GROUCHO’S GRANDSON IN PERSON TO REMEMBER COMEDY LEGEND – MARCH 11

 We will salute the comedy legend at the March 11th REPS program.  Steve Marx, Groucho’s grandson, joins us live and in person to share stories of the life and career of the one and only . . . . Groucho!

But first, we will dust off an old Marx Brothers radio script from the early 1930s  and open the program with a performance of Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel.

Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel was a 1932 NBC radio show starring two of the Marx Brothers, Groucho and Chico. The program depicted the misadventures of a small law firm, with Groucho as attorney Waldorf T. Flywheel and Chico as Flywheel’s assistant, Emmanuel Ravelli. The series was originally titled Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle, with Groucho’s character named Waldorf T. Beagle, until a lawyer from New York named Beagle contacted NBC and threatened to file a lawsuit unless the name was dropped. Many of the episodes’ plots were drawn from Marx Brother’s films.  The program aired Monday nights at 7:30 p.m. on the NBC Blue Network to thirteen network affiliates in nine Eastern and Southern states. Twenty-six episodes were made, which were broadcast between November 28, 1932 and May 22, 1933. Each episode was introduced by the Blue Network announcer and featured about fifteen minutes of drama and ten minutes of orchestral music between acts. For years no recordings of the show were known to exist, however, a number of years back, three recordings of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel were found , including a five-minute excerpt of Episode 24 , a fifteen-minute recording of Episode 25 and a complete recording of Episode 26.    In 1988 scripts for 25 of the 26 episodes were found at the Library of Congress and published in a book.   In 1990 the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio 4  aired a version of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. The original scripts were adapted by the BBC for a modern British audience.  Each episode incorporated material from two or three different original episodes, and occasionally included additional jokes from Marx Brothers’ films.  The BBC radio adaption proved popular with audiences in the U.K. and many episodes were released commercially and are available for listening today.   On Saturday, March 11th, the REPS Radio Artists will perform one of the hilarious episodes of Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel on the REPS Radio Sound stage and you could be a part of the live studio audience.   Admission is free.

Join us for 30 minutes of zany Marx brothers humor followed by a conversation with Groucho’s grandson, Steve Marx.