Skippy is a film that was released in 1931. It was one of the first films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture

Academy Award for Best Picture

The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

. The screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career and is best known as the writer-director of All About Eve , which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. He was brother to screenwriter and drama critic Herman J...

, Don Marquis

Don Marquis

Donald Robert Perry Marquis was a humorist, journalist, and author. He was variously a novelist, poet, newspaper columnist, and playwright. He is remembered best for creating the characters "Archy" and "Mehitabel", supposed authors of humorous verse.-Life:...

, Norman Z. McLeod

Norman Z. McLeod

Norman Zenos McLeod was an American film director, cartoonist and writer...

, and Sam Mintz was based on the comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 Skippy

Skippy (comic strip)

Skippy was an American comic strip written and drawn by Percy Crosby that was published from 1923 to 1945. A highly popular, acclaimed and influential feature about rambunctious fifth-grader Skippy Skinner, his friends and his enemies, it was adapted into movies, a novel and a radio show. It was...

by Percy Crosby

Percy Crosby

Percy Leo Crosby was an American author, illustrator and cartoonist best known for his popular comic strip Skippy. Adapted into movies, a novel and a radio show, Crosby's creation was commemorated on a 1997 U.S. Postal Service stamp...

. For his performance, Jackie Cooper, at the age of nine, became the youngest person to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

The film starred Jackie Cooper

Jackie Cooper

Jackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination...

, Robert Coogan

Robert Coogan

Robert Coogan was an American film and television actor.Starting as a child actor, he appeared as Sooky in Skippy , a comedy-drama, family film which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture...

, Mitzi Green

Mitzi Green

Mitzi Green was an American child actress for Paramount and RKO, in the early talkie era...

 and Jackie Searl

Jackie Searl

Jackie Searl was an American child actor who began performing on a local Los Angeles radio at the age of three...

. Director Norman Taurog

Norman Taurog

Norman Rae Taurog was an American film director, and screenwriter.Between 1920 and 1968, Taurog directed over 140 films, and directed Elvis Presley in more movies than any other director...

 won the Academy Award for Directing

Academy Award for Directing

The Academy Award for Achievement in Directing , usually known as the Best Director Oscar, is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to directors working in the motion picture industry...

. The film also did well enough to inspire a sequel called Sooky.

Synopsis

The story involved Skippy's efforts to help his new friend Sooky. Sooky is played by Jackie Coogan

Jackie Coogan

John Leslie Coogan , known professionally as Jackie Coogan, was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family...

's brother Robert. In the story Sooky lives in a shantytown.

Cast

• Jackie Cooper
  Jackie Cooper
  Jackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination...
  
   as Skippy
• Robert Coogan
  Robert Coogan
  Robert Coogan was an American film and television actor.Starting as a child actor, he appeared as Sooky in Skippy , a comedy-drama, family film which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture...
  
   as Sooky
• Mitzi Green
  Mitzi Green
  Mitzi Green was an American child actress for Paramount and RKO, in the early talkie era...
  
   as Eloise
• Jackie Searl
  Jackie Searl
  Jackie Searl was an American child actor who began performing on a local Los Angeles radio at the age of three...
  
   as Sidney
• Willard Robertson
  Willard Robertson
  Willard Robertson was an American actor. He appeared in 146 films between 1924 and 1948. He was born in Runnels, Texas and died in Hollywood, California.-Selected filmography:*Graft *Shanghaied Love...
  
   as Dr Skinner
• Enid Bennett
  Enid Bennett
  -Career:Born in York, Western Australia, Bennett started her film acting career in 1916, first starring in Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, with two other films that same year...
  
   as Mrs Skinner
• Donald Haines
  Donald Haines
  Donald Haines was an American child actor who had recurring appearances in the Our Gang short subjects series from 1929 to 1933.-Our Gang:...
  
   as Harley Nubbins
• Helen Jerome Eddy
  Helen Jerome Eddy
  Helen Jerome Eddy was a motion picture actress from New York, New York. She was noted as a character actress who played genteel heroines in films such as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm .-Biography:...
  
  as Mrs Wayne