Our Gang's "Fat Boy" Joe Cobb (1917-2002) ... Gone - Not Forgotten ...

Joe Cobb ... chubby child actor who appeared in 86 'Our Gang' comedies ... Chubby little Joe Cobb was one of the most memorable of the children chosen to be members of the "Our Gang" group in the classic silent comedies made at the Hal Roach studio in Culver City in the 1920s. Thomas Joe Cobb, actor: born Shawnee, Oklahoma 7 November 1917; died Santa Ana, California 21 May 2002. Over a seven-year period he appeared in 86 "Our Gang" shorts, including the last silent film in the series, Saturday's Lesson (1929) and the first Our Gang talkie, Small Talk (1929). Richard Bann writes in his book Our Gang: the life and times of the Little Rascals (1977), Joe Cobb was an enthusiastic kid, and a kid that the other members of the Gang respected: cheerful, optimistic but reliable, dependable. Cobb always made you smile when you saw him. Born in 1917 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, Cobb, whose mother died when he was an infant, was taken to Los Angeles by his father in 1922. "We thought we'd make the rounds of the studios," Cobb recalled, "and, of course, we stopped at Hal Roach's. We drove into the parking lot just as the noon whistle blew, and so the casting people took us right out to lunch." That afternoon, Cobb was given a part in A Tough Winter (1922), a film being directed by Charles Parrott. Parrott (later better known as Charley Chase) was the supervising director of the Our Gang films, which had commenced the previous year, and as soon as shooting finished on A Tough Winter he cast the five-year-old in The Big Show (1923), the seventh film in the series. Cobb's beaming countenance and jolly naïveté were totally endearing and made him one of the most popular members of the cast. The most successful of the shorts till then, The Big Show had the Gang staging their own county fair, including a "picture show" which was actually a live performance on stage inside a film-like frame, with Cobb doggedly hand-cranking the makeshift fake projector. Cobb was to figure prominently in many of the plot-lines. In Stage Fright (1923), a local authoress writes a play about ancient Rome which the children perform for charity, with Cobb amusingly assuming the guise of a tyrannical Nero. "One long laugh from beginning to end," commented Motion Picture News. In Cradle Robbers (1924) the gang attend a baby show, and hearing that a prize has still to be awarded in the category for Fattest Baby, they dress Cobb up as an infant. When he sees that a pediatrician is undressing the contestants to examine them, Cobb flees. The series was regarded with such esteem that several noted players took guest roles. The legendary Will Rogers had a starring role in Jubilo Jr (1924), and Cobb remembered him affectionately. "He liked to be with the kids and talk to us, always had something humorous to say." Seeing The World (1927), which had the gang adventuring in European locations including Venice, Paris and Rome, convinced viewers that the children had actually been on location but, said Cobb, they did not get to travel. They took our clothes, though, and got these other kids over there to wear them, and then they photographed those kids in all the long, long shots you see, so you can't tell it really isn't us. Then we made the rest back in the studio. The advent of talking pictures caused problems, as Cobb later recalled. One trouble was that we'd always worked outside on location quite a bit. We liked to film out of doors, and sound was sensitive, so we had an awful lot of trouble with the neighborhood birds, dogs, cats, even the airplanes. And of course, with sound, the director Bob McGowan couldn't talk us verbally through a scene. We didn't have written scripts until talkies came along. The second talkie made by the Gang, Railroadin' (1929), was the film in which Norman "Chubby" Chaney first appeared, having won a nationwide contest to replace Cobb, who was also in the film and helped break the newcomer in. "He adapted gracefully, and we all liked him," said Cobb, who stressed that he accepted his growing out of the role without trauma. He and Chaney were both in Boxing Gloves (1929) as feuding romantic rivals, and Cobb was in two more shorts before being retired from the series after Bouncing Babies (1929). He was to make three guest return appearances, in Fish Hooky (1933), Pay As You Exit (1936) and Reunion in Rhythm (1937). In 1936 Cobb was employed by the studio as master of ceremonies for Our Gang's publicity tours. He had minor roles in some B movies, including Arthur Lubin's Where Did You Get That Girl (1940, as a character called Tubby) and Frank McDonald's Tuxedo Junction (1941) then in 1942 started work for North American Aviation. He was to stay with the company for nearly 40 years, and retired in 1981. In 1986 he appeared in a documentary Classic Comedy Teams. He retained his beaming cherubic features and had fond memories of his days with Roach. "It was a small studio, but a happy studio. You always went to work with a good feeling, and went home the same way." --sja