Who was the large, puffy-cheeked boy who wore a beanie in the Our Gang shorts?
—Marie Price, Reno, Nev.
In producer Hal Roach’s long-running Our Gang comedy shorts, later renamed The Little Rascals, the original chubby kid was Joe Cobb, a native of Shawnee, Okla. He appeared in 86 episodes over a seven-year period, including the series’ last silent film, Saturday’s Lesson, and its first all-talking short, Small Talk, in 1929. After retiring from acting in the early 1940s, Cobb helped build B-25 Mitchell bombers during World War II and retired from North American Aviation in 1981. He died of natural causes in 2002 at the age of 85.