Boys Too Bored

Released
May 11, 1923

Starring

 * Andy
 * Ernie
 * Farina
 * Jack
 * Jackie
 * Joe
 * Mickey

Story
Three weeks after the events of Lodge Evening, the boys of the gang get into a fight at school with other boys making fun of their loincloths, so the gang is sent is sent to Mother Malone's Boarding School in another town with Ernie driving them all there in the wobbly wagon. They can't stand the place with its utterly boring routine and plot to escape.

The next night they put their plan into action and do escape, but after a few miles Dinah the Mule gets tired of pulling the wagon and stops. Farina wanders off to the nearby house, and falls through a trap door and down a slide into the hands of bootlegger Moonshine Mose who ties him up. The other boys go looking for Farina, and they contrive to fall through trap doors one at a time. When Ernie falls through, Mose gets Farina out of the way by hanging him upside-down from a hook. Mose does the same to Ernie when he hears Mickey sliding through next. Pretty soon all of the boys are hanging upside-down from hooks in the basement.

Mose questions them as to what they are doing, and gets the story of why the gang is in loincloths and running away from school. Mose is surprised at how calm the gang is while answering, and finds out that they are used to being tied up. He then wonders out loud what he’s going to do with the kids now that they’ve stumbled onto his operation. Mickey has a brilliant idea – the gang will stay and become Mose’s bootlegging partners. They will make deliveries of moonshine containers wrapped in clothes as if they were collecting and delivering laundry, a normal use of the wobbly wagon. Mose doesn't have any clothes that will fit the gang, but that isn't a problem since the gang is used to their present attire.

Mose can keep some of the gang hostage while others make deliveries from the wobbly wagon, as no one would ever suspect kids clad only in loincloths of such a thing. But if the operation falls through, the gang will be sent back to the boarding school, and since that is worse than anything else imaginable the gang would never double cross Mose. He takes them down from the hooks and teaches them the business.

After a few days Mose trusts them all and doesn't leave any of them tied up any more. The whole gang is free to work on the operation, which quickly becomes a big success as Mose expands his business. There is plenty of profit for the gang to share in. In a month Mose has made enough to retire on, so he departs for Mexico or someplace. The gang has a secret stash that can fund their future imaginative projects and a neat hideout if they need it. Meanwhile, Mother Malone didn't want to admit her students escaped and so never told anybody.