Adult Years
Switzer's tenure on Our Gang ended in 1940, when he was twelve. He continued to appear in movies in various supporting roles, including I Love You Again, Going My Way, Courage of Lassie, and It's a Wonderful Life and starred in the John Wayne film Island in the Sky where he popularized the phrase "Whatever's customary," about the only line he spoke throughout the film.
Switzer's last starring roles were in a brief series of imitation-Bowery Boys movies; he reprised his "Alfalfa" characterization, complete with comically sour vocals, in PRC's Gas House Kids comedies of 1946-1947. He returned to supporting roles, as in The Great Mike of 1944, including a short stint as B-western sidekick called "Alfalfa Johnson." Switzer preferred not to recall his Our Gang work; in his 1946 resume he referred to the gang films generically as "M-G-M short product." Switzer also had an uncredited part in the MGM 1943 film Human Comedy as Auggie .
Switzer had a fleeting cameo in the 1946 Christmas film It's A Wonderful Life as Mary Hatch's date at the high school dance in the beginning of the film. In the 1954 musical film White Christmas his picture is used to depict an Army buddy (named "Freckle-Faced Haynes") of lead characters (Wallace and Davis) played by Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, and also the brother of the female leads (the Haynes Sisters) played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. He also did some acting for television. This included appearances on six episodes of The Roy Rogers Show, a guest-starring role in an episode of the American science fiction anthology series Science Fiction Theatre, and an appearance as a delivery boy on an episode of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.
Switzer played another cameo role as a Hebrew slave in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956). The role is uncredited, but the list of other uncredited performers in that film include Herb Alpert as a Hebrew drummer, Michael Ansara as an Egyptian taskmaster, Robert Vaughn as a Hebrew spearman, Clint Walker as a Sardinian captain, Eduard Franz as Jethro, Mary Lou Cotterman as Ishara, one of Jethros' daughters, and DeMille himself as the film's narrator.
His final film role was in The Defiant Ones (1958).
Read more about this topic: Carl Switzer, Career
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