More Groucho Marx Quotes

 

For your April Fool's enjoyment:  

• The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing.  If you can fake that, you've got it made.
• I must confess, I was born at a very early age.
• I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.
• Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
• I intend to live forever or die trying.
• A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running. 
• All people are born alike-- except Republicans and Democrats.
• Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?
• A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. 
• She got her looks from her father.  He's a plastic surgeon.
• Either he's dead, or my watch has stopped. 
• Why, a four-year-old child could understand this.  Run out and find me a four-year-old child:  I can't make head nor tail out of it.
• Before I speak, I have something to say. 
• Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you. 
• Humor is reason gone mad.   --Groucho Marx 

Groucho for Better Thinking

 

     Groucho Marx is usually thought about for his biting humor. This month's quote is a little more on the thoughtful side.  It even sounds like something a person might hear from a mental health provider:

Each morning when I open my eyes, I say to myself:  "I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.  I can choose which it shall be.  Yesterday is dead; tomorrow hasn't arrived yet.  I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it."  (Attributed to Groucho in 1972 by Rufus W. Gosnell, an Aiken, SC, newspaperman.)

Contranyms

 

     Contranyms are single words that have two contradictory meanings (they are their own opposites!).  They are somewhat rare. Still, here are 10 of them:

1.  Apology:  a statement of contrition (sorrow) for an act, or a firm defense of one

2.  Bolt:  to secure, or to flee

3.  Bound:  heading to a destination, running off ('bounding away') OR restrained from movement at all

4.  Cleave:  to adhere to, or to separate

5.  Dust:  to add fine particles, or to removed them

6.  Fast:  quick, or stuck/made stable

7.   Left:  remained, or departed

8.   Peer:  a person of the nobility, or an equal  (actually the 2nd came out of the first; the peers were each other's equals, with rights the hoi polloi didn't have)

9.   Sanction:  to approve, or to boycott

10.  Weather: to withstand, to wear away

Hail, Hail, Fredonia

This is no foolin'.... Fredonia is for real, and I've been there! 

But no "Duck Soup" in sight!

Duck Soup, 1933; Paramount Pictures

No April Foolin'

 

Photo taken & "improved" by my daughter. My "alter ego", Grouch Marx.

"The Fifth Marx Brother"

        Margaret Dumont (born Daisy Juliette Baker).  Believe it or not, this lovely lady went on to repeatedly play the stuffy, dowager widow in multiple Marx Brothers' movies.

Enjoy Some "Duck Soup"

Why the title Duck Soup?!?!?!

Paramount, 1933

Earlier (in 1927), director Leo McCarey had made a two-reel Laurel and Hardy film with the same title - and he used it again. The film's title uses a slang phrase familiar in early 20th century America. It means anything "simple" or "easy", or alternately, a "gullible sucker" or "pushover." 

The film has become a classic--the ultimate send-up of power-hungry dictators.  Groucho supposedly provided the following recipe to explain the title: "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life." 

(Under the opening credits, four quacking ducks [stylized four Marx Brothers] swim & simmer in a heating kettle.)

Laymen's Guide to Pregnancy Terms

Baby Most common pop song lyric 

Baby Shower Actually, baths are recommended

Birth Canal Formerly known as "Love Canal" 

Booties What's shakin' at the club 

Cesarean Section Where Julius always sat at the Coliseum 

Coach How you can afford to fly after Baby comes 

Cravings Why you're sold on "Ben" and "Jerry" for baby names 

Delivery Pizza or Chinese? 

Due Date Librarians' top concern 

Engorged Why your cups runneth over 

Fatigue French for "overweight" 

Fertilization Why you're growing at this rapid rate 

Fetus "We're hungry!" 

Genes What you won't be fitting into for a while 

Heartbeat Amount of time it takes to get pregnant 

Lamaze L.A. Freeways 

Maternity Synonym for "achy & tired" 

Morning Sickness Bringing up dinner at breakfast 

2 O'Clock Feedings No, not late lunches with "the girls" 

Placenta Italian food made from cornmeal 

Rocker Bowie, Jagger, Van Halen, etc. 

Stretch Marks Groucho's taller brother 

Umbilical Cord A real love connection 

Vitamins Great Supplement to pickles & ice cream 

Womb The best prenatal unit there is!

Legal Eagles

As the Marx Brothers were planning to make a movie called A Night in Casablanca, Warner Brothers Pictures threatened legal action because they had made Casablanca five years before. Here are excerpts from some actual letters Groucho sent to the Warner Bros. legal department:

Dear Warner Brothers:
...up to the time we contemplated making this picture, I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers...It seems that in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather, while looking for a shortcut to the city of Burbank, stumbled on the shores of Africa and...named it Casablanca...You claim you own Casablanca and that no one else can use that name without your permission. What about "Warner Brothers"? Do you own that, too? You probably have the right to use the name Warner, but what about Brothers? Professionally, we were brothers long before you were...

Sincerely, Groucho Marx

His letter, of course, confused the Warner Brothers' legal department. They sent a letter with a serious request for a plot outline (like there's ever much of a "plot" in Marx Bros. movies!). Groucho wrote back with a wildly fictitious outline. Being even more confused (and lacking any sense of humor!), the lawyers wrote again, saying they still didn't understand the story line and would appreciate Groucho sending a detailed story line. Here are excerpts from his third letter:

Dear Brothers:
Since I last wrote you, I regret to say there have been some changes in the plot our our new picture...I play Bordello, the sweetheart of Humphrey Bogart. Harpo and Chico are itinerant rug peddlers who are weary of laying rugs and enter a monastery just for a lark. This is a good joke on them, as there has not been a lark in the place for fifteen years...In the fifth reel, Gladstone* makes a speech that sets the House of Commons in an uproar, and the King promptly asks for his resignation...Humphrey Bogart's girl, Bordello, spends her last years in a Bacall house. This, as you can see, is a very skimpy outline. The only thing that can save us from extinction is a continuation of the film shortage.

Fondly, Groucho Marx

*William Gladstone was prime minister four times in the latter part of the 19th century, under Queen Victoria's rule and was the dominant voice of the Liberal Party. He made several rousing speeches in this capacity.
There were no more letters after this.

Change of Fortune

"Don't forget---the stockholder of yesterday is the stowaway* of today." ---Groucho Marx in Monkey Business

*Stowaway, as in someone who sneaks aboard a ship without paying fare. (The first part of the movie, the Marx Brothers' characters were stowaways.)

Higher Education

The faculty members might just as well keep their seats. There'll be no diving for this cigar. . .Well I thought my razor was dull until I heard his [the introducing professor's] speech. . .As I look out over your eager faces, I can readily understand why this college is flat on its back. The last college I presided over, things were slightly different. I was flat on my back. Things kept going from bad to worse, but we all put our shoulders to the wheel, and it wasn't long before I was flat on my back again. " ---Groucho Marx, in his first speech as a new college president in Horse Feathers

Fleet-Footed

"I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather dance with the cows till you came home!" Groucho Marx in Duck Soup   (Paramount Pictures, 1933)

Why a Duck?

[In the Marx Bros. movie Cocoanuts, Groucho is Mr. Hammer, a swindler conducting a Florida land auction. Chico is an idiot savant he hires to make false bids to drive up land prices. (Universal Studios currently owns the rights to this movie, which will soon enter the public domain.  The rights have been sold and resold over time.)]]

HAMMER: Do you know what a lot is?
CHICO: Yeah, itsa too much.
HAMMER: I don't mean a whole lot. Just a little lot with nothing on it.
CHICO: Any time you gotta too much, you gotta whole lot. . .
HAMMER: Come here, Rand McNally and I'll explain this thing to you. Now look, this is a map and diagram of the whole Cocoanut section. . .Here's Cocoanut Manor. Here's Cocoanut Heights. That's a swamp; right over there where the road forks, that's Cocoanut Junction.
CHICO: Where have you got Cocoanut Custard?
HAMMER: Why, that's on the forks. You probably eat with your knife, so you wouldn't have to worry about that. . .Now, here's a little peninsula, and here is a viaduct leading over to the mainland.
CHICO: Why a duck?
HAMMER: . . .I say, here is a little peninsula, and here's a viaduct leading over to the mainland.
CHICO: All right. Why a duck?
HAMMER: I'm not playing Ask-Me-Another. I say, that's a viaduct.
CHICO: All right. Why a duck? Why a--why a duck? Why-a-no-chicken?
HAMMER: I don't know why-a-no-chicken. I'm a stranger here myself. All I know is that it's a viaduct. You try to cross over there a chicken, and you'll find out why a duck. It's deep water, that's viaduct.
CHICO: That's why a duck?
HAMMER: Look! Suppose you were out horseback riding and you came to that stream and wanted to ford over there. You couldn't make it. Too deep.
CHICO: But what do you want with a Ford when you gotta horse?
HAMMER: I'm sorry the matter ever came up. All I know is that it's a viaduct.
CHICO: Now look. . .all righta. . .I catcha on to why0a-horse, why-a-chicken, why-a-this, why-a-that. I no catch on to why-a-duck.
HAMMER: I was only fooling. They're going to build a tunnel in the morning. Now, is that clear to you?
CHICO: Yes, everything---except why-a-duck. . .
HAMMER: And then, there's a little clearing there, a little clearing around it. You see that wire fence there?
CHICO: All right. Why-a-fence?
HAMMER: Oh no. We're not going to go all through that again!

BTW: The URL of this blog---that's "why a duck"!!!

Educational T.V.

"I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book!" ---Groucho Marx

 

A Bowl of "Duck Soup", Please

[As new Prime Minister of Freedonia, Rufus T. Firefly, in Duck Soup. In an interchange with stuffy, wealthy widow, Mrs. Teasdale]:
WIDOW: As chairwoman of the reception committee, I welcome you with open arms.
FIREFLY: Is that so? How late do you stay open?
WIDOW: I've sponsored your appointment because I feel you are the most able statesman in all Freedonia.
FIREFLY: Well, that covers a lot of ground. Say, you cover a lot of ground yourself. You'd better beat it. I hear they're going to tear you down and put up an office building where you're standing. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't leave in a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. You know, you haven't stopped talking since I came here? You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle.
[Still as Firefly, in an interchange with snooty Sylvanian Ambassador Trentino]:
FIREFLY (to Mrs. Teasdale after a marriage proposal): All I can offer you is a roofus over your head.
MRS. TEASDALE: Your Excellency, I really don't know what to say.
FIREFLY: I wouldn't know what to say either if I was in your place. (To Trentino, also after her for her money:) Maybe you can suggest something. As a matter of fact, you do suggest something. To me, you suggest a baboon.
TRENTINO: What?
FIREFLY: I'm sorry I said that. It isn't fair to the rest of the baboons.
TRENTINO: I did not come here to be insulted. . .I shan't stay here a minute longer.
FIREFLY: Go, and never darken my towels again!
MRS. TEASDALE: Oh!
TRENTINO: My hat!
FIREFLY: My towels!

(Paramount Picutres, 1933)

Say, What???

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. ---Groucho Marx

Literary Groucho

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read! ---Groucho Marx