Saving the Day After Class
“I could have gotten away with it too if not for those pesky kids!” Sure it is a line associated with Scooby Doo, but in the world of serials, it could have been uttered by any number of villains at the end of a Universal serial. That studio had a real liking for the teenage hero. When you look at the number of serials produced by the big three that feature non-adult characters as the lead, Republic had one The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) and Columbia had two, Terry and the Pirates (1940) and Jack Armstrong (1947).
But Universal really got into the idea of kids liking to see kids as the lead in serials, starting with The Lost Special (1932) they produced eleven of them over a thirteen year period. They had Tailspin Tommy (1934), Tailspin Tommy in the Great Air Mystery (1935), The Adventures of Frank Merriwell (1935), Tim Tyler’s Luck (1937), Scouts To the Rescue (1938), Junior G-Men (1940), Sea Raiders (1941), Junior G-Men of the Air (1942), Adventures of the Flying Cadets (1943) and The Master Key (1945). You might question the inclusion of that last title as the main characters are adults, but once the street kids are introduced in Chapter Three they become more and more prominent as the serial progresses and even carry several episodes by them selves.
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