The best Groucho Marx jokes, puns and ad libs can be found on YouTube.
Groucho Marx was introduced to a generation of viewers too young to remember him from his stage or film work thanks to You Bet Your Life.The interview-quiz show, featuring the famous $100 bonus paid to any contestant who said the secret word, aired on both radio and television through 1960.
Although You Bet Your Life was structured to make it appear as though every show was completely ad-libbed by Groucho, it was a good deal.Potential contestants were selected and interviewed in advance, script for each week's show were prepared by writers and reviewed by Groucho, and the comedian used a mechanical teleprompter to read his lines during the recording of the program.Groucho can be seen reading off sheets of paper propped up in front of him on something resembling a music stand.Groucho didn't actually meet the contestants until they walked onstage, and he had plenty of latitude to leave from the prepared gags and questions, with the result that much of the show's banter was indeed improvised on.Each half hour program had about an hour of material recorded so that Groucho could be edited out.
The most famous remark of Groucho's You Bet Your Life years was when he was interviewing a Mrs. Story, a contestant with a large number of children.
I love my husband and I think that is our purpose here on Earth.
But did Groucho really say this, or is it a remark that originated elsewhere and was later attributed to the notable figure most likely to have said it?
Since You Bet Your Life was taped in advance, heavily edited, and not aired live, this remark would certainly have been cut from the finished program as too offensive for the standards of the times.The cast, crew, contestants, and studio audience would not have heard the quip if Groucho had made it.
Even if Groucho's remark never made it onto the air, did he say it?Groucho maintained in a 1972 interview with Roger Ebert that he never said it, and the only person who would know the truth is him.
I received $25 from Reader's Digest for something I never said.I get credit for things I never said.You bet your life?I asked the guy if he smokes a cigar, but he said he takes it out of his mouth occasionally.I didn't say that.
The debate should end because of a complete lack of evidence that Groucho ever said anything like that, and his statement affirming that he did not, as well as the fact he had no reason to deny one of the most famous lines associated with his celebrity.Misinformation about the legend is what keeps it going.The following account is presented as a first-person telling in a 1976 book called The Secret Word Is Groucho.
People ask me if I said something to Mrs. Story.The encounter has been described as occurring with a mother having up to thirty children.The story is not apocryphal.It did happen.
I asked Mrs. Story why she has so many children.That is a big responsibility.
I love my husband and I think that is our purpose here on earth.
There are two reactions to that kind of remark.Having crossed a forbidden frontier will either cause a sharp intake of breath or bring the house down.The people in Radioland never got a chance to see it because the studio audience loved it.The exchange was cut out by Dwan.
The Secret Word Is Groucho is actually a book written in the waning years of the comedian's life by a writer.The "cigar" story was re-written in Groucho's voice and inserted into the book after Arce consulted various personnel associated with You Bet Your Life.Arce doesn't sound like Groucho's speaking or writing style at all, and it presents him with details he was previously unaware of.While the 1972 interview in which Groucho talked about this quip contained his own words, what was presented in Arce's book was completely different.
Groucho claims that the purported exchange with Mrs. Story was leaked out by Robert Dwan, the house censor.Dwan wrote about the program in his book.
A New York dealer in rare books sidled up to me and said, "Is it true Groucho made that crack about his cigar?" I knew immediately what he meant.
I thought it was a figment of the mass libido.I am convinced that it did happen after talking to my late partner.I now believe that Groucho did not mean what he said.That remark was not his style.
Outside of that studio audience and the 200 people who laughed at the joke, no one else heard it.The story has spread to become an underground legend because it was never heard outside of NBC Studios C in Hollywood.
Robert Dwan, the man who was onstage for every performance of You Bet Your Life and who supervised the editing of the show, didn't remember hearing Groucho make such a remark, yet he came to believe the legend was real.Dwan consulted 20 volumes of the original script, as well as a collection of recordings of unedited performances and tapes of edited broadcasts, and four reels of 16mm film.
In his 1996 book, Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho's House, Steve Stoliar made an affirmative case for this legend.
Groucho was said to have uttered a legendary line about a cigar during a program.Some say it never happened, others say they've seen it on TV.The truth is somewhere in between.
Getting to the bottom of this incident was one of the pleasures of spending time with the people behind the scenes.The head writer of You Bet Your Life gave us the details.Bernie kept a chart throughout the show in which he recorded the names of the contestants, what the secret word was and how much they won.
There was a sign painter named Mr. Story who lived in Bakersfield.He and his wife had a large family.There were twenty-two children, but three had died.The Story family was bused in from Bakersfield to be contestants on the first season of "You Bet Your Life."The conversation went like this after a small talk.
Groucho: 19?Why do you have so many children?It is a terrible responsibility and a burden.
Mrs. Story said that she loves her husband and her children.
Bob Dwan ordered the exchange to be deleted before it could be aired because it was too risque for 1947.The Story story is true, but anyone who claims to have seen it is either mistaken or lying because it was edited out of the radio show before the studio audience had a chance to hear it.No copies of that legendary outtake are known to have survived.
Although the dialogue between Groucho and the female contestant is lifted directly from The Secret Word Is Groocho, this account does at least introduce some detail to the story.Some of the detail is incorrect.
The 2003 DVD release You Bet Your Life: The Lost Episodes contained a background booklet with information about an audio bonus feature.
The 12 inch 78rpm recording features highlights from You Bet Your Life and a holiday message from Groucho.There is an excerpt from Groucho's November 17, 1947 radio interview with the parents of twenty children.For a portion of the interview that never aired, it has become legendary.
Mrs. Story said that she loves her husband and her children.
Considering how many people have claimed to have heard or seen that exchange over the years, it is likely that it exists somewhere.Less than half of the ninety-nine radio episodes of You Bet Your Life that aired prior to the show's television debut survive.The show with Mr. and Mrs. Story is not included.The famous exchange would have been edited out.The only thing left of this episode is a brief clip from Season's Greetings from DeSoto - Laughs with Groucho.In the studio audience that fateful night in 1947, the only people who witnessed that legendary moment were.
The dialogue between Groucho and Mrs. Story is said to have come from someone associated with the You Bet Your Life program.
The Story family of Bakersfield, California, the parents of twenty children, were once featured as contestants on You Bet Your Life.The producers thought it would be interesting to go through the audience and find the couple with the largest number of offspring for Groucho to interview, and as the parents of twenty children.Since You Bet Your Life was a well-planned show that interviewed and prepared its contestants in advance, Mr. and Mrs. Story likely appeared on the program by invitation and were not merely present in the audience by happenstance, with George Fenneman's introduction of them probably stretching the truth aIt is true that this interview took place during You Bet Your Life's days as a radio-only program (it didn't begin airing on television in addition to radio until October 1950), so even if the "cigar" quip had sprung from this encounter, anyone who now
The DVD booklet has a lot of misinformation.There is a complete audio recording of the broadcast portions of You Bet Your Life.Groucho can be heard making promotional references to DeSoto-Plymouth, who did not become sponsors of You Bet Your Life until partway through the 1949-50 season.The first show aired after the sponsorship of You Bet Your Life was taken over was on 11 January 1950.
What do we find in this recording?It doesn't include the famous "cigar" quip, Groucho's only mention of stogies coming when he inquires of Mr. Story.We note that Groucho does not ask Charlotte Story in the recorded version of the show and that the "cigar" remark was excised from the aired version.
It's a common phenomenon of urban legendry that amusing stories involving clever repartee often retroactively place words into the mouths of the famous people deemed most likely to have said them.Sometimes the designated mouths don't match up with the words assigned to them.Even though he was never known for his crude sexual humor in his TV talk show host role, Johnny Carson's image has been saddled with the claim that he made a risqué remark to a cat-carrying actress on the Tonight Show.Robert Dwan, producer of You Bet Your Life, acknowledged that the sexual double entendre involving a cigar wasn't really Groucho Marx's style.It was a dirty put-down that Groucho might say in private, but not to a kindly couple on a national radio program.When Groucho questioned a female contestant who came from a family of seventeen children, his style on You Bet Your Life was typically much softer.
How does your father feel about this?Is he happy?
It is possible that the quip originated with this exchange, when someone changed the dialogue to fit Groucho's public image and misremembered it.
Various records claim to have an actual recording of Groucho's remark.In most cases, the events that the record makers recreated were apocryphal ones that never took place.
Tim and Earle are related.There is a Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows.New York: Ballatine Books.The book is called ISBN 0-345-42923-0.
John Dunning.The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio is on the air.New York: Oxford University.The press in 1998.The book is called ISBN 0-19-507678-8.731-734
Robert Dwan.They are Laughing: Groucho Marx and You Bet Your Life.Baltimore: Midnight Marquee in 2000.There is a book called ISBN 01-887664-36-X.