Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel
Other names | Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle |
---|---|
Genre | Situation comedy |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Country of origin | United States |
Language(s) | English |
Home station | NBC Blue Network |
Starring | Groucho Marx Chico Marx |
Written by | |
Directed by | Nat Perrin Arthur Sheekman |
Recording studio | WJZ, New York City RKO Pictures, Los Angeles |
Original release | November 28, 1932 – May 22, 1933 |
No. of series | 1 |
No. of episodes | 26 |
Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel is a
The program depicts the misadventures of a small New York law firm, with Groucho as attorney Waldorf T. Flywheel (a crooked lawyer) and Chico as Flywheel's assistant, Emmanuel Ravelli (a half-wit whom Flywheel uses as a fall guy). The series was originally titled Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle, with Groucho's character named Waldorf T. Beagle, until a real 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 partly or largely based upon 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 entirely lost until 1988, when 25 of the 26 scripts were rediscovered in the Library of Congress storage and republished. Adaptations of the recovered scripts were performed and broadcast in the UK, on BBC Radio 4, between 1990 and 1993. In 1996, some recordings of the original show were discovered (all recorded from the final three episodes), including a complete recording of the last episode to air.
Early development
In 1932
Upon seeing the success of Wynn's Fire Chief, the Standard Oils in New Jersey, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, and Colonial Beacon, decided to sponsor their own radio program to promote
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.[7] It was titled Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle, and its premise involved an unethical lawyer/private detective and his bungling assistant.[n 1]
Casting
Groucho Marx played lawyer Waldorf T. Beagle (later renamed Waldorf T. Flywheel), and Chico played his assistant Emmanuel Ravelli, the same name as the Italian character he played in the film Animal Crackers (1930). Mary McCoy played secretary Miss Dimple, and it is thought that Broderick Crawford also appeared as various characters.[11] "Shyster" and the second "Beagle" (and later, the second "Flywheel") were never heard or referred to outside of the show's title.
Groucho and Chico shared a weekly income of $6,500 for appearing in the show.[12] 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.[6] 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.[6] Wynn was paid $5,000 a week for Fire Chief.[2][13] In contrast, almost two-thirds of American families were living on fewer than $26 a week.[14] Harpo Marx was paid as a cast member, although the physical, silent nature of his comedy meant that it was impossible to give him an on-air role without forcing him to break character.[15]
Production
Five-Star Theater was broadcast from NBC's
A number of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel's 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.[17] 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.[17][18] Episode 26, The Ocean Cruise, lifted some scenes virtually unchanged from the Marx Brothers' film Animal Crackers (with Zeppo Marx and Harpo Marx).
Despite reusing some scripts from other sources, Perrin said that he and Sheekman "had [their] hands full turning out a script each week".[17] They found help from Tom McKnight and George Oppenheimer, whose names were passed along to Groucho. Perrin explained, "[Groucho] 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."[17]
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
Chico was often late for 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 [and make me] 'show him how the line should be read'. My Italian accent was better than Chico's, you see. But Chico didn't care."[16]
Episodes
Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel aired Monday nights at 7:30 p.m. on the
Episode # | Airdate | Episode # | Airdate |
---|---|---|---|
1 | November 28, 1932[20] | 14 | January 27, 1933[21] |
2 | December 5, 1932[22] | 15 | March 6, 1933[23] |
3 | December 12, 1932[24] | 16 | March 13, 1933[25] |
4 | December 19, 1932[26] | 17 | March 20, 1933[27] |
5 | December 26, 1932[28] | 18 | March 27, 1933[29] |
6 | January 2, 1933[30] | 19 | April 3, 1933[31] |
7 | January 9, 1933[32] | 20 | April 10, 1933[33] |
8 | January 16, 1933[34] | 21 | April 17, 1933[35] |
9 | January 23, 1933[36] | 22 | April 24, 1933[35] |
10 | January 30, 1933[37] | 23 | May 1, 1933[38] |
11 | February 6, 1933[39] | 24 | May 8, 1933[40] |
12 | January 13, 1933[41] | 25 | May 15, 1933[42] |
13 | January 20, 1933[43] | 26 | May 22, 1933[44] |
Reception
Ratings
Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel was not enough of a success for Standard Oil to continue beyond one season. The CAB Rating for the show was 22.1% and placed 12th among the highest rated evening programs of the 1932–33 season.[5][45] 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.[5][46] 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.[46] 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.[46] Standard Oil decided it could not compete with Texaco in the ratings and Five-Star Theater was not renewed for a second season.[46]
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."[47] 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."[48]
Critical
Although the successful Marx films Monkey Business and Horse Feathers contained plots involving adultery,[19] Variety did not appreciate them in the radio show:
That's fine stuff for children! Chances are that if the Marxes proceed with their law office continuity along lines like this they will never be able to hold a kid listener. Firstly because parents don't want their children to hear about bad wives and divorces, and this isn't an agreeable theme to kids. Which means that if the Marxes don't look out, whatever kid following they have on the screen will be totally lost to them on the air. It's quite likely the Marxes can make themselves on the air. But they will have to use more headwork than their first effort displayed.[7]
Groucho's 13-year-old son Arthur found the show "extremely funny", albeit conceding that he may have been "a very easy audience".[49]
Legal
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,[11] and that its use was damaging his business and his health.[50] 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.[51] The sponsors and studio executives panicked,[16] 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".[52]
Legacy
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 30s, 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."[18] George Burns also found it "funny".[53] 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, [an] innocent form of original comedy – as well as serious drama".[54] Rob White of the British Film Institute said the show "glitter[s] with a thousand-and-one sockeroos."[55]
Existing material
Discovery of the scripts
The episodes of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel were recorded, but for many years it was thought the recordings had not been preserved.[11] At the time of the broadcasts, pre-recorded shows were frowned upon by advertisers and audiences.[56] However, in 1988, Michael Barson, who worked in the United States Copyright Office 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.[57] 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.[54] 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.[54]
In October 1988, Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel scenes were broadcast for the first time since the show went off the air in 1933 when
Rediscovery of lost recordings
After 1996, 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.[61] A complete recording of Episode 26 exists and was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.[62]
BBC Radio adaption
In 1990 the
Commenting on the series, Maggs has said it was his favorite among the comedies he had directed,[65] and described how they were performed.
The great thing about audience shows is doing the effects live on stage. BBC Radio Light Entertainment tended to have the effects operator hidden away behind curtains so they wouldn't distract the audience! A few Light Entertainment Producers like me have reasoned over the years that the spot effects are part of the entertainment so we brought the operator out front. And in the case of Flywheel we dressed him or her up as Harpo! Michael Roberts who played Groucho came out with such good ad libs that I was always happy to cut scripted gags to keep them. One great one was when he and Frank as Flywheel and Ravelli find themselves in a pigsty – the rest of the cast pushed in to make pig voices – and Mike ad libbed, "Imagine – two nice Jewish boys surrounded by ham" – it brought the house down.
— Dirk Maggs[64]
Six episodes were performed and recorded at the
Notes
Citations
- ^ Texaco, 2005
- ^ a b c Time, 1932
- ^ Texaco, 1993
- ^ Dunning, 1998; p. 218
- ^ a b c The Original Old Time Radio, 1994
- ^ a b c d Barson, 1988; p. vii
- ^ a b c d e f Barson, 1988; p. viii
- ^ Louvish, 2000; p. 253
- ^ Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary: "Beagle"
- ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: "Shyster"
- ^ a b c Louvish, 2000; p. 255
- ^ Cox, 2001; p. 203
- ^ Dunning, 1998; p. 219
- ^ The Old Radio Times, 2006
- ^ Kanfer, 2000; p. 165
- ^ a b c d Barson, 1988; p. xiv
- ^ a b c d Barson, 1988; p. xi
- ^ a b Allen, The New York Times, 1988
- ^ a b c d Barson, 1988; p. ix
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 1
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 165
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 15
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 179
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 27
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 193
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 39
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 207
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 49
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 217
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 63
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 229
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 75
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 243
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 87
- ^ a b Barson, 1988; p. 257
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 101
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 113
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 271
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 127
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 285
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 139
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 299
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 153
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. 315
- ^ Wertheim, 1979; p. 123
- ^ a b c d Barson, 1988; p. x
- ^ Marx, G, 1995; p. 333
- ^ Marx, G, 1976.
- ^ Marx, A, 1988; p. 190
- ^ Dygert, 1939; p. 144
- ^ Groucho, 1995; p. 332
- ^ Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel: Episode 4, 1932
- ^ Burns, 1989; p. 125
- ^ a b c Mitgang, The New York Times, 1988
- ^ White, 2002; p. 265
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. xii
- ^ Barson, 1988; p. xiii
- ^ Kogan, Chicago Tribune, 1988
- ^ Perkins, Dallas Morning News, 1988
- ^ Weinstein, Los Angeles Times, 1988
- ^ The Marx Brothers: Streaming Audio Files
- ^ The Marx Brothers on Radio, 2005
- ^ Hume, CNN, 1990
- ^ a b c Dirk Maggs Productions: Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel Series 1
- ^ Maggs, BBC Online, 2004
- ^ Dirk Maggs Productions: Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel Series 2
- ^ Dirk Maggs Productions: Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel Series 3
- ^ Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel Attorneys At Law: Marx Brothers' Lost Radio Scripts, 1991
References
- Allen, Steve (December 4, 1988). "Christmas books; Nobody Told a Bad Joke Better". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 28, 2020. Retrieved December 24, 2008.
- Barson, Michael, ed. (1988). Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel: The Marx Brothers' Lost Radio Show. ISBN 0-679-72036-7.
- "Beagle". Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. Dictionary.com. 2008. Retrieved December 9, 2008.
- ISBN 0-399-13483-2.
- Capusto, Stephen (2000). Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television. ISBN 0-345-41243-5.
- ISBN 0-7864-1071-X.
- ISBN 0-19-507678-8. Retrieved June 14, 2023.
Ed Wynn the Fire Chief, comedy.
- Dygert, Warren Benson (1939). Radio As an Advertising Medium. McGraw-Hill.
- NBC Blue Network. WJZ. MRS DIMPLE: "Law offices of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel ... Yes I know that used to be the name of the firm, but the boss got a divorce and changed his name back to Flywheel.".
- "Gag Tycoon". Time. October 3, 1932. Archived from the original on October 26, 2012. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
- Hume, Peter (May 1, 1990). "Long Lost Marx Brothers Radio Scripts" (FLV). CNN / YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-11-14. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
- Jennings, Robert; Boenig, Wayne (October 2006). "How Groucho and his Brothers Left Their Marx on Network Radio, Pt. 2". The Old Radio Times. The Old-Time Radio Researchers. pp. 9–12.
- Kanfer, Stefan (2000). Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx. New York City: ISBN 0-375-40218-7.
- Kogan, Rick (October 7, 1988). "Joan Eposito has Stars in Her Eyes". Tempo. Chicago Tribune. p. 4. Archived from the original on January 19, 2013. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- ISBN 0-312-25292-7.
- BBC Enterprises.
- ISBN 0-942637-45-3.
- ISBN 0-306-80666-5.
- ISBN 0-399-11690-7.
- Mitgang, Herbert (August 21, 1988). "Meet Flywheel & Ravelli, Hucksters". The New York Times. Retrieved December 10, 2008.
- Perkins, Ken (October 8, 1988). "Electric Jungle Will Be Jumping". Today. Dallas Morning News. p. 7C. Archivedfrom the original on January 19, 2013. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- Smith, Andrew T. (2010). Marx and Re-Marx: Creating and Recreating the Lost Marx Brothers Radio Series. ISBN 978-1-593936-09-9.
- "Shyster" (Houghton Mifflin Company). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Dictionary.com. 2004. Retrieved December 9, 2008.
- "Texaco Heritage". Texaco. December 2, 2005. Archived from the original (Flash. (Select Products", "Timeline", "1928 – 1941")) on January 3, 2009. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
- "Texaco's History". Texaco. December 4, 1993. Archived from the original on July 17, 2003. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
- "The Highest Rated Evening Programs: 1932–1933 Season". The Original Old Time Radio. 1994. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
- The Marx Brothers on Radio. BBC Radio 4. December 27, 2005.
- "The Marx Brothers: Streaming Audio Files". The Marx Brothers. Retrieved December 25, 2008.
- "Transcript of live webchat with Dirk Maggs". BBC Online. July 2004. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
- Weinstein, Steve (October 10, 1988). "Radio". Calendar. Los Angeles Times. p. 2. Archived from the original on October 13, 2012. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- ISBN 0-19-502481-8.
- White, Rob (November 22, 2002). British Film Institute Film Classics: The Best of International Cinema 1916–1981. ISBN 1-57958-328-8.
- Williams, David. "Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel Series 1". Dirk Maggs Productions. Archived from the original on October 17, 2006. Retrieved December 25, 2008.
- Williams, David. "Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel Series 2". Dirk Maggs Productions. Archived from the original on November 9, 2007. Retrieved December 25, 2008.
- Williams, David. "Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel Series 3". Dirk Maggs Productions. Archived from the original on November 9, 2007. Retrieved December 25, 2008.
External links
- Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel - Episode guide - BBC Radio 4 Extra
- BBC adaptation director's website details for series 1, series 2 and series 3.
- britishcomedy.org.uk details