The Marx Brothers was one of my earliest comedic influences and I adore all 3 of them in different ways. I still rewatch their movies once in a while; I typically skip a lot of the tedious story and plot-development parts and focus on the scenes where one or more of the boys are doing their shtick. Never fails to make me laugh.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:12 PM on April 22, 2023

Hello, room service? Send up another room.
posted by gimonca at 1:23 PM on April 22, 2023 [6 favorites]

Do you wanna see where the captain sleeps?
Nah, that’s a the bunk.
posted by njohnson23 at 2:54 PM on April 22, 2023

"I find TV very educational. When someone turns it on I leave the room and go read a book." Groucho
posted by DJZouke at 4:00 PM on April 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

"if I could walk that way, I wouldn't need talcum powder..."
posted by Windopaene at 4:00 PM on April 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

The FOUR of them. Ahem.
posted by acrasis at 6:16 PM on April 22, 2023 [7 favorites]

If Groucho were alive today... the faint, desperate moans and intermittent clawing sounds from his crypt would be quite unsettling.
^{yes i know he was cremated}
posted by zaixfeep at 6:18 PM on April 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

Everyone always forgets Gummo. *sigh*
posted by hippybear at 6:24 PM on April 22, 2023 [8 favorites]

Back in the olden days I remember getting in a heated debate with a fellow teenager over the existence of Gummo and Zeppo Marx. I was told in no uncertain terms that no one in their right minds would use such ridiculous names. Well, 4 decades later with the internet backing me up, guess who looks foolish now! If I could remember who it was I would friend him (it was definitely a him) on Facebook just to prove him wrong.
posted by TedW at 8:10 PM on April 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Because Groucho, Harpo, and Chico are just NOT ridiculous names.
posted by hippybear at 8:24 PM on April 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

You're all forgetting the one involved in the early days of Unix, Greppo.
posted by zaixfeep at 8:33 PM on April 22, 2023 [12 favorites]

Wow, zaixfeep. Just. Whoa. Deep dive there. Well played.
posted by Floydd at 9:21 PM on April 22, 2023

Groucho would have appreciated Metafilter; we appreciate him
posted by librosegretti at 9:43 PM on April 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

"I love sitting on your lap. I could sit here all day if you didn't stand up."

A few years ago I got to see A Night At The Opera at the Fox Theater here in Tucson, an old art deco theater from the thirties that had just been renovated. Watching the Marx Brothers in a packed theater, the audience roaring with laughter, was a peak experience. It felt like the funniest kind of time travel.
posted by MrVisible at 10:33 PM on April 22, 2023 [7 favorites]

Zeppo, the slightly boring straight-man and young romantic cipher of the on-camera quartet, was later an inventor who made $million$ through his engineering company Marman / Aeroquip: most notable for developing and marketing the Marman Clamp. These clamps consisted of a ring with an internal V-shaped notch that seized together the ends flanges on the end of two connecting tubes. As you tighten the strap with a turn-buckle, the V-notch forces the two pipe-ends together in an elegant appropriate technology non-leaking joint. The company got a boost in engineering circles when it became known that Marman clamps were used to secure and transport the Nagasaki atomic bomb code-named Fat-Boy. Doubtless, Marman clamps were used to connect the exhaust pipe of the company's 1948 motor-cycle the Marman Twin.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:39 PM on April 22, 2023 [6 favorites]

Marman, Marman, Marman!
posted by fairmettle at 12:54 AM on April 23, 2023

Am I the only person who doesn't find the Marx Brothers even slightly funny?
posted by essexjan at 3:09 AM on April 23, 2023

Yes
posted by MtDewd at 4:11 AM on April 23, 2023 [13 favorites]

Not saying this is your particular why, but the Marx Bros are so foundational to so much comedy since then that it's very easy to see them and think "What an endless parade of limp, tired gags."

I also have the sense that there's a bit of a gender gap about them. Maybe only "very wide" instead of "three stooges wide."
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:46 AM on April 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Nevermind Gummo, everyone always forgets Manfred.
posted by Capt. Renault at 2:12 PM on April 23, 2023

As you learn more about the Marx brothers, you begin to realize that Groucho was the least interesting one!

I picked up Harpo's autobiography and it is one of the best autobiographies I have ever read. I kept reading pages out loud to my spouse. He doesn't mention the other Marx brothers all that much or even their movies. He had enough of a life outside of that to fill a book. He was at the Algonquin round table, trading barbs with the literati. He was hanging out at William Randolph Hearst's place. He did a solo tour in the Soviet Union and, while there, was passing secret messages back and forth to the US embassy in Moscow.

What little you learn about Chico is that if you knew more, many people would have landed in prison. He was hanging out with some really scary gangster types. He was in Las Vegas and the others only caught glimpses of his relationship with Bugsy Siegel and the gangsters of the era. When the Marx brothers needed a financier, someone to fund their shows or their movies, somehow it was Chico that always rustled someone up, a friend of a friend. In the end, the others had to move in to help him pay his gambling debts and avoid real trouble.

Harpo's comments about Groucho are mostly along the line of pointing out that he liked to read a lot and, among the brothers, would have made the best college professor.
posted by vacapinta at 1:17 AM on April 24, 2023 [2 favorites]