Not Grouchy About Groucho

Alexander M. Jones had the right idea.

He put a personal ad in the New Brunswick, N.J. Daily Home News reading: “Alexander M. Jones earnestly and respectfully requests that his friends, business associates, relatives and all others refrain from telephoning his home, or otherwise disrupting its serenity between 9 and 9:30 o’clock of a Wednesday evening. These 30 minutes are regularly observed as the Groucho Marx half-hour.”

You Bet Your Life still makes me laugh. Groucho is funny to begin with, but You Bet Your Life producer John Guedel had the brilliant idea of keeping the TV cameras running after a half-hour and then editing out the weakest parts for a stronger show. It’s even funny on radio. In fact, even in the dying times of network radio in 1950s, Groucho was re-run over the summer because audiences wanted it. He remained on the nightime schedule on NBC radio into mid-1960.

Groucho’s return for the 1954-55 season caught the eye of Los Angeles Mirror columnist Hal Humphrey. He gave it a rave in his column of September 24, 1954.

THERE’S ONLY ONE GROUCHO
For sheer pleasure and entertainment Groucho Marx still gives the video viewers the biggest bargain.
A half-hour invested with this jester and master of the quick quip gets you drama, comedy and the keenest insight into human nature since O. Henry.
Last week Groucho began his eighth year as the "You Bet Your Life" maestro (his fifth for both radio and TV), and on this first show proved that he is better than ever.
This Marx brother has the happy faculty for making intelligent comedy out of situations where the average emcee or quizmaster is content to shout some inanity at the contestant like, “You don’t say so!"
Groucho’s talent for balancing his remarks precariously between pure kidding and the barbed crack is a camouflage which fools everyone and no one at the same time. Even George Fenneman, Groucho’s trusty announcer, frequently looks askance at the master in a failed attempt to discern the real meaning of certain "Marxisms."
He can pull a contestant’s leg, so to speak, and the audience thinks they are in on the gag, until they see the contestant laugh, too. When this happens, the audience no longer is laughing at the contestant, but with him. And the contestant is laughing because Groucho Marx is a funny man saying funny things.
A Knowing Look Gets a Laugh
A WAC corporal teamed up with Gen. Omar Bradley was asked by Groucho why she wasn’t wearing any medals.
"Haven’t you seen any action?" he asked her.
When the gal replied she had not, Groucho asked if she had a Good Conduct medal.
“No, I haven’t," she replied.
"Why, you rascal, you," countered Groucho, "I think you’ve seen more action than you care to admit.”
By the time Groucho got to Gen. Bradley with the same question and the latter admitted he had no Good Conduct medal either, the quiz maestro didn’t have to do a thing but cast that knowing look at the audience to envelop it in gales of laughter.
A few of his jealous colleagues and those people who take great pride in being "in on the know” will tell you that anyone could do the show. If he had all of the help Groucho has.
They point to the fact that many contestants are hand-picked, that the show is filmed and taped (for radio) for 50 minutes and edited down to just the cream, and that there are writers hovering in the background.
Groucho even is accused of rehearsing some of his contestants, a canard with no basis in fact. He has a capsule dossier on his subjects—their hobbies, background, etc.—as do all quiz and panel emcees, but has met none of them prior to the show.
Viewers Not Aware of Film
The fact that the show is filmed and edited simply attest the shrewdness of Groucho and his producers. It not only is a better show being on film, but explodes the "immediacy" myth of so-called live" TV.
Many viewers of the TV show are not aware that Groucho is on film. Most people attending a studio performance are amazed to see the eight 35mm. film cameras grinding away as he works over the contestants.
But to a legion of fans it doesn't matter what the mechanical procedure is, or how Groucho does it. All they know, or care to know, is that he comes up each week with a brand of entertainment which tops most of the stuff on TV or radio, and apparently defies imitation because there is only one Groucho Marx.

Groucho’s jokes weren’t confined to radio, television or his colleagues at the Hillcrest Golf and Country Club. Erskine Johnson of the Newspaper Enterprise Association related this in his column of Jan. 5, 1954.

A TV rating company’s Tuesday night telephone call to the home of Groucho Marx, who told them he was listening to Groucho Marx. “But you’re not on a Tuesday,” a pal said when Groucho told him about it.
“I know,” said Groucho, “I just want to see if I can get a Tuesday night rating, too.”

One of the great things about the internet is, with a simple connection, one can watch or listen to Groucho whenever they want. Today, he could have a Tuesday night rating. And one every day or night of the week. Alexander M. Jones’ home would have trouble not being disturbed.

The Not-All New Groucho For 1961

Your long-running TV show is going off the air. What do you do?

If you’re Groucho Marx, you do just you did on television. You insult people.

You Bet Your Life finished a long run in 1961. Groucho had some spare time. In an interview with United Press International, he explains what was on his mind for the future. And he didn’t have good news for his fellow comedians.

This appeared in papers on February 9, 1961.

Groucho Folds Hit Show for New One
By VERNON SCOTT
UPI Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD (UPI)—Groucho Marx announced today he is folding his popular "You Bet Your Life” television show after 12 dazzlingly successful years.
The deadpan comedian isn’t leaving video, however. He’s cranking up a new quiz-interview series titled "What Do You Want?” which is scheduled to replace "You Bet Your Life” next fall.
How does Groucho feel about killing off the longest-running show in NBC history?

“I don’t feel anything,” he said, puffing on a cigar.
“TV is a good racket. The show paid well and wasn’t too much work. It’s been darn good to me. When we started on radio I had no idea it would last 14 years.”
It was rumored the mustascheoed comedian would switch to situation comedy next season.
“Not me,” he exclaimed. “That means working five days a week in some drab studio. On my show I only work a few hours one day a week. Every Wednesday night I show up at the studio at 6 o’clock to discuss the contestants. Then I go out to dinner and return at 8:30 to film the show until 10:30.
“I don’t want to work any harder than that. I don’t have to.”
Groucho again will lean heavily on humor in his new show.
“We’ll have all different kinds of people on the program who have a good answer to ‘What do you want?’ ” he said.
“Maybe we’ll have a gambler who wants to expose card sharks, or a husband, or a mother searching for a missing son.
“But I’ll have to be funny. When viewers tune in to see a comedian they feel cheated if he doesn’t make them laugh.
“In fact that’s the trouble with TV today, there’s hardly any comedy left on the air except for a few Westerns. I have to stay up late to see who’s on Jack Paar’s show if I want to see comedy.
“And situation comedies aren’t funny at all. They’re all right for kids, but they just aren’t funny. They can’t be because sponsors are afraid of offending someone. And I can’t blame them, maybe. Maybe I'd feel the same way if I were trying to sell a product on TV.
“One of the reasons these new comedy records are selling so well is that people can't find laughs on television. It's just not a comedian's medium.
“In the days of vaudeville a comic would walk on stage and say anything he pleased without worrying about offending anyone. We'll be as funny as possible on the new show and at the same time try not to step on anyone's toes.”

Groucho appeared in something different for him the same year. This appeared in papers on October 26, 1961.

Groucho Plays It Straight
By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD, Oct. 24 (UPI)—"I always thought acting was a racket and now I'm sure of it," Groucho Marx said today.
The caustic Marx brother came to this conclusion after completing the first straight dramatic role in his long (40 years) career in show business.
"I deliberately looked for a serious acting role to prove one of my own theories," he explained.
"My thought has always been that there are thousands and thousands of good straight actors and only 50 good comedians. When I say 50 I'm being generous. Actually there are many fewer than 50 good comics around."
Groucho turned to serious acting by degrees. He will be seen first as a narrator of a Dupont Show-of-the-Week for NBC Nov. 22 in which he is heard more than seen.
In a segment of the "GE Theater" he essays the role of a strict father who refuses to grant his daughter permission to marry.
"Acting is easy compared to comedy," he said.
"In a drama you aren't being tested on every line. You can talk for 15 minutes with no reaction from the audience and nobody gets critical. But a comedian has to get a laugh every 40 seconds or he's in trouble. "
I've come to a point in life where I can afford to gamble with my career. I don't have to worry about money anymore. From here on the things I do will be for fun."
Groucho's TV show left the air after 14 years of rampaging success. He refuses to accept situation comedy series offered him.
"I'm too old for that," he said.
"Now I watch reruns of the show, but I don't get any fun out of it. The real enjoyment was in doing the programs before a live audience.
"Norman Krasna and I wrote a play, 'Time for Elizabeth,' and I'd like to do it as a movie. Broadway doesn't interest me after all these years.
"But no matter what happens I'm not going to sit around doing nothing. And I won't retire, if nothing else works out I may take a job as a writer in one of the studios.
"So far I haven't missed the activity of a weekly TV show, but I imagine I'll be getting restless before long.
"Right now I'm busy writing another book. I like the title—'Confessions of a Mangy Lover.' I'm not saying if it is autobiographical."

Two Comedy Greats, One Silent, One Not

Groucho bets on people
he finds he likes them after forty years in show business
GROUCHO MARX, whose NBC show, You Bet Your Life, has been consistently among the Nation’s favorites, has been accused of sometimes presenting contestants in an unfavorable light in order to get laughs. It’s one charge that can cut through the poise built up during 40 years of show business.
“I don’t insult people on my show, I spoof them,” Groucho says indignantly. “Others who did insult contestants have failed. You Bet Your Life wouldn’t be a hit, if I did. There’s a big difference between kidding and ridicule.”
As a matter of fact, Groucho, whose barbed wit was the highpoint of many shows and movies before he turned to television, has grown to genuinely like and appreciate people while doing the thousands of interviews involved in his quiz show.
“My estimation of people has risen tremendously in the past six years,” Marx says. “There are a lot of wonderful people in the world, and this job has given me a chance to meet them.
“I’ve seen poor people give their prizes to charity. I’ve met baseball umpires and the motorcycle cops who hide behind billboards, and they’re nothing like what you’d expect.
“I find that they enjoy the fun of the shows, whether they win or not, and they like a lot of spoofing. That goes for everybody, because I’ve quizzed people from some 50 countries, and the list has included Congressmen, admirals, and other people you might expect to be stiff and formal.”
In six years, Groucho has learned to take everything in his stride, including a woman with two husbands named Bodovnic, triplet sisters from Pinsk, Russia, and the Irish janitor of a synagogue.



“I’ve never been stumped yet,” Marx says. “I guess those years of trouping do something for you.”
In fact, he considers being a quizmaster a soft job. “Next to robbing a bank, it’s about the easiest of all,” Groucho contends. “But this is the culmination of years of hard knocks, believe me. Maybe I’ve earned this kind of job.”
In spite of his gruff pose, Groucho is happy that his show has succeeded and pleased that it appeals to a full cross-section of the public.
He gets letters and an occasional gift from viewers all over the country. Contestants strive for a place on his program, not only for the prizes and the fun of matching wits with Groucho, but because it can be a stepping stone to the movies. One young Mexican, a natural comedian, was signed to a Hollywood contract immediately after appearing on Groucho’s show.
This happy way of life caps nearly 40 years of nomadic trouping in vaudeville, stage, motion picture and radio roles for Groucho.
He started in 1906, at the age of 11, when he joined a Gus Edwards troupe as a boy soprano. Born Julius Marx in New York City on October 2, 1895, he and his brothers Leonard (Chico), Adolph (Harpo), Milton (Gummo) and Herbert (Zeppo) were spurred to theatrical careers by their mother Minna.
Early Days Were Hard
The hardships of the early days in their struggle for success still cling to Groucho’s retentive memory. On a vaudeville circuit in Canada he strolled by a theater one day and was stopped by the unrestrained sounds of laughter. He looked in and saw a bushy-haired, baggy-pants comedian, recently immigrated from England. It was Charlie Chaplin.
Their tours finally brought them to Los Angeles simultaneously and there a film producer spotted Chaplin and offered him $100 a week in pictures. “I won’t take it,” said Chaplin.
“Why not?” asked Groucho.
“Nobody can be worth that much money!” scoffed Chaplin.
Several years later, Groucho returned to Los Angeles. He received an invitation to Chaplin’s home for a party. It was a palatial residence, with formally-dressed servants, sparkling silverware and all the accoutrements of costly living.
The few years had brought a striking change in Chaplin’s manner of living but not corresponding mental satisfaction. “He once said to me, ‘You’re the greatest comedian of all’”, Groucho recalls now, “but I attribute that to his admiration of someone who could speak on a stage, instead of being confined to pantomime.



A Comfortable Life
To Groucho, the experiences of 58 years of hardy living have brought beneficial results in that he knows what he wants and achieves his desires. He lives comfortably in Beverly Hills. His program has settled into a relaxed weekly schedule.
Groucho spends much of his free time with old friends, like Norman Krasna, Hollywood writer, and with his children. His two oldest children, Arthur and Miriam, are writers. Groucho’s youngest daughter, Melinda, 7, finds him always willing to take time to play with her.

P.S. from Yowp: This article, with accompanying photos, appeared in TV Guide of July 24, 1953.

Can You Come Over and Insult People?

If you’re going to be insulted by anyone, you couldn’t find too many people better than Groucho Marx.

"The One, The Only" did it to ordinary people on camera and off. No one seems to have been offended; I suspected they treated it as a badge of honour.

Here’s a wire service story that showed up in papers around May 21, 1961. That’s the year Groucho gave up You Bet Your Life, a show which didn’t even make it on the air on the east coast on February 2nd because someone forgot to deliver a tape to NBC in New York (the network substituted a documentary on the old Third Avenue El. It’s a shame Groucho didn’t narrate that).

Nowhere does the story mention Groucho’s new kinda-quiz show, Tell It To Groucho, debuting in the fall. Considering its fate, that’s all just as well.

The writer was quite correct about Groucho pretending to be baffled about the end of his quiz show. He told columnist Hal Humphrey the same year that he went with a new show because of residuals, adding that sponsors weren’t lining up to buy time on reruns of You Bet Your Life because the original show was still on the air. No sponsors means no stations, and no stations means no residuals.

Anyway, on to the insults! The drawing accompanied the Pittsburgh Press’ version of the story.

Groucho, the Delight of Hostesses
By RICK DU BROW
UP-International
HOLLYWOOD—Hollywood's most-sought-after guest for parties has no muscles, no sex appeal and rarely smiles. He's Groucho Marx.
Hostesses battle for him, because his wit makes their affairs the talk of the town the next day.
At a recent shindig, a bright-eyed young lady cornered him and told him she wanted her future husband to be able to swim, dance, ski, sing a little and ride horseback.
"You don't want a husband," barked Groucho. "You want a five-man relay team."
At another party, the host was speaking glowingly about famous persons who have lived to be 80 years old or more.
"Anyone can get old," said Groucho. "All you have to do is live long enough."

On one occasion, a clergyman told the comedian: "Mr. Marx, I want to thank you for all the enjoyment you've given the world."
"And I," replied Groucho, "want to thank you for all the enjoyment you've taken out of it."
The clergyman erupted into laughter and asked Groucho's permission to use the story in a sermon.
Rumor has it that Groucho will replace Jack Paar one night a week next fall. Most of Groucho's fans probably aren't aware yet that after 14 years this Marx brother is not coming back with his famous "You Bet Your Life" show next season.
In his own inimitable style, however, Groucho denies he will take over any part of the Paar show.
"Paar is a clever fellow. Everybody has been on the Paar show—Kennedy, Nixon, Billy Graham. Even Paar has been on the Paar show. Come to think of it, Khrushchev never made the Paar show, and that's the acid test. Would you want a leader who hasn't been on the Paar show?"
The eye-rolling humorist appears not to be too upset over the demise of his quiz show, although he is somewhat baffled by it or pretends to be.
"I don't know if the sponsors dropped it, or the agencies or the network. I don't pay attention to those things. But I have no complaint. The show lasted 14 years, 11 of them on TV, and I've made a lot of money and gone through two wives with this show –and four or five NBC presidents."
The comedian, once a top movie star, never took any guff from his sponsors on television.
When he was being feted at a cocktail party for his book, "Groucho and Me," a sponsor representative suggested that he put down his drink before posing for a picture.
"Ridiculous," said Groucho. "People watch TV with drinks in their hands. In fact, people watch television drunk. If they weren't, they wouldn't watch it."
Another time, Groucho was called in because NBC-TV had received some letters about the acid-like way he made some comments.
During the discussion, Groucho asked: "How many letters did we get?"
"Twenty-three," came the reply.
"How many people watch the show?" he asked an aide.
"More than 20,000,000." Without saying another word, Groucho got up and walked out. The network never complained again.
Groucho, in deadpan, mercilessly kids his old friend, restaurateur Mike Romanoff, when he eats at his famous dining place.
"Here comes that phony Russian prince," he says in a stage whisper so that all diners can hear.
Once, Romanoff came over with a smile to greet him and said:
"I just had my dinner."
"I wish you had mine," snapped Groucho.
Groucho is considered the fastest man in town with a line. Once, in a discussion about alimony, he defined it as "feeding oats to a dead horse."
When the conversation turned to gracious living, he offered this definition: "Having an icebox in the tropics."
Groucho is unfailingly polite to children, but cuts down offensive parents. In Romanoff's not long ago, he autographed a menu for a little girl, only to have her father follow her over.
The father offered his hand and said in an irritating manner:
"It's meant a lot to me to shake hands with you."
"It's meant a lot to me too," snapped Groucho. "Probably a skin disease."
Groucho is wealthy, likes to read, play golf and write letters. Of the termination of his show, he says:
"Really, I feel the way Man o’ War must have felt when he was retired. Except, in his case, he was going to stud and I'm just going to seed," says Groucho.

Groucho Wouldn't Do It Again

A game show without flashing lights, screaming audiences, multiple zooming cameras or even a tote board? You couldn’t make one today; producers demand all that extraneous TV tumult.

That description, however, fits You Bet Your Life. You couldn’t make the show today anyway, because it featured the one thing that made it what it was—the late Groucho Marx. Even he couldn’t duplicate its success when the show was reworked in 1962 into Tell it to Groucho. (The less said about the Cosby You Bet Your Life, the better).

Those old black-and-white You Bet Your Life shows still holds up. Witty insults never go out of style. Groucho was a master.

The show was still on the air in 1958 when this wire service profile of the-one-the-only was published. It capsulizes his life story. Would he live it all over again? Anyone who knew Groucho would know his answer.

The Groucho Rags-to-Riches Story
Kicked Into Acting, Pushed Into Fame
By Hal McClure
Associated Press Writer
HOLLYWOOD, Oct. 4—Two middle-aged men watched a young fellow bound into the men's grill at a swank Beverly Hills country club. "Wouldn't you like to be his age and starting all over again" sighed one.
"I can't think of a more revolting idea," snapped the other. "I've been through life once and that's enough for me. I hope to live for many years, but if I knocked off tomorrow I wouldn't have any kick coming.
"I wouldn't go through the whole damn thing again for all the money in the world."
The speaker was Groucho Marx. At 63, he stands at the top of a remarkable career, recognized as one of the nation's great wits.
He has a pretty young wife, a rambling nine-room home in Beverly Hills and all the money he'll ever need.
On Sept. 25, he began his 12th season as combination quiz and quip master on "You Bet Your Life" (NBC-TV), a job he calls one of the softest snaps in show business.
But it was a long, rough road to the top for Groucho. Small wonder he doesn't want to go back. He once said:
"I was kicked into acting by my mother and if I hadn't been, I'd now be on relief. I've always been terrified of dying broke or of being a failure."
Groucho was born Julius Marx in New York City. He was the third son of a poor Alsatian immigrant and the ambitious daughter of a German magician.
Minna Marx—everyone called her Minnie—dedicated her life to pushing her sons into fame in the show business. Her brother, Al Shean, was a member of the Gallagher and Shean vaudeville team and Minnie loved the theatre.
She saw to it that Chico (Leonard) took piano lessons. Harpo (Arthur) learned to play the harp himself. The family was poor and only Zeppo (Herbert), the youngest son, reached high school.
Young Groucho wanted to be a doctor. He loved reading and enjoyed being by himself. But he made his first stage venture just before his 11th birthday, serving a brief hitch in Gus Edwards' Kid Troupe.
Four years later, in 1910, Minnie Organized the Three Nightingales—Groucho, a tenor and a girl. When Harpo joined them, they became the Four Nightingales. "The Four Vultures would have been more like it," says Groucho.
After " countless whistlestops, tank town theaters and dirty saloon dressing rooms, the Four Marx Brothers act—Chico, Harpo Gummo (Milton) and Groucho—was born.
It was spanked into a comedy act one dusty day in Nacogdoches, Tex.
A runaway mule started a minor riot outside the Marx makeshift theater and the audience left them flat to join the fun. The infuriated brothers began a frenzied burlesque of Texas and Texans. The pandemonium inside the theater soon became greater than that outside, the audience returned to investigate and stayed to cheer.
The madcap Marx brothers broke up during World War I. Harpo and Gummo enlisted while Groucho and Chico entertained at the camps. After the war, they resumed their careers. Zeppo replaced Gummo in the act.
Their musical, "I'll Say She Is," was a smash hit. Then came “The Coconuts,” and "Animal Crackers."
Their first movie was a film version of "The Coconuts" in 1929. Following rapidly were "Animal Crackers, "Monkey Business," "Horse Feathers," "Duck Soup," "A Night at the Opera" and "A Day at the Races."
These early pictures—their best—had one thing in common: Uninhibited zaniness.
Groucho's trademark was a perpetual stoop, ill-fitting frock coat, waggling cigar, furiously wriggling eyebrows and a knowing leer. His clarion call was "Never give the sucker an even break."
Groucho spouted a barrage of horrendous puns, scathing insults and non sequiturs, such as this one: Man: I met a lady inventor the other day. Groucho: I'm glad he invented ladies.
But critics and fellow comics rate Groucho far above the run-of-the-mill comedian who relies heavily on situation gags and writers. Groucho is a real wit, a master of the geniune ad lib.
His meeting with Houdini the magician is show business legend. Houdini, performing the then new trick of threading a handful of needles in his mouth with his tongue, called on a nondescript little man in the audience to come on stage.
“Do you see any needles or thread hidden under my tongue?” asked Houdini. The volunteer peered intently into the magician's mouth, but did not speak. "Speak up," commanded Houdini. "Tell what you see." "Pyorrhea," declared Groucho brightly. The audience roared.
But in the middle 40s, Groucho's fortunes took a downward turn. The Marx brothers had scattered. Groucho's last radio show laid an ostrich-sized egg. His last movie, "Copacabana," excited no one.
His comeback started on a Bob Hope benefit radio show. During a comedy routine Hope dropped his script. Legend has it that Groucho promptly stepped on it. Marx denies this.
But what followed was one of the funniest ad lib bits in radio history. Producer John Guedel was in the audience and offered Groucho "You Bet Your Life." The TV show went on in 1947 and was an instant success.
Guests on the show come in for the barbed side of Groucho's flashing tongue, but they expect it. He once asked a professional wrestler if wrestling bouts were fixed.
"That's just a dirty rumor," cried the wrestler.
"How many dirty rumors have you wrestled lately?" asked Groucho.

The One, The Only, Fenneman

George Fenneman was more important to the success of You Bet Your Life than people realise and his absence may explain why revivals of the show have failed.

Groucho Marx was wonderfully caustic and insulting to contestants, but his show needed to have a bit of a balance. It couldn’t look like the naïve people coming onto the set were being unmercifully picked on. On You Bet Your Life, Fenneman helped soften the blow. He came across as someone at kin with the contestants because he’d get insulted, too. It was like he was on their side and, because he was involved in the show, he gave the viewer the impression he’d speak up for, and defend, the contestants if Groucho went too far.

Fenneman’s fame came with Groucho. He wasn’t one of the big name announcers, a guy like Jimmy Wallington or Ken Carpenter, when he was hired in 1948 for the second season of the radio version of You Bet Your Life. He was an ABC staff announcer in Los Angeles who had done a couple of network shows, Hilltop House and (briefly) I Deal in Crime. The way he put it, he ran into Groucho’s director, someone he had worked with in San Francisco, who urged him to audition for the job and got the job. That’s not quite it. He replaced Jack Slattery, who left the show after the first year for some reason. Fenneman stayed it until the end, and used it as a springboard for his own hosting and producing career.

How did Fenneman cope on You Bet Your Life? Let’s find out. Here’s a story from November 19, 1953. The show had jumped from ABC to CBS to NBC and then to television in 1950 where it prospered.

Acid Ribbing Defended By Groucho Announcer
By ALINE MOSBY
United Press Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD (U.P.)—Groucho Marx should not be cited for cruelty to contestants, his announcer insisted today, because any amateur felled by Groucho's barbs "is somebody who deserves them."
Some television and radio fans Groucho's top NBC shows mourn while the master of sharp wit breaks up an audience with laughter at a hapless contestant's expense.
But George Fenneman, the handsome announcer on the program who is mercilessly ribbed himself by Groucho, defended the mustached comedian.
"Most people he gives a bad deserve it," said Fenneman as relaxed at home out of reach the eyebrow-wiggling Marx.
Stuffed Shirts
"Sometimes he's tough on a person who doesn't deserve it, because opportunity for good gags is there, but usually it's some stuffed shirt who's out of relation with the world—somebody who takes himself too seriously."
One of Fenneman's pre-show duties is to calm contestants who tremble over what Groucho may to them. But not one contestant has ever stomped home after the program in anger or embarrassment, he said.
Fenneman himself is one of the "Patsies" who is squelched by Groucho's piercing humor, and the announcer humbly thinks he deserves it, too.
In Category
"Groucho's wit takes apart things that at are supposed to be dignified and sacred, and an announcer of commercials is in that category," he admitted.
"The whole show for me is a nightmare. When I start to introduce a contestant, Groucho will say, 'Smile, smile, this is a fun show, look idiotic, Fenneman. Show them your teeth.'
"I smile so much Groucho calls me Laughing Boy. Now when I go into service stations and barber shops people say, 'Hello, Laughing Boy,' and howl."
Fenneman for years tried to deliver his commercials under Groucho's heckling. Now he has learned the only way to keep the sponsor from ulcers is to film the blurbs in advance when Marx isn't around to blow cigar smoke in his face.
Job Is Fun
Now I used to be flustered on the show, but now it's fun," George said. "I'm the underdog, which is wonderful. The fans have sympathy for me."
Once a contestant, name of Gonzales Gonzales, was so hilarious he was signed to a movie contract. "Believe me, he got the better of Groucho only because Groucho let him," said the announcer, nodding wisely. "You don't have the last word with Groucho if he doesn't want you to."

You Bet Your Life went off the air in 1961. Groucho came back without Fenneman in 1962. A success it wasn’t. Fenneman was still busy, though. Here’s a story that’s cobbled together from a couple of papers that subscribed to the Los Angeles Herald Examiner’s syndicate. It appeared in 1961. Yes, the woman in the photo accompanying the article later went on to work on Let’s Make a Deal.

George Fenneman Isn’t a Softie Anymore
Life With Groucho Did It
By CHARLES DENTON
THE commercial announcer is to television what the plate umpire is to baseball—a guy everyone loves to hate. The only difference is that the announcer is spared direct physical contact with his multitudes of detractors. The beer bottles toned at him crash harmlessly through the picture tubes of irate viewers instead of bouncing off his noggin.
Still, it isn't the sort of career many parents would pick for their offspring, which may be a grave mistake when you consider what electronic salesmanship has done for George Fenneman, as slick a hand with a jug of hair tonic or a new brand of canned eels as you're apt to find.
Not only has the dapper Fenneman managed to slap out a better than average living for quite a spell—14 years on Groucho Marx's radio and TV shows alone —spreading sponsorial messages, but he has become host of his own daytime show. Your Surprise Package and has a panel show, Take My Advice, in the works.
• • •
AND WHILE GEORGE is far too honest a gent to say that he's never had a twinge of conscience over some of his spiel-binding, he doesn't feel that his psyche has been permanently damaged by it.
"I've been lucky, I guess,” he conceded. "With a few exceptions I've been associated with sponsors and products I could believe in.
"Oh, I've done a few things I've been ashamed of, sure, but the grand average has been pretty good. Anyway, I feel that if people watch me do a bad commercial, they shouldn't be watching."
Fenneman admitted that he's had his share of beefs from the buying public about video huckstering. "And by now they're pretty unfunny, too." he said grimly, "because I've heard them all. My rejoinder is that if the complainers exercise restraint, if they stop buying the products, sponsors will change their commercials. You can always turn that set off, you know?"
• • •
AS A MATTER OF fact, Fenneman detects an upswing in the quality of TV commercials.
"At least now I can negotiate with sponsors," he explained. "Maybe it's just because I'm better known, but I can get things changed in commercials if I feel uncomfortable about them. And I don't have to yell any more, either. I just tell them to get another boy.
"Of course," he shrugged, "you can do that when you don't need the money. When you need it, you yell."
One development in parlor playhouse pitching that disturbs George is the increasing use of actors to deliver the commercials on their own shows.
"I'm always glad when they fall flat," he said gleefully. "Not only because they're taking a job away, but also because they don't do commercials well. Just as I'm no actor, actors should realize there's more to selling than holding up the pack of cigarets."
• • •
FOURTEEN YEARS (including radio) of taking rapier insults from Groucho have toughened Fenneman, yet left him sad with memories.
"I actually, in the beginning, went home and cried in my pillow every night over the insults from Groucho, and then I suddenly realized that this was Groucho's work, and that all I needed was 'this show.' And now look at me," says George, the biggest quiz show winner of all time.
George recalls the time on Groucho's show when a weight-lifter picked him up like a rag doll and perched George on his shoulder and how Groucho laughed that maniacal laugh and how George would have liked to kill both of them.
• • •
THEN THERE were the LeGarde twins, a pair of bullwhip artists. George was just recovering from a double hernia operation, and Groucho knew his quiz helper was walking around very gingerly. But when the LeGardes needed a sucker to pose with a cigarette and have it whipped from his lips, Groucho offered up George. At the last second Groucho relented, and George was let off the hook—but not before he had sweat off two pounds and nearly another hernia.
George relived, too, that thrilling moment when his hero, Gen. Omar Bradley, came on the show as a contestant. It was the only time he ever asked any of Groucho's guests for an autograph.
Remember the dame that brought 65 of her 159 cats to the show? George does, because he is allergic to cat hair and becomes an asthmatic case if a cat brushes him.
That was the night he flatly told Groucho he would not appear on stage with the cats. He did, though, and didn't sneeze once.
George was more afraid of Groucho than his allergy, apparently.
• • •
THE ONE TIME Groucho advised George was after the latter hired his own press agent, the high powered pressure artist, Russell Birdwell.
"Fire him," Groucho told George. "All you need is the show."
George decided Groucho was right, but before he could shake off Birdwell, he had cost George $16,000, and George says all he has to show for it is some mentions of his name in the tradepapers and two lunches at Romanoff's.
Besides hosting his own weekday show, Your Surprise Package. George has become "the Lipton Tea man." The Lipton people snapped up George last summer to do their commercials at the political conventions, after actor Eddie Albert had failed to cast the right image.

Groucho was not in the best of shape, physically or mentally, in 1977 when he died. Fenneman went to see him, hugged him, and Groucho’s mind clicked and came up with “Fenneman, you were always a lousy dancer.” It seems their on-camera relationship wasn’t Hollywood phoniness at all.

More of The One, The Only...

It’s time for more of the wit and wisdom of Groucho Marx.

He apparently didn’t have much left of either when he died in 1977. But here he is two years before his demise cracking wise. This column appeared in newspapers on October 1, 1975.

Groucho birthdaying? You can bet your life
By BOB THOMAS
LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Did you know that I’ll be 85 years old on Oct. 2? Isn’t that amazing?”
Of course, Groucho. And it’s cause for celebration that Groucho Marx is alive and fairly well and living in accustomed luxury in the Trousdale Estates.
The birthday will be observed Oct. 12 with a star-filled luncheon in his honor by the Friends of the Library at the University of Southern California.
“I’ve written six books, and I never finished public school,” he comments wonderingly. Curiously, his immense contributions to American humor have never been rewarded with an honorary degree from any university. Bob Hope has 31.
A visit to Groucho is always a delight, and he was in good form at a pre-birthday lunch at his home.
In some ways he exhibits his ample years. No more the loping walk. His steps are deliberate, his frame stooped. The words don’t come with the same rattling speed — nor as scathingly.
But he is still Groucho.
“I no longer smoke, drink or make love,” he remarked, expletive deleted. “I gave up cigars five years ago, figuring that I was too old to smoke.

“Not drinking hasn’t bothered me; I was only a one-drink man anyway. As far as making love, age took care of that.”
He sat down to a hearty lunch accompanied by apple cider (“I read in the New York Times that it was good for old people”).
As he sliced the chicken breast, he mused, “My mother was a lousy cook. My father was a great cook. But he was a lousy tailor.”
Groucho had a coughing spell, and the ever-present Erin Fleming asked if he had taken his cough medicine. Twice, he replied. Miss Fleming, an attractive brunett with a sharp mind, has been guardian of the Marx legend for several years. She watches his health, makes deals for books, merchandize licensing, TV reruns, etc., collecting a 15 per cent fee as manager.
Her only complaint is that she would like to get married, and Groucho keeps scaring off her potential suitors.
“My quiz show went on Channel 5 here as a 13-week experiment, and now it’s the most popular program on an independent station,” Groucho remarked proudly. Indeed, rerelease of the 1951-1961 “You Bet Your Life” series has caused a new wave of Grouchomania. Even though the films are in black-and-white, the Marxian dialogue retains its color, and “You Bet Your Life” is now appearing on 44 channels, including the top 18 markets.
Groucho himself has been watching the reruns every night and the afternoon showings as well. He claims to remember each of the shows, and he comments on how he could have improved his performance.
He goes to sleep when the shows are over at 11:30 and rises promptly at 6. After bathing and shaving, he returns to bed for breakfast and reading the news; he still follows politics avidly and admires California’s young Gov. Brown — “I think he’ll be president some day. ”
Groucho spends a busy morning with mail and other matters, takes a walk before lunch.
Nowadays he rarely joins the fabled comedians’ roundtable at Hillcrest Country Club, the ranks of comedians having grown thinner. He lunches at home at 1 p.m. sharp, watches reruns of his show and Jack Benny's (“A fine man, and a great comedian”).
After a late-day rest, Groucho dines with friends or goes to a movie. He enjoys the films of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen, both of whom he considers “brilliant.”
Refusing to live in the past, Groucho spends time with such admirers as Bill Cosby, Marvin Hamlisch, Jack Nicholson and Bud Cort (“Harold and Maude”), the latter a current houseguest. But there is no mistaking Groucho’s sense of loss as he walks down a hallway-gallery and points to photos of Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Edward G. Robinson, Harry Ruby, and especially his late brother Harpo, “a wonderful man.”
Groucho talked of meeting another old friend, Charlie Chaplin, when Chaplin was here for his honorary Oscar last year. “You know the advice he gave me? He said, 'Keep cool,’” said Groucho.
“No, he said, 'Keep warm,’” Erin corrected.
“So what’s the difference?”

Dining With Groucho

Groucho Marx played a waiter in Double Dynamite (filmed in 1948, released in 1951), so you’d think he might have some sympathy for members of that profession.

Nah. That wouldn’t be Groucho.

Groucho was insulting on the big screen, and in real life as well. Here’s an example from the United Press, November 8, 1954 from when he was still selling DeSotos on You Bet Your Life. I really like Groucho but I feel a little sorry for the waiter in the story. The column ends abruptly but I can’t find a version that goes any longer.

Groucho Marx Cuts Hostile Head Waiters Down to Size
By VERNON SCOTT
HOLLYWOOD (U.P.)—Groucho Marx is the unheralded champion of all the little people who can get shoved around by maitre d's and hostile head waiters. He cuts 'em down to size fast.
Deceptively meek in appearance, Groucho gives lofty restaurant help the notion he's an ideal target for fishy-eyed stares and bemused tolerance. This idea is dispelled when Groucho harpoons them with a cold eye and recites the shortcomings of everything and everybody in sight.
He never orders simply. Each encounter with a waiter amounts to a clash of wills which Groucho invariably wins. This week he made one of his rare pilgrimages to a regular shrine among Hollywood restaurants—as much to do battle as to have lunch.
Gets First Word
The head waiter of the plush beanery approached us with the superior air of a monarch about to bestow death sentences on a pair of bandits. He was reduced immediately to a pawn when Groucho growled:
“Where's the crook who runs this joint? I wore a tie today just to prove I own one and that's a concession I don't often make.”
The unhorsed monarch waved feebly to a passing waiter whom Groucho described as "shifty." The waiter led us to a center table. Groucho said nothing, but scanned the place looking for trouble.
Once seated, Groucho and the waiter locked stares for a few seconds in a tactical maneuver best described as a "feeling out" period. There was no clear-cut hostility until the waiter—a type who tolerates customers with an arched eyebrow fumbled the oversized menu as he handed it to the imperious Marx.
“Why,” Groucho asked, “does this place have such big menus for such lousy food?”
The waiter regarded Groucho as if he had just slain his 300 best friends. But Groucho noted his frozen smile and pressed the attack.
“Take this water away,” he ordered, “it offends me. Put it under a bridge someplace and bring me a Bloody Mary.”
This done, the waiter drew his pad and pencil. He was miffed now and trying to restore the arch of his eyebrow. Groucho struggled briefly with the foreign spelling on the bill of fare.
“This looks like a list of Italian opera singers,” he cried indignantly. “Are you ashamed to print it in English?” He ordered a steak sandwich. When it arrived the shaken waiter hovered nearby.
“Gad!” Groucho roared. “Bring me something to disguise the taste of this steak.”

The Art of the Insult

The Round Table at New York City’s Algonquin Hotel was known for its sophisticated witty repartee, or its catty put-downs covered in self-congratulation, depending on your viewpoint. The Round Table was also known as the “Vicious Circle,” and this was the title of Margaret Case Harriman’s account of the intellectual humour of the denizens thereof, published in 1951 by Rinehart.

One would think the clever waggishness of the Round Table would be viewed upon favourably by radio critic John Crosby, not only because he was an adroit purveyor of words, but because he dealt daily with the pedestrian and obvious verbiage in sitcoms, quiz shows and soap operas. However, his column of July 14, 1951 bespeaks a tiredness with the former as well as the latter. Still, he manages to mine some nuggets of wit from the ranks of radio programmes, which he passes on to his readers. One of them involves someone in the social sphere of the Vicious Circle—“the glamorous, unpredictable Tallulah Bankhead.”

THE MILDLY VICIOUS CIRCLE

Once, during the rehearsal of “The Big Show,” the producer was trying, over Tallulah Bankhead’s strenuous objections, to cut a few of her lines just as a matter of timing. It was an epic battle, I’m told, but the producer finally won though he didn’t escape entirely unscathed. Groucho Marx, who was within earshot, took the cigar of his mouth just long enough to mutter: “The Timing of the Shrew.”
I don’t know why I’m telling you all this except that too many people are reading “The Vicious Circle” and quoting too much of it to me. Said Noel Coward to the highly tailored lady: “You look almost like a man.” Retorted the highly tailored lady to Noel Coward: “So do you.” The art of insult, especially that one, is still around in different form, though perhaps not so succinctly expressed. Said Tallulah to Bob Hope: “Hope, leave this stage until I call for you.” Said Hope to Tallulah: “Don’t lower your voice to me. I knew you when you were Louis Calhern.”
The art of insult which I inspect annually along with dumb women jokes, political jokes, and tax jokes, has declined a little in the past year. But there have been a few — all of them, I expect, modifications of Max Beerbohm’s or Oscar Wilde’s but still, I think, at least as quotable as those in “The Vicious Circle.” There was that one on “This Is Show Business,” for instance.
BERT LAHR: I told this same joke recently at the Capitol theater and you could hear them laugh across the street.
CLIFTON FADIMAN: What was playing over there?
Then there was Ronald Colman on the Jack Benny program.
COLMAN: I never told you this, Jack, but I heard the first radio program you ever did.
BENNY: Gee, Ronnie, I didn’t know that. The very first program?
COLMAN: Yes. How have they been since?

Well, after all, there were some pretty old jokes in “The Vicious Circle,” too, but they were on the whole more vicious. People just don’t insult one another with the zest they once used, so we’ll have to turn elsewhere. (If Bennett Cerf can get away with this, I can try, too.) I rather like Groucho Marx’s brief patriotic oration which ran: “We owe a great deal to the government. The question is, how are we ever going to get the money to pay for it?”
That last is known as the tax joke which in sheer numbers is far out in front of my joke file. Radio and television actors and writers make much more money than is good for them; the government takes it away for their own protection and this solicitude preys on their minds. Pretty soon they write hokes about it. Or if they get real mad, they vent their spleen on the politicians. “My boy friend is out making speeches to draft Eisenhower. He wants to draft Eisenhower before Eisenhower drafts him.” (Gene Autry show).
Or if they get too depressed to write jokes about either taxes or politics, they can always fall back on the woman driver joke. “Well, I signaled for a left turn and then changed my mind and signaled for a right turn. Then I decided to take a short cut down the sidewalk because there were too many manly drivers cluttering up the street. Well, this weasel was hogging the sidewalk and I was late getting to the beauty parlor so in order to avoid an accident I just ran over him.” (Red Skelton show).
It’s been a good year, all around, for women jokes. Gracie Allen returned the eight day clock George bought her because the eight days were up and at least one girl bought “Little Women” for a friend because he was marrying a midget and Dave Garroway broke the news about the perfume that was driving women mad–it smelled like money—and my friend Irma . . . well, let’s not get into my friend Irma or we’ll be here all day.
We started with Groucho and we’ll finish with Groucho:
GROUCHO: If you like the sea, why aren’t you a sailor instead of a landlubber?
CONTESTANT: That’s not a very good way to raise a family.
GROUCHO: The fish manage pretty well.
I plan to collect them all in a book some day but not until the winter after the Christmas jokes are in. “Second Story Jackson is in jail again.” – “What’s he in for this time ?” – “He was doing his Christmas shopping early.” – “Early?” – “Before the store opened.” (Duffy’s Tavern.)

Crosby was so oft quoted in his day—though not as much, perhaps, as the Algonquin Round Table—it would have been nice if someone published a collection of his columns. Interestingly, someone did, in a way. After writing this post, I happened upon an issue of Swing magazine, which had reprinted this particular column and several others. Swing was the publication of WHB (“Your Favorite Neighbor”) in Kansas City. It was a pretty ambitious publication for a radio station and while it may not have engaged in the slicing wit of a Benchley, Woollcott or Parker, it did have the sense to give readers a monthly dose of Crosby. You can leaf through PDF scans at David Gleason’s exemplary repository of old broadcasting publications HERE.

Warming to Groucho

What’s the easiest way to fill a radio column? Fill it with dialogue with one of your favourite shows.

You Bet Your Life debuted on radio on October 27, 1947. It starred the irreverent Groucho Marx going through the motions of a game show so he fill the air time with one-liners, generally at the expense of the confused contestant. You’d think such a concept would appeal to Herald-Tribune syndicate columnist John Crosby, no fan of game shows or the people who appeared on them. It didn’t at first. He panned it, though did he zero on what made the show so appealing.

It’s hard to believe Crosby actually thought “You Bet Your Life” was inferior to Jack Paar’s comedy/variety show which, frankly, was neither bright nor witty. Before his debut, Paar got a huge build-up as a new type of sardonic comedian and then never delivered on it on radio (blaming his failures on everyone but himself). Television helped both Marx and Paar. The latter finally was put into a late-night interview format that fit him. Groucho remained being Groucho. But on television, you could see him. His expressions were the one element that the radio version of “You Bet Your Life” didn’t have and may have been the one addition that pushed the show to popularity (it had bounced around among three networks on radio in 2½ years).

So we have a bunch of Crosby columns about the radio “You Bet Your Life.” You can read a TV review from November 21, 1950 HERE (the show first aired on TV the previous October 4th). This column was published December 9, 1947.

GROUCHO MARX PROBLEM
Something certainly ought to be done about Groucho Marx, one of the great men of this century, but the quiz program in which he is now entangled isn’t it. In fact, all of Groucho’s recent enterprises have been somewhat unhappy. He returned to active duty in the movies not long ago in something called “Copacabana.” The critics took a dim view of this venture. Then he reappeared on the air on this quiz show, which is called “You Bet Your Life,” and the radio critics—an ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-clothed group who are not accepted socially in the higher echelons of criticism—again expressed disdain.
“You Bet Your Life” has many of the old wrinkles of quiz shows—people from Brooklyn who know everything, people from Brooklyn who don’t know anything, offstage voices telling you things the contestants don’t know, secret words and, of course, lots and lots of cash. However, there is one new wrinkle. They gamble on this program. Heaven knows what the church groups or the societies for the suppression of all enjoyable activities are going to say when they get wind of this lamentable undertaking, but that’s what they do. They bet money. It must be, the way I figure it, somehow unlawful. It sounds too pleasant to be quite legal.
A contestant is endowed by the sponsors with 30 clams, any part of which he can bet that he knows the answer to the question Groucho is about to ask him. The odds in this gambling hell run from even money to 3 to 1, and there are four questions, any one of which could be answered by Clifton Finnegan in his sleep. This part of the program, I guess, is designed shamefully to arouse the kibitzer that lurks in all of us, and in my case is succeeded in an unexpected way. I was just exasperated by the timidity of these amateurs, and I imagine all the real gamblers were completely alienated. If my arithmetic is in any sort of condition, a bettor could run his 30 fish into 1,440 slugs, provided he plunged his whole wad all along the line. The best anyone did the other night was slightly over 200 bucks. What a bunch of tinhorns.
Groucho is obviously on the wrong end of the betting table here. During his whole career in show business he has earnestly attempted to relieve suckers of the tedium of carrying too much money around. Here he is passing the stuff out in handfuls to the same sort of people he once took it away from. He does it gracefully but his heart clearly isn’t in it. If I had anything to do with this program, things would be changed around completely. The contestants would have to bring their own dough and Marx would see how much he could get away from them by hook or by crook, preferably the latter.
This would be the revolution in quiz programs that everyone has been seeking since “Information, Please” started all the quiz nonsense. After all, if 10 or 20 million radio listeners can get aroused about Mrs. Sadie Glotz winning a four-motored bomber, think how much more excited they'd get if she lost something equally valuable — her life savings, her home, her husband’s business, her husband.
This program would have all the excitement of a quiz contest with the agony of soap opera.
Well, let's get back to “You Bet Your Life” Groucho, an expert at insult, is seriously inhibited by the necessity of being polite to the amateurs, though once in awhile he applies a touch of acid where it’s most needed. To one precocious urchin, whom, I’m sure, he loathed, he remarked: “You’re 10 years old, eh? Have you always been 10 years old?”
I also rather liked a passage of arms between Groucho and a young man who was explaining how he met his wife.
“You see, I drive a truck,” said this young man.
“You ran over her?” inquired Groucho.
"No. No, you see, she works in a restaurant.”
“I don’t understand. You drove the truck into the restaurant?”
Here the young man started all over again and explained that he was driving his truck out to the country to pick up some turkeys at a farm. “The farmer told me I’d find some turkeys out in the barn.”
"And your wife was among them?" asked Groucho.
This is not all characteristic of most of the program, which on the whole is not a satisfactory answer to the problem of what to do with Groucho Marx. I regret to hear that on Dec. 24 "You Bet Your Life" will replace the Jack Paar show on ABC, 930 p m., Wednesdays, which means that a routine quiz is taking the place of one of the brightest and wittiest new voices to be heard on the air for some time.

Crosby warmed up to the show. This review was published January 14, 1949.

MASTER WHO WON’T QUIZ
Groucho Marx who is considered here periodically for no special reason except that he’s a very funny fellow, is on the agenda again. The excuse this time is that he was selected by the nation’s radio editors as the best quiz master on the air, an infinitely dubious honor which Groucho nevertheless accepted graciously.
“It just goes to show that a man with a moustache can get elected,” he said when informed of his peculiar distinction.
I’m not sure what the requirements for good quizmasting are exactly. (Possession of an encyclopedia is one, I suppose.) Whatever they are, Groucho, I’m sure, hasn’t them but he is certainly the funniest quiz master around and easily the most sardonic, generally acting as if he loathed the profession.
At insulting the contestants, if that’s one of the necessary characteristics of quiz masters, he has no peer. “That’s as shifty an answer as I’ve ever heard,” he complains to the stumblebums. If there’s any hesitancy, Groucho asks solicitously: “You’re still alive, I presume.”
As he did in the movies and on the stage, Groucho manages to inject a leer into the most innocent references. When a woman complains that her husband didn’t buy her clothes, he remarked smoothly: “Doesn’t he ever wonder where they come from?”
“Which are the best customers,” he asked a salesman, “men or women?”
“There isn’t any difference.”
“No difference between men and women? You stick to your business and I’ll stick to mine.”
Groucho is also an expert at rapping his clients by indirection. He blithely told a second-hand car dealer and auctioneer, “Regardless of what I think, you’re probably both honest men.” The puns are outrageous (Is it true that Rexall is a drug on the market?”) and many of the jokes are, too, but Groucho utters them with such insouciant determination that they’re funnier than they ought to be.
Groucho’s greatest contribution to the art of quizzing people is his extraordinary talent for avoiding it.
Ha usually consumes the first 11 minutes of a half-hour show without asking any questions at all. Or at least, any questions that require answers. He may ask a stockbroker what functions he performs “besides giving people bum advice.”
Naturally, he can’t keep this up forever though he tries, with conspicuous gallantry. The quiz malarkey, when it finally comes, is as silly as most and maybe a little sillier. If there are any questions in there that your 11-year-old daughter can't answer, I’d send her back to second grade.
There is, of course, a jackpot question and this, I admit, your daughter may have some trouble with. The contestants rarely get their mits on the $1,500 dangled in front of them for this baby.
The Groucho Marx program, officially known as “Bet Your Life” (ABC 9:30 p. m. Wednesdays), has one unusual gimmick in it. The contestants are endowed by the sponsor with $20, any part of which they can bet with Marx on their ability to answer his questions. If they’re smart, they’ll shoot the works all along the line. A college professor ran his stake up to $420. Following that, Groucho muttered that no one who got past the sixth grade would ever be allowed on the program again. Come to think of it I don’t think any one has, either.

And, finally, this review from February 15, 1950. Crosby’s phoning it in. He basically lets Groucho and the contestants write his column for him.

THE SALTIEST
The Groucho Marx show, formally titled "This Is Your Life" (CBS 9 p.m. Wednesday), still provides the saltiest humor anywhere on the air. If there are any others in the house in addition to myself who collect Marxisms, here are a few for your files.
Some time ago, Marx teamed up Admiral Frederick C. Sherman (retired), former commander of the battleship Missouri, with Apprentice Seaman John Stafford as a pair of quiz contestants. The sailor was pretty nervous and Marx asked him:
"What's the matter--is this the first time you've been close to a microphone?"
"No," said the seaman. "It's the first time I've been this close to an admiral."
Marx glanced up at the admiral and remarked: "You look nervous too. Is this the first time you've been this close to a sailor?"
Then there was the time he asked a mother how much her child ate a day.
"Besides baby food—four bottles a day," she said.
"He eats four bottles a day?" said Groucho. "When you burp him, isn't there danger of flying glass?"
A couple of weeks ago he had a long exchange with a public school official which went approximately like this:
GROUCHO: How old are you?
OFFICIAL: I'm 30, Groucho.
GROUCHO: Judging from my experience, you'd be about in seventh grade. What exactly do you do?
OFFICIAL: I'm the liaison man between the home and the school. I'm the one they send out when they try to find out why a child is not in school.
GROUCHO: You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were a truant officer.
OFFICIAL: We don't call it that any more.
GROUCHO: When I was a kid we had other names for them too.
OFFICIAL: I remember a time when I visited a home and asked for the mother of a boy . . .
GROUCHO: I've done that too.
OFFICIAL: Before I knew what was happening I was helping the delivery of a child.
GROUCHO: And you were expecting that child in school. You certainly grab them young, I tell you what. Let's have a demonstration. You pretend I'm a high achool boy. I'm not in school and you run into me at Sam's poolroom.
OFFICIAL: Its only fifth period, Groucho. You should be in geometry class.
GROUCHO: I'll play the six ball in the side pocket.
There was a lot more but that's enough of that.
Some weeks back Groucho dredged up a female square dance caller. "Isn't that a rather peculiar occupation for a woman?" he asked.
"Well, it might be," the woman said. "But I think women can do anything men can."
"You think so?" said Groucho. "I'd like to see you get into the steam room at the Elks Club." And later, after she'd described a bit more of her odd profession, Groucho sighed: "Well, I've learned a lot about America tonight. It won't be long before we are investigated."
The closest anyone has come to stopping Groucho recently was a Mrs. Marion Story, of Bakersfield, Cal., who said she had 20 children. Groucho turned to Mr. Story and gasped "Is this true?" The husband confessed that it was.
There was a stunned silence and then Groucho whispered into the microphone to his unseen audience. "Apparently nothing has happened in the last few seconds, anyway."

“You Bet Your Life” carried on until 1961. Fortunately, the show had been shot on film and, even more fortunately, reels upon reels of film were rescued from certain death in the 1970s, repackaged (the editing left a lot to be desired at times), and a whole new generation got to enjoy Groucho’s wit.

Appearing With Groucho

The interaction between Groucho Marx and the contestants on “You Bet Your Life” made the show unique and that’s probably why it was never really successfully cloned or revived. Some contestants were feisty and unintentionally funny. Others were nervous and unintentionally funny. And yet others were completely oblivious to Groucho’s putdowns and were unintentionally funny.

People who appear on game shows are part of our lives for a fleeting moment, usually a day or two (unless their name is Ken Jennings), then vanish as they’re replaced by someone else. Few of us every wonder “Whatever happened to so-and-so who was on such-and-such show last month?” Well, someone at the Radio and TV Mirror did. They found there was a neat little story about a couple who took the stage opposite Groucho on “Your Bet Your Life.” It was perfect for the housewives reading the magazine. It featured an ideal Mr. and Mrs. Young Suburban America of the 1950s, some amusing anecdotes and a happy ending.

The story appeared in the May 1952 issue, told from the point of view of the housewife-contestant (who perhaps received editorial assistance in crafting her story). You may zone out once she gets to the travelogue part but the first two-thirds of the story are an interesting account of what it was like being on the show.

YOU BET YOUR LIFE!
By NADINE SNODGRASS
It was a minor miracle, that's what it was. When we talk about it now, we still shake our heads and wonder whether we dreamed it all. Then we look over our gifts, our photographs, and we read some of the letters we received, and we are forced to admit that anything can happen when — you bet your life.

To start at the beginning and be sensible about it — which isn't easy — Tom and I are what I believe you would describe as the usual young American couple. We have been married a little over a year. We live in a modest, unfurnished apartment in Inglewood, California (a suburb of Los Angeles proper); we are buying our furniture, some of it on the installment plan, and we are expecting a baby any minute now. Tom is an electronic technician at Hughes Aircraft Corporation. I had held my secretarial job until we discovered that we were going to have a family. That's how average we are.
One night a young couple who live in our neighborhood telephoned to say that they had four tickets to the Groucho Marx television show, You Bet Your Life. Would we like to join them? It seemed like a fine idea.
I put on my favorite maternity outfit; a green gabardine skirt and a plaid taffeta smock. Tom slicked down his hair and we were ready. On our way to the station, the four of us kidded a little about appearing on a quiz show and winning the jackpot. We agreed that we would enjoy a television set of our own, or a trip to Europe, or a furnished bungalow into which we could move.
Tom said, "You married the wrong man, honey, for a break like that. I've never won anything in my life."
I said that I felt I had had all the luck a girl deserves when I met and married him. You know how wonderful it is when you're happily married and planning a great life together.
Actually it didn't occur to us that we'd have a chance to appear on the show. We assumed, as I suppose most people do, that the program was well set in advance. That's why Tom and I raised our eyebrows at one another when the show announcer, George Fenneman, asked for young couples in the audience to volunteer to play You Bet Your Life.
Tom leaned over and whispered to me, "Would you be game?"
"Why not?" I answered. "We have nothing to lose and I think it would be fun. Maybe we're smarter than we think!" (Tom is still kidding me about that.)
There were several of us who were ushered into various dressing rooms off the corridor from the main studio and there, couple by couple, we were interviewed. Tom and I still can't figure out how we happened to be chosen. Tom says it was because it was obvious that I was a "prominent" citizen!
We shook hands for luck and I noticed that Tom's hands were almost as cold as mine. "Scared?" he asked.
I started to say that I wasn't, but my throat was so dry that I couldn't speak for a second. When I could get my voice to function, I sort of squeaked, "Petrified." "Nothing to it," Tom said, putting his arm around me. "We're just going to talk to Groucho Marx. That'll be fun."
As we were the third couple to come before Mr. Marx that evening, we had final choice of the categories suggested. We chose famous resort spots, thinking of Lake Placid, Atlantic City, Miami, Colorado Springs, Palm Springs, Sun Valley, Honolulu, and even of Cannes and Biarritz. Mr. Marx rolled his eyes and waved his famous cigar in our direction after we had been introduced, and asked, "Which are you hoping for, a boy or a girl?"
I said that this baby was our first, so we didn't care.
"If it's a boy," Mr. Marx said, goggling from us to the audience, "name him after me. Imagine going through life with the name of Groucho Snodgrass!"
Tom and I nearly collapsed, laughing. Around the house we still refer to the anticipated as "Groucho!"
"In what state is Lake Placid?"
Tom grinned. He had thought of that resort when we first decided on the category. "New York," answered Tom.
"In what state is Sarasota?"
Tom and I looked at one another with wide eyes. I hadn't an idea in the world. I knew I had heard the word, but where? We whispered. I said I thought it sounded . like an Indian name. Time was running out, so we decided to say "Michigan."
"Sorry. Sarasota is in Florida. It is the winter headquarters of Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Circus. Too bad, kids," Mr. Marx said. It was obvious that he meant it. "I don't want you to go away broke, so for ten dollars can you tell me who wrote Brahms' 'Lullaby'?"
We weren't too flustered to know that one. The audience had uttered a groan when we didn't know where Sarasota was, but they gave us a nice hand when we won our ten dollars.
Oh well, we said on the way home, it had been a terrific experience and we had come home ten dollars richer than when we left— which was something exceptional in these days. During the next few days a number of amazing things happened. I received a jubilant letter from my mother in Chicago. We hadn't seen each other for four years and Mother had never met Tom, but she had caught that particular Groucho Marx show. You can imagine how thrilled she was.
We were just settling down to normal again when a representative of You Bet Your Life telephoned and asked what reaction Tom and I had experienced from being on TV. I told him some of our happenings and he said, "We want you to come back again. We have a surprise for you."
I wrote Mother to warn her to be watching, and we went back to the broadcasting studio the following Thursday. This time we weren't particularly nervous and Tom said that if they gave us another chance he was going to pick the same category again. He had been studying maps!

Groucho kidded a bit, as he usually does, then he said to Tom, "I wonder if you can tell me where . . ."
"Sarasota is in Florida," interrupted Tom.
"You bet your life," answered Groucho, and pulled a letter from his pocket. "Listen to this," he said.
The letter had been written by Mr. Tod Swalm, general manager of Sarasota (Florida) Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Swalm was aghast to think that anyone in the world was ignorant of the whereabouts of his city. He and Sarasota were, therefore, inviting Tom and me to enjoy a week's vacation in Sarasota as guests of the resort from the time we left Los Angeles by air until we again returned to Los Angeles International Airport.
We simply shrieked with delight, and so did everyone in that TV audience. It was a great night for Sarasota, and a greater one for the Snodgrasses.
Behind the scenes, afterward, Tom and I realized that there were some problems to be solved. Tom would have to ask for the time off, of course, and I would have to consult our doctor.
Even before Tom had left for the office the next morning, Mr. Nate Tufts, a representative of You Bet Your Life, was on the telephone, asking eagerly, "Can you go?"
I wanted to ask him who was more excited, the staff of You Bet Your Life or the Snodgrasses, but I didn't. I simply explained that it wasn't yet nine o'clock. Tom hadn't called me yet about his time off and I hadn't seen the doctor, but I can't tell you how pleased I was to have the entire staff of You Bet Your Life show such interest in us.
From that instant on, everything went along as if a fairy godmother had touched us with a magic wand. Tom's boss was as interested in our trip as the rest of our friends were. The doctor said I was getting along fine and that the experience would be priceless. Tom's mother said, when I told her that we were going to be sensible and buy no extra clothes for the trip, "You should have a suit in which to travel. Something new adds to a trip. Come on, let's go shopping."
We left Los Angeles at midnight on Monday, January 14. Tom had flown many times, but it was my first airplane trip. Everyone had said I would be able to relax and sleep, but who can sleep with one's heart going bumpety-bump, ninety miles a minute? I pressed my nose against the window and looked at the moon and then at the little , towns, twinkling like a nest of fireflies far, far below. I watched the night grow light, and the sunrise, too. I slept a little during the morning, and then we landed at Tampa at two o'clock in the afternoon.
Mr. Swalm of the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and representatives of the Campbell-Davis Motors of Sarasota met us in a new De Soto. Also there were several photographers who snapped pictures as if we had been celebrities. This flashbulb life bothered me at first, but after two days of it, Tom and I became veterans. We are to receive an album including every shot taken so that someday we will be able to tell this story to our grandchildren, complete with illustrations.
From the airport we were whisked over a beautiful fifty-mile drive to Sarasota. Our first impression of the city was that it was something like Laguna Beach, a charming resort city in Southern California. It had the same beautiful vistas of the sea, the same vacation atmosphere, the same alluring shops, but Sarasota was (whisper it) warmer.
Our first big thrill was the reception given in our honor. This was attended by the mayor and all city dignitaries, and we were given a key to the city. Also, Tom received a bright shirt and swim trunks as well as a camera and twelve rolls of film. I was given a handsome green leather shoulder bag, and a pretty full-circle peasant skirt. We were also given a set of Skyway luggage. The baby did very well, too: it was given a pink crib blanket, an air mattress, a set of fitted sheets, a comb and brush set.
Our "home" in Sarasota was the Coquina, an apartment-hotel which is the last word in luxury. We had an apartment with a compact kitchen, a living room looking out upon a beach whose sand is like face powder, and a beautiful bedroom. The refrigerator in our kitchen was stocked daily with cream, milk, ham, eggs, and wonderful bakery goods so that we could have breakfast whenever we awakened.
A luncheon was planned for us every noon, and dinner was planned for us every night. We visited almost every famous restaurant and night club in Sarasota. And how we danced on the moonlit terraces overlooking the ocean! It was twenty-four-hour paradise plus a second honeymoon.
Now that we are back in our apartment in Inglewood we remember the most wonderful week any two people could experience. I'm still misty-eyed about it and a good deal of my spare time has been spent reliving the days and recapturing the breathless feeling of being young, in love, and on a magic holiday.
The amazing thing to us is that making a mistake on a radio program could bring such a trip to two ordinary people. It proves that no one should ever give up hope of being touched by Lady Luck's sparkling wand. It happened to us. It could happen to you!

The Snodgrasses would have appeared on a fair number of TV sets that season. “You Bet Your Life” finished tenth in the ratings in 1951-52 with a 42.1 share, opposite “Stop the Music” on ABC and Burns and Allen and “Star of the Family” (with Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy) alternating on CBS. Groucho was still doing the show on radio, too, on Wednesday nights at 9 against Red Skelton on CBS, “Rogue’s Gallery” on ABC and “The Hidden Truth” on Mutual.

Something which is interesting is revealed in the photo of the Snodgrasses which accompanied the article. Nadine is visibly pregnant. Pregnancy was a touchy subject, at least when it came to sitcoms, and she may have been one of the first almost-moms to have appeared on network TV.

Thomas Louis Snodgrass and Nadine Willie Hickman were married August 18, 1950 in Los Angeles. Where are the Snodgrasses today? I haven’t been able to find out. If you’re reading, Tom or Nadine, drop me a note. But we can tell you they had a boy named Timothy Allen, 7 pounds 5 ounces. Sorry, Groucho.

Playing With Dynamite and Other Games

If Aaron Ruben is remembered today, it’s for writing and producing “The Andy Griffith Show.” Like many writers in the first decades of television, Ruben came from radio. He’d written for Fred Allen and Milton Berle.

Ruben was brimming over with comic ideas, some of which wouldn’t quite work on radio or TV. So he sent them in as jokes to noted syndicated TV columnist John Crosby. Crosby wasn’t exactly a fan or quiz or audience participation shows, though there were a few off the beaten path like “You Bet Your Life” and “It Pays to Be Ignorant” that he reviewed favourably (a critic would be taking his life into his hands bashing Groucho Marx in print). So here’s Crosby’s column from March 22, 1954 where he passes on Ruben’s brainstorms and a funny exchange from the Groucho show. For whatever reason, Crosby didn’t reveal Ruben’s identity, though he must have known who Ruben was.

Readers Suggest Choice—Though Slighty Dangerous—New Shows
By JOHN CROSBY
My waggish readers, who brood over the plethora of panel shows, have been writing in suggestions again. In case you think there aren't enough panel gimmicks on the air, here are some ideas that haven't quite got on yet.
A man named Aaron Ruben, who has a strong streak of Charles Addams in him, has suggested a fine ghoulish game called “Up You Go.”
“This is a program in which you have a permanent panel of dynamitologists and bomb experts. A contestant is chosen from the audience and asked to disassemble a bomb. As the contestant goes about his task the members of the panel observe carefully and call out instructions. If the contestant ignores the instructions—‘Up You Go!’”
In case that game isn't exciting enough, Mr. Rueben has another one called “Out You Go” played in a studio at least 20 stories high. The contestant is shown a series of windows—one of them, the real thing, the others papier mache. If he is unfortunate enough to dive through the real one, the next of kin pay for the broken window. If he doesn't, he gets many handsome prizes.
Mr. Ruben, for the more intellectual crowd, has another on called “In You Go,” a thoughtful game in which lawyers and income tax experts closely quietly question the contestant about his personal life. If the experts are any good at all, they should be able to pin a criminal rap on him in no time. He gets to choose the federal pen he prefers.
Then someone else—I forgot who—submitted “Name You Mate.” This would be a rather highly specialized fame in which the contestants would be selected entirely from such folks as Tommy Manville or Barbara Hutton or other much-married folk. The idea would be to see whether they could identify some of their earlier mates, three or four marriages back. This one ought to be jolly fun, especially if—as is highly probable—they can't.
If you think these games are a little rough on the contestants, you just don't realize how durable contestants are these days. Not so long ago, for example, on the “People Are Funny” program, they pitched a contestant in a tank of water, threw live crabs in the water, and then threw lighted firecrackers at him. Just good clean fun. And down in Philadelphia, on a program called “Stop Look Listen,” Tom Moorehead, the emcee, just as a gag gave a startled woman contestant a live 4-foot alligator.
It's awfully hard to find anything a contestant won't do these days.

The surface has barely been scratched in the capabilities of contestants to bare their souls or their bodies to public gaze in order to win the free cruise to Bermuda where presumably the sun will heal any wounds left by the firecrackers.
And, of course, you just never know what a contestant is going to bare when he starts unlimbering his life story. Not long ago, Groucho Marx stumbled on 97-year-old Ed Ryan, a contestant on “You Bet Your Life,” who confessed that he was a technical survivor of Custer's last stand.
He had, he said, been left behind on that historic occasion to care for a sick buddy. Disgusted at being left behind and thereafter having avoided massacre, he deserted the Army and never went back.
“In other words,” said Groucho, “you've been AWOL for seventy-five years.”
Mr. Ryan allowed that this was true.
“If I were you,” Groucho told the white-bearded ancient, “I'd sneak back into that camp and keep my mouth shut. Of course right at this minute 200 colonels in the Pentagon are getting dizzy thinking of your back pay.”

The One, The Only, You Bet Your Life

The quiz show scandals claimed the lives of plenty of shows rife with phoniness. But one game show with an element of fakeness was untouched because no one cared.

That show was “You Bet Your Life.” The actual quiz part wasn’t fake, but the contestant interviews that took up a good portion of the programme were at least semi-scripted.

Critic John Crosby explained why no one cared in this 1950 column. It’s the same reason you wouldn’t care today. The show is just plain funny.

Groucho on Television Just as Funny As Radio—Only More Moustache, Cigar
By JOHN CROSBY
NEW YORK, Nov. 21.— The Groucho Marx television show, “You Bet Your Life,” is identical with the Groucho Marx radio show except that television adds the moustache, the cigar, the eye-glasses, the wildly rolling eyes, the ferocious eyebrows and the rest of Marx’ disheveled countenance.
Groucho is an expert at the use of all these personal props and they contribute a great deal to the humor of the program. There is a certain loss, though. The Marx show originally acquired fame as the quickest and best ad lib operation in the business. It became less and less of a quiz show, which is all right with me, and more and more a gag show. However, the ad libs began to sound too round, too firm, too fully packed to be quite ad libs.
NOT QUITE REAL
Television has taken this process even farther. “So you’re a photographer,” Groucho asks a pretty lady contestant. “If you were covering a murder, what would you do first?”
“I’d shoot the corpse.”
“That’s redundant. What’s the next thing you’d do?”
“I’d shoot the witnesses.”
“You’ve shot everyone in sight. Who do you work for, Tripod—a magazine or Murder, Inc.?”
As you can see, it sounds a little too practiced, a little too forced, to be quite real. Still, Groucho, an expert at milking lines till they’re dry as sunbeams, gets more out of that material than you’d believe possible.
FEMALE FAGIN, EH?
“I had a hobby hooking rugs?” one girl told him.
She got a long, eloquent look.
“You had a hobby hooking rugs?” inquired Groucho. “Where from—department stores?”
“I got so good at it, I started to teach.”
This time Groucho put the cigar in operation, twirling it, puffing it, all but swallowing it. “A Fagin—teaching little children to hook rugs.”
And so on. Groucho can belt a pun around for minutes at a time without it ever touching ground. I’m prepared to believe he can do this extemporaneously but I somehow can’t quite believe the contestants can handle their straight lines without prior warning.
SPECIAL OPERATION
Of course, the Marx TV show, like the radio show, is a rather special operation. It is film recording, which is to say it isn’t kinescope. That means it is filmed in front of a studio audience and the filming can go on as long as possible. Then the editors get to work, cutting out the dull spots, and making both Groucho and the contestants appear at-their best. They still sound as if they'd been rehearsing. TV has imposed its curious requirements on Marx and his producers, the main requirement being that the contestants be reasonably fetching to look at. (Groucho has a lot of assets but good looks are not among them.)
Parading in front of the cameras you'll find a lot of pretty babes, who are not over-burdened with information. You never needed an awful lot of information to run up a pretty good score on the Marx show. However, the current crop of pretties, especially selected for television, I presume, don’t seem to have any information at all tucked away in their handsome noodles.
HAD NO IDEA
The other night the contestants had no idea where Gettysburg was or the names of the capitals of Austria or Cuba. Two pairs of contestants wound up broke, whereas the old radio contestants used to average a hundred bucks or so apiece. Fortunately, the quiz angle doesn't intrude much.
“You Bet Your Life” is fundamentally a tour de force for Groucho—his moustache, his sliding walk, and his puns—and it’s a very funny show—even if they do rehearse those ad-libs. Ultimately, I expect, the ad-lib show will end up with four high-priced writers and a full two weeks’ rehearsal. They might even teach those pretty blondes where Gettysburg is.

In some ways, television isn’t all that different than 60 years ago. Today, if someone tries something new and it’s a success, imitation versions choke the broadcast air. So it was with “You Bet Your Life.” Fred Allen had a quip show with contestants. So did Herb Shriner. And Edgar Bergen. And Johnny Carson. Carson’s lasted awhile but none had the success of the one, the only Groucho.