From the Sublime to the Ridiculous - Happy Birthday to Groucho Marx (who happens to share a birthday with Mahatma Gandhi!)

by Robert Wilkinson

Well, I figure we owe a lot to these two guys who changed our world so profoundly in different ways. Of course, neither of them had much use for authoritarians or Fascists of any stripe, and it's interesting to me that they each influenced millions during the same era. I suppose great Souls incarnate to answer the need of their times. Today we have some very funny quotes, including a few from Duck Soup, Groucho's most scathing anti-war, anti-dictator movie. I can only imagine the fun he'd be having with Dubya.

Anyway, happy birthday to two of my favorites from all time. I've already given you Gandhi, so HEEEEEERE'S GROUCHO!

From Duck Soup:

*******

Groucho: Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.

*******

Zeppo: General Smith reports a gas attack. He wants to know what to do.

Groucho: Tell him to take a teaspoonful of bicarbonate in half a glass of water.

*******

Groucho: Do you realize our army's facing disastrous defeat? What do you intend to do about it?

Chico: I've done it already.

Groucho: You've done what?

Chico: I've changed to the other side.

*******

Louis Calhern: I am willing to do anything to prevent this war.

Groucho: It's too late. I've already paid a month's rent on the battlefield.

*******

Groucho: If you think this country's bad off now, just wait till I get through with it.

*******

Groucho: Why, a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can't make head or tail out of it.

*******

Edwin Maxwell : Sir, you try my patience!

Groucho: I don't mind if you do. You must come over and try mine some time.

*******

Chico: I wouldn't go out there unless I was in one of those big iron things go up and down like this. What do you call those things?

Groucho: Tanks.

Chico: You're welcome.

*******

Here's more Groucho wit and wisdom:

*******

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Either he's dead or my watch has stopped.

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

Marriage is the chief cause of divorce.

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

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.

I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

In Hollywood, brides keep the bouquets and throw away the groom.

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.

I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8 to educate America. They couldn't educate America if they started at 6:30.

I write by ear. I tried writing with the typewriter, but I found it too unwieldy.

Ice Water? Get some Onions - that'll make your eyes water!

Oh are you from Wales ?? Do you know a fella named Jonah ?? He used to live in whales for a while.

I intend to live forever, or die trying.

Time wounds all heels.

Last night I shot an elephant in my Pajamas and how he got in my pajamas I'll never know.

*******

Tanks for the laughs, Groucho. As the Firesign Theater once proclaimed, "All Hail Marx and Lennon!" May we always have a wit who punctures the pompous elites in our world that take themselves waaaaay too seriously.

© Copyright 2007 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Lori]

Groucho is so funny!! and who can ever forget the hilarious "Who's on First?" (not Groucho but still funny).

Lori

[Robert]

Hi Lori - Some of the old "bits" were a lot funnier than almost everything on tv today. Thank heaven we still have Bill Cosby, Jonathan Winters, Lily Tomlin, George Carlin, Robin Williams, John Stewart, and Steven Colbert. Of course there have been many others who made us laugh through the years, and so they also are deserving of recognition and appreciation, since as Wavy Gravy put it, "If you don't have a sense of humor it's not funny."