Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel
Encyclopedia
Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel is a situation comedy
radio show starring two of the Marx Brothers
, Groucho
and Chico
, and written primarily by Nat Perrin
and Arthur Sheekman
. It was originally broadcast in the United States on the National Broadcasting Company
's Blue Network
beginning November 28, 1932, and ending May 22, 1933. Sponsored by the Standard Oil Companies of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Louisiana
and the Colonial Beacon Oil Company, it was the Monday night installment of the Five-Star Theater, an old-time radio
variety series that offered a different program each weeknight. Episodes were broadcast live from NBC's WJZ station in New York City and later from a sound stage at RKO Pictures
in Los Angeles, California, before returning to WJZ for the final episodes.
The series depicts 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 Brothers films.
The show garnered respectable ratings for its early evening time slot although a second season was not produced. It was thought that, like most radio shows of the time, the episodes had not been recorded. The episodes were thought lost until 1988, when 25 of the 26 scripts were rediscovered in the Library of Congress
storage and republished. In 1996, some recordings of the show were discovered, including a complete recording of the last episode to air. Adaptations of the recovered scripts were performed and broadcast in the UK on BBC Radio 4
in 1990.
introduced its "Fire Chief" gasoline to the public, so named because its octane rating
was 66, higher than the United States government's requirements for fire engines. To advertise its new premium grade fuel, Texaco approached vaudeville
comic Ed Wynn
to star in a radio show titled Fire Chief. Wynn played the fire chief
in front of an audience of 700 and the show was aired live over the NBC Red Network
, beginning April 24, 1932. It immediately proved popular with over two million regular listeners and a Co-Operative Analysis of Broadcasting (CAB) Rating of 44.8%.
Upon seeing the success of Wynn's Fire Chief, the dissolved Standard Oil
companies of New Jersey, Louisiana
and Pennsylvania, and the Colonial Beacon Oil Company decided to sponsor their own radio program to promote Esso
Gasoline and Essolube Motor Oil. They turned to the advertising agency McCann Erickson
, which developed Five-Star Theater, a variety series that offered a different show each night of the week. Groucho
and Chico Marx
, one half of the popular vaudeville and film stars The Marx Brothers, were approached to appear in a comedy show. Harpo
and Zeppo
were not required, as their trademark shticks of mute and straight man
did not work well on radio.
Nat Perrin
and Arthur Sheekman
, who had contributed to the scripts of the Marx Brothers' films Monkey Business
(1931) and Horse Feathers
(1932), were enlisted to write the comedy show. It was titled Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle, and its premise involved an unethical lawyer/private detective and his bungling assistant.
(1930). Mary McCoy played secretary Miss Dimple, and it is thought that Broderick Crawford
also appeared as various characters. Groucho and Chico shared a weekly income of $6,500 for appearing in the show. During the Great Depression
, this was considered a high sum for 30 minutes' work, especially since radio scripts required no memorization and only a few minutes were needed for costume, hair and makeup. By comparison, Greta Garbo
's weekly salary from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
during the same period was also $6,500, though this was for a 40- or 50-hour week. Wynn was paid $5,000 a week for Fire Chief. In contrast, almost two-thirds of American families were living on fewer than $26 a week. In a classic Marxian twist, Harpo was paid a weekly salary for not appearing on the show, even though his mute character would have little to do in a radio program anyway.
, WJZ in New York City
. Because Groucho, Chico, Perrin, and Sheekman were living and working in Hollywood
, they had to make a three-day train journey from Pasadena
each week, and then another three-day trip back. The first episode was written as they took their first train ride to New York.
A number of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheels scripts reused plots from Marx Brothers films. The plot of Episode 17 was suggested by the stolen painting plot in Animal Crackers, though it was a "Beauregard" in the film, not a Rembrandt. The 23rd episode also reused scenes from Animal Crackers, including the stolen diamond plot and Groucho's lines regarding the need for a seven-cent nickel
. Monkey Business influenced two skits in Episode 25, and The Cocoanuts
gave Episode 19 its plot. Many vaudeville acts of the 1920s based their routines on the assumption that all people were straight; some episodes of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel included relatively low-key homosexual jokes taken from the Marx brothers' stage act.
Despite reusing scripts from other sources, Perrin said that he and Sheekman "had hands full turning out a script each week". They found help from Tom McKnight and George Oppenheimer, whose names were passed along to Groucho. Perrin explained, " was in the men's room during a break, and he was complaining to the guy standing next to him, 'Geez, I wish we could find another writer or two to make life easier.' Suddenly there's a voice from one of the stalls: 'I've got just the guys for you!' Having Tom and George did make life easier, although Arthur and I went over their scripts for a light polishing."
After traveling to New York to perform the first seven episodes, the four men decided to broadcast from Los Angeles instead. NBC did not have a studio on the West Coast
, so for the next thirteen weeks, between January 16 and April 24, 1933, the show was transmitted from a borrowed empty soundstage at RKO Radio Pictures. Folding chairs were brought in for the audience of around thirty or forty people – coming from vaudeville, Groucho and Chico preferred to perform to a crowd – and were quickly cleared out at the end of each performance so that the stage would be ready for any filming the following day. The last four episodes of the show were performed back at WJZ in New York.
Chico was often late to rehearsals, so Perrin would have to stand in for him on the read-throughs. When Chico eventually made his appearance, Perrin remembers, "he'd be reading Ravelli's lines and Groucho would tell him to stop 'show him how the line should be read.' My Italian accent was better than Chico's, you see. But Chico didn't care."
s in nine Eastern
and Southern
states. Twenty-six episodes were made, which were broadcast between November 28, 1932 and May 22, 1933. Each episode is introduced by the Blue Network announcer and features about fifteen minutes of drama and ten minutes of orchestral music between acts. The episodes end with Groucho and Chico – not in character, but as themselves – performing a 60-second skit promoting Esso and Essolube.
did not appreciate them in the radio show:
Despite the content, Groucho's 13-year-old son Arthur
found the show "extremely funny", albeit conceding that he may have been "a very easy audience".
Following the airing of the first episodes, a New York attorney named Morris Beagle filed a lawsuit for $300,000 alleging his name had been slandered, and that its use was damaging his business and his health. He also claimed that people were calling his law firm and asking, "Is this Mr. Beagle?" When he answered, "Yes", the callers would say, "How's your partner, Shyster?" and hang up the phone. The sponsors and studio executives panicked, and from episode four the title of the show was changed to "Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel", and Walter T. Beagle was renamed Waldorf T. Flywheel. It was explained in the episode that the character had divorced and reverted to his "maiden name".
The CAB Rating for the show was 22.1% and placed 12th among the highest rated evening programs of the 1932–33 season. The CAB Rating was not disappointing – popular established shows such as The Shadow and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes did not perform as well – but it was less than half of Texaco's Fire Chief, which got a 44.8% CAB Rating and was the third highest-rated program of the season. One reason for the lower ratings may be because of the time slot the show aired. In September 1932, only 40% of radio owners were listening to the radio at 7:00 p.m., whereas 60% listened at 9:00 p.m. The 1932–1933 season's top-rated shows, The Chase and Sanborn Hour
, Jack Pearl
's Baron Münchhausen, and Fire Chief all aired after 9:00 p.m. Standard Oil decided it could not compete with Texaco in the ratings and Five-Star Theater was not renewed for a second season.
In his 1959 autobiography, Groucho and Me, Groucho comments, "We thought we were doing pretty well as comic lawyers, but one day a few Middle East countries decided they wanted a bigger cut of the oil profits, or else. When this news broke, the price of gasoline nervously dropped two cents a gallon, and Chico and I, along with the other shows, were dropped from the network." In his 1976 book, The Secret Word Is Groucho, he writes, "Company sales, as a result of our show, had risen precipitously. Profits doubled in that brief time, and Esso felt guilty taking the money. So Esso dropped us after twenty-six weeks. Those were the days of guilt-edged securities, which don't exist today."
However, the show was later praised by other comedians of the time. In 1988, Steve Allen
said, "when judged in relation to other radio comedy scripts of the early 30's, they hold up very well indeed and are, in fact, superior to the material that was produced for the Eddie Cantor, Rudy Vallee, Joe Penner school. The rapid-fire jokes run the gamut from delightful to embarrassing." George Burns
also found it "funny". Modern reviews of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel have also been positive. The New York Times Herbert Mitgang described it as "one of the funniest radio shows of the early 1930s", adding that "the radio dialogue was so witty and outrageous, innocent form of original comedy – as well as serious drama". Rob White of the British Film Institute
said the show "glitter[s] with a thousand-and-one sockeroos."
at the Library of Congress
discovered that the scripts for twenty-five of the twenty-six episodes had been submitted to the Office, where they had been placed in storage. Nobody was aware that they still existed and their copyrights had not been renewed. This meant that Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel had fallen into the public domain
. The scripts were published that same year by Pantheon
in a book titled Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel: The Marx Brothers' Lost Radio Show, edited by Michael Barson and with an interview with Perrin. In October 1988, Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel scenes were broadcast for the first time since the show went off the air in 1933 when National Public Radio, a non-profit media organization that provides content to public radio stations around the United States
, aired an 18-minute recreation of Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel in markets such as Chicago, Illinois, Dallas, Texas
, and Los Angeles, California
, using Washington, D.C.
based Arena Stage actors to perform the Chico and Groucho lead roles from the published scripts. Years later, three recordings of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel were found, including a five-minute excerpt of Episode 24 and a fifteen-minute recording of Episode 25. A complete recording of Episode 26 exists and was broadcast on BBC Radio 4
in 2005.
aired a version of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. Michael Roberts and Frank Lazarus performed the lead roles of Flywheel and Ravelli, wearing make-up and clothing similar to Groucho and Chico. The cast also included Lorelei King
in all the female roles and guest-starred Spike Milligan
and Dick Vosburgh
. The scripts for the BBC series were adapted for a modern British audience by Mark Brisenden and were produced and directed by Dirk Maggs
. Each episode incorporated material from two or three different original episodes, and occasionally included additional jokes from Marx Brothers' films.
Commenting on the series, Maggs has said it was his favorite among the comedies he had directed, and described how they were performed.
Six episodes were performed and recorded at the Paris Theatre
and aired weekly between June 2 and July 7, 1990. The success of the first series led to another two being commissioned. The second series aired from May 11 to June 15, 1991, and the third from July 11 to August 15, 1992. The first series was made available by BBC Enterprises on a two-cassette release in 1991, but the second and third series were not.
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
radio show starring two of the Marx Brothers
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
, Groucho
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
and Chico
Chico Marx
Leonard "Chico" Marx was an American comedian and film star as part of the Marx Brothers. His persona in the act was that of a dim-witted albeit crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes, and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat.As the first-born of the...
, and written primarily by Nat Perrin
Nat Perrin
Nat Perrin was an American comedy writer, who contributed gags and storylines to several Marx Brothers films and co-wrote the play Hellzapoppin that was adapted in to a film. He is credited with writing the screenplay or story for over 25 films, including The Great Morgan and Song of the Thin Man...
and Arthur Sheekman
Arthur Sheekman
Arthur Sheekman , a graduate from the University of Minnesota, started his career as columnist and drama critic during the 1920s and the early 1930s for the Manhattan Newspaper. He then entered the film industry in 1931 when he became a scenarist for the Marx Brothers' movie Monkey Business where...
. It was originally broadcast in the United States on the National Broadcasting Company
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's Blue Network
Blue Network
The Blue Network, and its immediate predecessor, the NBC Blue Network, were the on-air names of an American radio production and distribution service from 1927 to 1945...
beginning November 28, 1932, and ending May 22, 1933. Sponsored by the Standard Oil Companies of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Louisiana
Standard Oil of Louisiana
Standard Oil of Louisiana of Shreveport, Louisiana was created in 1909 as a subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey , a part of the Standard Oil trust. It was known as Stanocola until 1924. In 1944 Standard Oil of Louisiana was absorbed into its parent company.-References:*Droz, R.V. . ....
and the Colonial Beacon Oil Company, it was the Monday night installment of the Five-Star Theater, an old-time radio
Old-time radio
Old-Time Radio and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s...
variety series that offered a different program each weeknight. Episodes were broadcast live from NBC's WJZ station in New York City and later from a sound stage at RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
in Los Angeles, California, before returning to WJZ for the final episodes.
The series depicts 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 Brothers films.
The show garnered respectable ratings for its early evening time slot although a second season was not produced. It was thought that, like most radio shows of the time, the episodes had not been recorded. The episodes were thought lost until 1988, when 25 of the 26 scripts were rediscovered in the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
storage and republished. In 1996, some recordings of the show were discovered, including a complete recording of the last episode to air. Adaptations of the recovered scripts were performed and broadcast in the UK on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
in 1990.
Early development
In 1932 TexacoTexaco
Texaco is the name of an American oil retail brand. Its flagship product is its fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owns the Havoline motor oil brand....
introduced its "Fire Chief" gasoline to the public, so named because its octane rating
Octane rating
Octane rating or octane number is a standard measure of the anti-knock properties of a motor or aviation fuel. The higher the octane number, the more compression the fuel can withstand before detonating...
was 66, higher than the United States government's requirements for fire engines. To advertise its new premium grade fuel, Texaco approached vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
comic Ed Wynn
Ed Wynn
Ed Wynn was a popular American comedian and actor noted for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor....
to star in a radio show titled Fire Chief. Wynn played the fire chief
Fire chief
Fire Chief is a top executive rank or commanding officer in a fire department, either elected or appointed...
in front of an audience of 700 and the show was aired live over the NBC Red Network
NBC Red Network
The NBC Red Network was one of the two original radio networks of the National Broadcasting Company. After NBC was required to divest itself of its Blue Network , the Red Network continued as the NBC Radio Network.It, along with the Blue Network, were the first two commercial radio networks in the...
, beginning April 24, 1932. It immediately proved popular with over two million regular listeners and a Co-Operative Analysis of Broadcasting (CAB) Rating of 44.8%.
Upon seeing the success of Wynn's Fire Chief, the dissolved Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
companies of New Jersey, Louisiana
Standard Oil of Louisiana
Standard Oil of Louisiana of Shreveport, Louisiana was created in 1909 as a subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey , a part of the Standard Oil trust. It was known as Stanocola until 1924. In 1944 Standard Oil of Louisiana was absorbed into its parent company.-References:*Droz, R.V. . ....
and Pennsylvania, and the Colonial Beacon Oil Company decided to sponsor their own radio program to promote Esso
Esso
Esso is an international trade name for ExxonMobil and its related companies. Pronounced , it is derived from the initials of the pre-1911 Standard Oil, and as such became the focus of much litigation and regulatory restriction in the United States. In 1972, it was largely replaced in the U.S. by...
Gasoline and Essolube Motor Oil. They turned to the advertising agency McCann Erickson
McCann Erickson
McCann Erickson is a global advertising agency network, with offices in more than 130 countries. McCann is a subsidiary of the Interpublic Group of Companies, one of the four large holding companies in the advertising industry....
, which developed Five-Star Theater, a variety series that offered a different show each night of the week. Groucho
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
and Chico Marx
Chico Marx
Leonard "Chico" Marx was an American comedian and film star as part of the Marx Brothers. His persona in the act was that of a dim-witted albeit crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes, and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat.As the first-born of the...
, one half of the popular vaudeville and film stars The Marx Brothers, were approached to appear in a comedy show. Harpo
Harpo Marx
Adolph "Harpo" Marx was an American comedian and film star. He was the second oldest of the Marx Brothers. His comic style was influenced by clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish wig, and never spoke during performances...
and Zeppo
Zeppo Marx
Herbert Manfred "Zeppo" Marx was an American film star, musician, engineer, theatrical agent and businessman. He was the youngest of the five Marx Brothers. He appeared in the first five Marx Brothers feature films, from 1929 to 1933, but then left the act to start his second career as an...
were not required, as their trademark shticks of mute and straight man
Double act
A double act, also known as a comedy duo, is a comic pairing in which humor is derived from the uneven relationship between two partners, usually of the same gender, age, ethnic origin and profession, but drastically different personalities or behavior...
did not work well on radio.
Nat Perrin
Nat Perrin
Nat Perrin was an American comedy writer, who contributed gags and storylines to several Marx Brothers films and co-wrote the play Hellzapoppin that was adapted in to a film. He is credited with writing the screenplay or story for over 25 films, including The Great Morgan and Song of the Thin Man...
and Arthur Sheekman
Arthur Sheekman
Arthur Sheekman , a graduate from the University of Minnesota, started his career as columnist and drama critic during the 1920s and the early 1930s for the Manhattan Newspaper. He then entered the film industry in 1931 when he became a scenarist for the Marx Brothers' movie Monkey Business where...
, who had contributed to the scripts of the Marx Brothers' films Monkey Business
Monkey Business (1931 film)
Monkey Business is a 1931 comedy film. It is the third of the Marx Brothers' released movies, and the first not to be an adaptation of one of their Broadway shows. The film stars the four brothers: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, and Zeppo Marx, and screen comedienne Thelma Todd. It is...
(1931) and Horse Feathers
Horse Feathers
Horse Feathers is a Marx Brothers film comedy. It stars the four Marx Brothers and Thelma Todd. It was written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S. J. Perelman, and Will B. Johnstone. Kalmar and Ruby also wrote some of the original music for the film...
(1932), were enlisted to write the comedy show. It was titled Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle, and its premise involved an unethical lawyer/private detective and his bungling assistant.
Casting
Groucho Marx played Waldorf T. Beagle (later renamed to Waldorf T. Flywheel), while Chico played Emmanuel Ravelli, the same Italian character he played in the film Animal CrackersAnimal Crackers (film)
Animal Crackers is a 1930 American comedy film, in which mayhem and zaniness ensue when a valuable painting goes missing during a party in honor of famed African explorer Captain Spaulding. The film was both a critical and commercial success upon initial release, and remains one of the Marx...
(1930). Mary McCoy played secretary Miss Dimple, and it is thought that Broderick Crawford
Broderick Crawford
Broderick Crawford was an Academy Award-winning American stage, film, radio and TV actor, often cast in tough-guy roles and best known for his starring role in the television series "Highway Patrol."-Early life:...
also appeared as various characters. Groucho and Chico shared a weekly income of $6,500 for appearing in the show. During the Great Depression
Great Depression in the United States
The Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement...
, this was considered a high sum for 30 minutes' work, especially since radio scripts required no memorization and only a few minutes were needed for costume, hair and makeup. By comparison, Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
's weekly salary from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
during the same period was also $6,500, though this was for a 40- or 50-hour week. Wynn was paid $5,000 a week for Fire Chief. In contrast, almost two-thirds of American families were living on fewer than $26 a week. In a classic Marxian twist, Harpo was paid a weekly salary for not appearing on the show, even though his mute character would have little to do in a radio program anyway.
Production
Five-Star Theater was broadcast from NBC's flagship stationFlagship station
In broadcasting, a flagship is the broadcast which originates a television network, or a particular radio show or TV show, primarily in the United States and Canada. This includes both direct network feeds and broadcast syndication, but generally not backhauls...
, WJZ in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Because Groucho, Chico, Perrin, and Sheekman were living and working in Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
, they had to make a three-day train journey from Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
each week, and then another three-day trip back. The first episode was written as they took their first train ride to New York.
A number of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheels scripts reused plots from Marx Brothers films. The plot of Episode 17 was suggested by the stolen painting plot in Animal Crackers, though it was a "Beauregard" in the film, not a Rembrandt. The 23rd episode also reused scenes from Animal Crackers, including the stolen diamond plot and Groucho's lines regarding the need for a seven-cent nickel
Nickel (United States coin)
The nickel is a five-cent coin, representing a unit of currency equaling five hundredths of one United States dollar. A later-produced Canadian nickel five-cent coin was also called by the same name....
. Monkey Business influenced two skits in Episode 25, and The Cocoanuts
The Cocoanuts
The Cocoanuts is the first feature-length Marx Brothers film, produced by Paramount Pictures. The musical comedy stars the four Marx Brothers, Oscar Shaw, Mary Eaton, and Margaret Dumont. Produced by Walter Wanger and the first sound movie to credit more than one director , and was adapted to the...
gave Episode 19 its plot. Many vaudeville acts of the 1920s based their routines on the assumption that all people were straight; some episodes of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel included relatively low-key homosexual jokes taken from the Marx brothers' stage act.
Despite reusing scripts from other sources, Perrin said that he and Sheekman "had hands full turning out a script each week". They found help from Tom McKnight and George Oppenheimer, whose names were passed along to Groucho. Perrin explained, " was in the men's room during a break, and he was complaining to the guy standing next to him, 'Geez, I wish we could find another writer or two to make life easier.' Suddenly there's a voice from one of the stalls: 'I've got just the guys for you!' Having Tom and George did make life easier, although Arthur and I went over their scripts for a light polishing."
After traveling to New York to perform the first seven episodes, the four men decided to broadcast from Los Angeles instead. NBC did not have a studio on the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
, so for the next thirteen weeks, between January 16 and April 24, 1933, the show was transmitted from a borrowed empty soundstage at RKO Radio Pictures. Folding chairs were brought in for the audience of around thirty or forty people – coming from vaudeville, Groucho and Chico preferred to perform to a crowd – and were quickly cleared out at the end of each performance so that the stage would be ready for any filming the following day. The last four episodes of the show were performed back at WJZ in New York.
Chico was often late to rehearsals, so Perrin would have to stand in for him on the read-throughs. When Chico eventually made his appearance, Perrin remembers, "he'd be reading Ravelli's lines and Groucho would tell him to stop 'show him how the line should be read.' My Italian accent was better than Chico's, you see. But Chico didn't care."
Episodes
Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel aired Monday nights at 7:30 p.m. on the NBC Blue Network to thirteen network affiliateNetwork affiliate
In the broadcasting industry , a network affiliate is a local broadcaster which carries some or all of the television program or radio program line-up of a television or radio network, but is owned by a company other than the owner of the network...
s in nine Eastern
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, the American East, or simply the East is traditionally defined as the states east of the Mississippi River. The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be included in the East today; usually in...
and Southern
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
states. Twenty-six episodes were made, which were broadcast between November 28, 1932 and May 22, 1933. Each episode is introduced by the Blue Network announcer and features about fifteen minutes of drama and ten minutes of orchestral music between acts. The episodes end with Groucho and Chico – not in character, but as themselves – performing a 60-second skit promoting Esso and Essolube.
| Episode # | Airdate | Episode # | Airdate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | November 28, 1932 | 14 | January 27, 1933 |
| 2 | December 5, 1932 | 15 | March 6, 1933 |
| 3 | December 12, 1932 | 16 | March 13, 1933 |
| 4 | December 19, 1932 | 17 | March 20, 1933 |
| 5 | December 26, 1932 | 18 | March 27, 1933 |
| 6 | January 2, 1933 | 19 | April 3, 1933 |
| 7 | January 9, 1933 | 20 | April 10, 1933 |
| 8 | January 16, 1933 | 21 | April 17, 1933 |
| 9 | January 23, 1933 | 22 | April 24, 1933 |
| 10 | January 30, 1933 | 23 | May 1, 1933 |
| 11 | February 6, 1933 | 24 | May 8, 1933 |
| 12 | January 13, 1933 | 25 | May 15, 1933 |
| 13 | January 20, 1933 | 26 | May 22, 1933 |
Reception
Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel was not a success for Standard Oil. Although the successful Marx films Monkey Business and Horse Feathers contained plots involving adultery, VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
did not appreciate them in the radio show:
Despite the content, Groucho's 13-year-old son Arthur
Arthur Marx
Arthur Julius Marx was an American author, a former ranked amateur tennis player, and son of entertainer Groucho Marx and his first wife, Ruth Johnson....
found the show "extremely funny", albeit conceding that he may have been "a very easy audience".
Following the airing of the first episodes, a New York attorney named Morris Beagle filed a lawsuit for $300,000 alleging his name had been slandered, and that its use was damaging his business and his health. He also claimed that people were calling his law firm and asking, "Is this Mr. Beagle?" When he answered, "Yes", the callers would say, "How's your partner, Shyster?" and hang up the phone. The sponsors and studio executives panicked, and from episode four the title of the show was changed to "Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel", and Walter T. Beagle was renamed Waldorf T. Flywheel. It was explained in the episode that the character had divorced and reverted to his "maiden name".
The CAB Rating for the show was 22.1% and placed 12th among the highest rated evening programs of the 1932–33 season. The CAB Rating was not disappointing – popular established shows such as The Shadow and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes did not perform as well – but it was less than half of Texaco's Fire Chief, which got a 44.8% CAB Rating and was the third highest-rated program of the season. One reason for the lower ratings may be because of the time slot the show aired. In September 1932, only 40% of radio owners were listening to the radio at 7:00 p.m., whereas 60% listened at 9:00 p.m. The 1932–1933 season's top-rated shows, The Chase and Sanborn Hour
The Chase and Sanborn Hour
The Chase and Sanborn Hour was the umbrella title for a series of US comedy and variety radio shows, sponsored by Standard Brands' Chase and Sanborn Coffee, usually airing Sundays on NBC from 8pm to 9pm during the years 1929 to 1948....
, Jack Pearl
Jack Pearl
Jack Pearl, born Jack Perlman , was a vaudeville performer and a star of early radio.Born in New York, Pearl made an easy transition from vaudeville to broadfcasting when he introduced his character Baron Munchausen on The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air in 1932. His creation was loosely based on the...
's Baron Münchhausen, and Fire Chief all aired after 9:00 p.m. Standard Oil decided it could not compete with Texaco in the ratings and Five-Star Theater was not renewed for a second season.
In his 1959 autobiography, Groucho and Me, Groucho comments, "We thought we were doing pretty well as comic lawyers, but one day a few Middle East countries decided they wanted a bigger cut of the oil profits, or else. When this news broke, the price of gasoline nervously dropped two cents a gallon, and Chico and I, along with the other shows, were dropped from the network." In his 1976 book, The Secret Word Is Groucho, he writes, "Company sales, as a result of our show, had risen precipitously. Profits doubled in that brief time, and Esso felt guilty taking the money. So Esso dropped us after twenty-six weeks. Those were the days of guilt-edged securities, which don't exist today."
However, the show was later praised by other comedians of the time. In 1988, Steve Allen
Steve Allen
Steve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...
said, "when judged in relation to other radio comedy scripts of the early 30's, they hold up very well indeed and are, in fact, superior to the material that was produced for the Eddie Cantor, Rudy Vallee, Joe Penner school. The rapid-fire jokes run the gamut from delightful to embarrassing." George Burns
George Burns
George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...
also found it "funny". Modern reviews of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel have also been positive. The New York Times Herbert Mitgang described it as "one of the funniest radio shows of the early 1930s", adding that "the radio dialogue was so witty and outrageous, innocent form of original comedy – as well as serious drama". Rob White of the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
said the show "glitter[s] with a thousand-and-one sockeroos."
Rediscovery of the show
The episodes of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel were recorded, but for many years it was thought the recordings had not been preserved. At the time of the broadcasts, pre-recorded shows were frowned upon by advertisers and audiences. However, in 1988, Michael Barson, who worked in the United States Copyright OfficeUnited States Copyright Office
The United States Copyright Office, a part of the Library of Congress, is the official U.S. government body that maintains records of copyright registration in the United States. It is used by copyright title searchers who are attempting to clear a chain of title for copyrighted works.The head of...
at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
discovered that the scripts for twenty-five of the twenty-six episodes had been submitted to the Office, where they had been placed in storage. Nobody was aware that they still existed and their copyrights had not been renewed. This meant that Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel had fallen into the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
. The scripts were published that same year by Pantheon
Pantheon Books
Pantheon Books is an American imprint with editorial independence that is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.The current editor-in-chief at Pantheon Books is Dan Frank.-Overview:...
in a book titled Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel: The Marx Brothers' Lost Radio Show, edited by Michael Barson and with an interview with Perrin. In October 1988, Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel scenes were broadcast for the first time since the show went off the air in 1933 when National Public Radio, a non-profit media organization that provides content to public radio stations around the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, aired an 18-minute recreation of Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel in markets such as Chicago, Illinois, Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, and Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, using Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
based Arena Stage actors to perform the Chico and Groucho lead roles from the published scripts. Years later, three recordings of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel were found, including a five-minute excerpt of Episode 24 and a fifteen-minute recording of Episode 25. A complete recording of Episode 26 exists and was broadcast on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
in 2005.
BBC Radio adaptation
In 1990 the British Broadcasting Corporation's Radio 4BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
aired a version of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. Michael Roberts and Frank Lazarus performed the lead roles of Flywheel and Ravelli, wearing make-up and clothing similar to Groucho and Chico. The cast also included Lorelei King
Lorelei King
Lorelei King is a United States-born actress who has been based in the United Kingdom since 1981. She has narrated audiobooks, acted in radio plays for BBC Radio 4 and appeared on television.- Early life :...
in all the female roles and guest-starred Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...
and Dick Vosburgh
Dick Vosburgh
Richard Kennedy "Dick" Vosburgh was an American-born comedy writer and lyricist working chiefly in Britain....
. The scripts for the BBC series were adapted for a modern British audience by Mark Brisenden and were produced and directed by Dirk Maggs
Dirk Maggs
Dirk Maggs, a freelance writer and director working across all media, is principally known for his work in radio, where he evolved radio drama into "Audio Movies," a near-visual approach combining scripts, layered sound effects, cinematic music and cutting edge technology. He pioneered the use of...
. Each episode incorporated material from two or three different original episodes, and occasionally included additional jokes from Marx Brothers' films.
Commenting on the series, Maggs has said it was his favorite among the comedies he had directed, and described how they were performed.
Six episodes were performed and recorded at the Paris Theatre
Paris Theatre
The Paris Theatre was a former cinema located in Lower Regent Street, London, which was converted into a theatre by the BBC for radio broadcasts...
and aired weekly between June 2 and July 7, 1990. The success of the first series led to another two being commissioned. The second series aired from May 11 to June 15, 1991, and the third from July 11 to August 15, 1992. The first series was made available by BBC Enterprises on a two-cassette release in 1991, but the second and third series were not.