The Adventures of Wilberforce!  An email from Last Minute reminded me of this wildly popular at the time but now forgotten film series.  Never released on DVD, copies on Betamax can fetch up to $75 apiece from film collectors.

Senior Year (1933) – Set at fictional Strathmore University in Indiana (exteriors filmed at UCLA) this is the story of Thomas O'Brien.  First member of his family to go to college, as he faces graduation he is torn between going into the family business and a big city career as an architect.  Subplots include O'Brien's romance with a local girl and his efforts to tutor a hapless freshman named Bartholomew Wilberforce.  Big scenes include the Homecoming football game against rival school Buxton and the famous "duck race".  Stock footage from these two scenes was used in several of the sequels, which focused on Wilberforce and his friends.

Wilberforce Pulls Ahead (1935) – Sequel to Senior Year, following Wilberforce's adventures at Strathmore.  With his roommate Jake the football player he forms "the gang": along with Randolph the art major; Theodore Seymour Buffington or "Buffy", the rich kid; and Lizzy, the smoking, pants-wearing coed.  After students from Buxton steal Strathmore's duck mascot the gang steals it back, along with Buxton's turkey mascot, just in time for the Homecoming game.

Wilberforce Goes to Town (1936) – Wilberforce gets a summer job as a sales clerk in a department store.  Jake is a soda jerk, Randolph is a stock boy, Lizzy is in the perfume department (much to her disgust), and Buffy is next door at the bank.  Since the bank is owned by his father he spends most of his time hanging out in the department store.  Wilberforce falls in love with a girl in the hat department but her old boyfriend, who goes to Buxton, is determined to sabotage the new relationship.  Everyone ends up friends after the hospital down the street catches fire and they all join in to rescue the patients.  (Note – Linda, the girl in the hat department, disappears from the series with no explanation.  The actress, Vivian Leigh, wasn't under contract and was snatched up by MGM) 

Wilberforce on the Spree (1937) – Trouble comes to Strathmore, in the form of Artie Copeland, a transfer from Buxton who left there under mysterious circumstances.  He befriends Wilberforce and introduces him to the pleasures of forcing hay wagons into the ditch with a speeding roadster and drinking hard liquor in jazz clubs.  The gang is alarmed by the change in Wilberforce, but he refuses to believe anything bad about Copeland.  Lizzy overhears Copeland plotting with some shady characters to fix Strathmore's annual duck race for betting purposes and blame it on his "patsy" Wilberforce.  Copeland is expelled and arrested, and our hero pledges to amend his ways.

Wilberforce Makes the Grade (1938) – Wilberforce needs a subject for his final project at Strathmore.  He and the gang decide to do a joint project: a rainmaking machine, since there's a drought going on. The duck pond is almost empty and no Strathmore class has ever graduated without first holding the traditional duck race.  Trouble comes when they test the machine and rain out the Homecoming game with Buxton.  Threatened with expulsion, they figure out what went wrong just in time to save the day for graduation. 

 .

Wilberforce Joins the Navy (1940) – Wilberforce, Jake, and Randolph were all in college on the ROTC program so to fulfill their obligation they join the Navy, as ensigns.  Turns out Lizzy is an admiral's daughter, so she gets a job as her father's secretary.  Buffy can't stand to be parted from his friends so he joins up too.  Being Buffy he accidentally enlists in the Marines, as a private.  After some shore-based shenanigans the boys all wind up on the same battleship, cruising the South Pacific.  First Wilberforce movie not set at Strathmore, filmed mostly on location with the cooperation of the Navy.

Wilberforce Comes Back (1954) – Unsuccessful attempt to restart the franchise.  Wilberforce is married to Lizzy, retired from the Navy and teaching at Strathmore.  He takes a little group of high-spirited students under his wing.  David Martin, who played Buffy, plays Buffy's brother, Martin Buffington, who owns the bank and hates anything to do with Strathmore, especially Wilberforce.  (The implication is that he blames Wilberforce for Buffy getting killed in WWII, but that idea, fairly dark for this series, is never made explicit)  Martin tries to foreclose on Wilberforce's mortgage but is foiled at the last minute by the students, who hold a bake sale for their mentor.  The duck race scene was refilmed for the first time since 1933, since the stock footage was black and white and the new film was in color