Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2026 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Spook-Spoofing (1928)

This comedy short, directed by Robert F. McGowan, features Joe Cobb, Allen Hoskins, Jackie Condon, Jean Darling, Bobby Hutchins, Mildred Kornman, Jay R. Smith, Harry Spear, Charles A. Bachman and Charles Lloyd.

Spook-Spoofing (1928) is a surprisingly cruel film in which the gang (especially Joe) takes advantage of the superstitious and gullible Farina. After a series of pranks, Farina lets the Joe know that he has a protective ‘Mumbo-Jumbo’ charm that he’ll use if the pranks don’t stop. When the undertaker’s son measures Farina for a coffin, Farina’s superstitions about ghosts and death come out. Joe sees an opportunity and gets one of the gang to pick a fight with Farina, instructing him to play dead if rubbed by Farina’s charm. Well, the charm does get used and the boy does play dead, but gullible Farina doesn’t know this. The gang covers the ‘dead’ boy with a sheet and puts him in a wagon, and instruct Farina to bury the boy in the graveyard or be haunted forever. On top of that the gang plants the story of the graveyard witch into Farina’s head. Eventually, however, the pranksters get their just deserts in a funny denouement. Knowing the plot makes the title of the film inexcusable today, but it is another example of the pervasive and commonly-accepted attitudes and character cliches African-Americans endured in the silent era. Yet, despite that, we get a good chance to see Allan Hoskins’ skill as a comic actor and why Farina was one of the best-loved characters in Our Gang history.

— Carl Bennett

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from an analog video transfer of a very-good Blackhawk Films 16mm reduction print. The picture is compromised a bit by the coarse video transfer (and likely also from overcompressing the video data). Dust, speckling, frame jitters, schmutz, emulsion scrapes, and other print flaws are present in the picture.

The film is accompanied by a Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ performance by Gaylord Carter recorded for the Blackhawk Films print.

For information about other films in this collection, see our Hal Roach’s Rascals on home video page.

Could be better but, for now, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.

This review was updated in 2026.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from ALPHA VIDEO through . . .

This DVD edition has been mastered from a very-good Blackhawk Films 16mm reduction print. As is typical of the Blackhawk prints, the main titles and all of the intertitles have been replaced by new titles. The original footage itself features a broad greyscale range and very good image detail, with light speckling and dust, and a small amount of light to moderate scuffing and other print damage. The analog video transfer is the same as was utilized for the Alpha Video edition noted above.

The musical accompaniment is a Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ performance by Gaylord Carter recorded for the Blackhawk Films print.

For information about other films in this collection, see our Hal Roach’s Rascals on home video page.

Supplemental material includes a brief history of the Our Gang series and “Rascal-ographies” of six of the best-known male Our Gang members. They also include a worthless ‘Hollywood Hall of Fame’ documentary on Hal Roach’s Rascals, with footage mostly culled from the films in the two-volume collection.

This review was updated in 2026.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

Other SHORT COMEDY FILMS of the silent era available on home video.