The Style Center's Little Rascal Party– 1955

When I saw this ad with a Little Rascals theme (above) appearing in the Lorain Journal on the very same page as the article about Farina appearing at Ted Jacob's Fashion Revue (that I blogged about yesterday), I assumed it was an ad for it. But it wasn't; it was for The Style Center.

Mary Ellen
(courtesy www.big13.net)

Apparently, the two stores were engaged in a minor skirmish with both of their revues having the same theme related to the popular kiddie comedies, which were playing on TV then.

But while Ted Jacobs had a member of Our Gang (albeit from the silent era) appearing at his revue, The Style Center took a different approach, hiring Mary Ellen, the female host of the popular The Little Rascals show on WEWS-TV in Cleveland for their event.

You can read more about the career of Mary Ellen here on the Big 13 website. She had a pretty good TV career in Cleveland and Toledo, hosting children's shows and showing cartoons, before moving to Tampa Bay and continuing her career there. She passed away in 2011 (you can read her obituary here.)

I don't know how both stores came up with the Little Rascals theme. It would have been much more interesting if one of them had brought the Three Stooges to Lorain (5 years before they really did come to town) for some pie-throwing mayhem at a revue.