HARPO, CHICO,and GROUCHO MARX
Hello. I Must Be Going. ~
~ Classic Marx Brothers Quotes
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One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.
~ Groucho Marx in Animal Crackers (Movie)
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I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.
~ Groucho Marx
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Hello! I must be going!
~ Groucho Marx
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I sent the club a wire stating: Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.
~ Groucho Marx
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Margaret Dumont: Why, I’ve never been more insulted in my life.
Groucho Marx: Patience, Madam. The evening is young.
Groucho/Margaret Dumont (Movie)
“Honk! Honk!”
~ Harpo Marx
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Man: Are you a man or a mouse?
Groucho: Put a piece of cheese on the floor and you’ll find out.
~ Groucho in A Day at the Races (movie)
Groucho: That’s in every contract, that’s what you call a sanity clause.
Chico: You can’t a fool a me there ain’t no sanity clause
Groucho/Chico in A Night at the Opera (movie)
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Groucho: Women should be obscene and not heard.
~ Groucho Marx
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Groucho: My divorce taught me the meaning of “community property.” I learned it meant that she alone would now get to live off the property while I moved out to live off the community.
~ Groucho Marx
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Hello. I must be going.
~ Groucho Marx/The Pecan Park Eagle/Other Kindred Spirits.
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FOOTNOTE: While researching Groucho Marx for this column, I found a really interesting article by his grandson, Andy Marx. “The Day My Grandfather Groucho and I Saved ‘You Bet Your Life’” is an excellent example of how easily historical artifacts may be either “saved for history” or “lost forever” on the caprice of circumstances in place at a particular moment in time. Here’s the link:
http://boingboing.net/2013/03/12/the-day-my-grandfather-groucho.html
SUB-FOOTNOTE: Andy Marx’s other grandfather was Gus Kahn, one of the great song lyricists of the early 20th century. What a gene pool Andy Marx was born into from the start. I also love the credo that he publishes at his own creative project website. There’s a link to it at the end of the referenced column). It reads: “There are no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something.”
Censorship of Groucho on “You Bet Your Life”: As Bob Hulsey commented below on our original column, NBC filmed the old Groucho quiz show rather than trust him not to cross the blue line on what passed for the moral standards of the 1950s. As a result, some of Groucho’s best material ended up on the cutting room floor rather than go broadcasted into American homes. Here’s an example that a reader of the Andy Marx column left as a comment there. Chances are high that it was one those bursts of wit that would’ve been censored in the 1950s, but could have flown like a protected species bird through the broadcast skies of our 21st century:
I saw a clip from an episode that never aired in which Groucho was interviewing a beautiful young woman who said that she wanted to be an actress and a mother. He said (paraphrasing) “That won’t be easy. How do you plan to go about that?”
Contestant: “Well, if I keep both feet on the ground and stay focused I think I can.”
Groucho: “If you keep both feet on the ground you’ll never become a mother.”
You bet your life, Groucho. How true that is.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
June 12, 2014 at 5:58 pm |
I learned that NBC’s “You Bet Your Life” TV show was the first show that was filmed instead of broadcast live – and for a very good reason. As witty and popular as Groucho Marx was, the censors could never be certain what he might say.
Famously, Marx would ad lib with two contestants before giving them a simple quiz and, in one show, he met a man who said he had fathered 19 children.
“19 children!,” gasped Groucho. “Why so many?”
The man replied, “I love my wife!”
Groucho paused and twirled the cigar in his mouth then said. “I love my cigar too, but I take it out of my mouth from time to time.”
June 12, 2014 at 9:43 pm |
Gotta love Groucho! – And you’re right, Bob. NBC was very wary of what Groucho might say live in those days, but look at that great Groucho comeback line to the man with 19 kids. Did they really censor it? The fact that it remained intact on film as part of an original show suggests it was not.
Today, of course, that reference to taking the cigar out of one’s mouth from time to time would not have drawn a single grain of censor-fired buckshot.
Now there may come a time when Groucho gets totally censored for smoking a cigar while he was on the air.