Joe Cobb: The Original “Chubby”

Joe Cobb (1916-2002) was born November 7.

Due to his large size, Cobb was to be one of the most memorable of the original Our Gang kids, during its earliest, silent phase. He appeared in 86 Our Gang shorts between 1923 and 1929. The coming of sound coincided with Cobb’s aging out of the series (he was 12 in ’29). The cast was switched out at that juncture, and Cobb was replaced by Norman “Chubby” Chaney, who is better remember today than Cobb, thanks to the fact that the talkies received lots of television airplay in later decades as “the Little Rascals”. Cobb returned for three cameos in the talkie era: Fish Hooky (1933), Pay as You Exit (1936), and Reunion in Rhythm (1937). He also has small roles in the films A Yank at Oxford (1938); Where Did You Get That Girl? (1941) with Leon Errol and Eddie Quillan; and the Weaver Brothers’ musical Tuxedo Junction (1941).

At this stage Cobb was 25 years old. He retired from show business to join the war effort on an airplane assembly line, and remained in that job for 40 years. Cobb was originally from Shawnee, Oklahoma.