Baby Burlesks

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Baby Burlesks was a series of short films produced by Educational Pictures in the early 1930s.

Shirley Temple in a scene from Glad Rags to Riches, 1932.
Shirley Temple in a scene from Glad Rags to Riches, 1932.

The Burlesks were satires of major motion pictures and current events. All of the performers were preschool-aged children. They were costumed as adults--excepting their giant diapers with pins--and given mature dialogue. Filmed in 1931-32, before the Hayes Code was actively enforced, the series is considered dated and exploitative by many modern viewers and film critics because of its depictions of young children in adult roles and situations.

Many of the children used in the series were recruited from Meglin's Dance School in Hollywood. One of them was Shirley Temple, who made her film debut in the Baby Burlesks at the age of three. Her first studio stand-in, Marilyn Granas, also appeared in a few of the pictures. Neither of the two leading actors of the series, Eugene Butler and Georgie Smith, went on to notable success.

The films are still extant today, and are widely available in the public domain.

  • The Runt Page (1932): The pilot film, which satirized the movie The Front Page, about reporters in a newsroom.
  • War Babies (1932): The first Baby Burlesk publicly exhibited, a takeoff of What Price Glory?, about WWI doughboys in a tavern.
  • Glad Rags to Riches (1932): A Gay Nineties comedy about a showgirl captured by an evil impresario.
  • Polly Tix in Washington (1932): A call girl attempts to corrupt an honest politician.
  • Kid's Last Stand (1932): A satire of Jack Dempsey and the boxing world.
  • Kid 'in' Africa (1932): A satire of Tarzan the Ape Man.
  • Kid in Hollywood (1932): A satire of Hollywood, including such stars as Marlene Dietrich.
  • The Pie-Covered Wagon (1932): A takeoff of The Covered Wagon.


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