[1] Of her appearance in that musical comedy set on a college campus, Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times in 1927: "one pert young freshman, Zelma O'Neal, dances herself into willing exhaustion to the snapping tune of 'The Varsity Drag'.

[6] Atkinson wrote:[7] That merry brat, Zelma O'Neal, who stomped her way into fame in Good News, has now moved up several rungs of the ladder to one of the leading parts.

One of their best numbers in the second act, "I Could Give Up Anything But You", this pair of active buffoons fills out into a marvelously diversified escapade.

None of the commoner repressions of the day confine Miss O'Neal's gauche and racy antics.

She has such a good time cutting up in public that the audience has a better [one].She appeared in the West Coast production of the show in Los Angeles in October 1929,[8] and she stayed there to make her first films.

Naturally she has lost some of her gamin quality, but she is sufficiently old-style in her renditions of "Button Up Your Overcoat" and "Varsity Drag", and delights her audience with an excellent act.

[13] When The New York Times reported in December 1934 that she was announced for the cast of Jack O'Diamonds that would tour England before opening in London, it commented: "That should relieve a lot of people who haven't been able to locate Miss O'Neal since the days of The Gang's All Here in 1931".

[14] The play opened to good notices in London in February 1935, and the Telegraph wrote of O'Neal: "She's that very rare thing–an attractive woman who doesn't mind making a fool of herself.