Barnyard Follies (1940)

Pappy, the manager of the Farmdale orphanage, appropriates five thousand dollars of the taxpayers' money to enroll his charges in a 4-H project that could make the orphanage self-sufficient. This infuriates Hiram Crabtree and Sam Spitz, who profit from selling supplies to the orphanage and therefore have no desire to see it become self-sufficient.

Consequently, Crabtree and Spitz charge Pappy with misappropriation of funds and demand that he repay the money immediately. Just when things look bad for Pappy, he learns that he has inherited a nightclub and goes to the city to investigate. There he finds that the club is insolvent and that the performers are demanding their salaries. Pappy suggests that they come to Farmdale to work for their wages, and when the performers learn of the plight of the orphanage, they offer to stage a show to recoup the shortage in funds. Crabtree and Spitz, still trying to retain control of the orphanage, invoke a fire ordinance to prevent the show from being staged in a barn. To invalidate the ordinance, the orphans set fire to a haystack, and as the fire engines speed toward the fire, the youngsters chop down the bridge, stranding the trucks at the barn. The presence of the fire trucks offsets the fire hazard, and the show goes on. After Mrs. Uppington, a local dowager, exposes the motives of Spitz and Crabtree, the orphans continue to work on their 4-H project with the promise that they will be self-sufficient by the fall.