A lot of questions this morning about the Marx Brothers Cartoon Show I mentioned in an earlier post. Obviously, no such show was ever produced…but you might be amazed at the number of times it's been proposed and planned and led to pilot scripts and presentation art. I was once in a group of four other animation writers and the subject came up. All five of us, we discovered, had been approached at various times or even worked on various proposed projects featuring animated versions of the Brothers Marx. It's one of those ideas that always seem to be "in development" somewhere. In the eighties, that list also included shows about Michael Jackson, Elvira and — of all things — Wolfman Jack. I think one of the four thousand Wolfman Jack proposals actually got on the air briefly.
The last time I was approached about writing a Marx Brothers cartoon show, it was by a studio that had or thought they were about to get the rights to Harpo and Chico. A deal to include Groucho, whose likeness was controlled by a different wing of the family, had eluded these producers, though they thought it still might be obtainable. They wanted to know if I thought I could write a Marx Brothers show without him. The answer was no. Then they wanted to know: If you could write a Marx Brothers show without Groucho, would it be possible to write the pilot script so that we can show it to the Groucho People and they'll think it's wonderful and they'll want to give us the rights to him for a reasonable fee and then you can add him into that script?
Again, I told them no. But I added that I thought The Groucho People was a great idea for a show. Wouldn't you want to watch a cartoon show called The Groucho People? Better than that, wouldn't you want to be one of The Groucho People?
The first time I was approached about a Marx Brothers cartoon show, the producers had — or more likely, thought they could get — the rights to Groucho, Harpo and Chico. They asked me who they should get to supply the voice of Groucho. I told them there was only one choice: Dayton Allen. This was back in the early eighties when Mr. Allen was still alive. Dayton was, for those of you who don't know, a great comedian — a part of the old Steve Allen stock company — and he did a fair amount of cartoon voicing. He also did an uncanny Groucho. One time on the old I've Got A Secret game show, Groucho was the guest star. The panel was blindfolded and they had to guess what Groucho was doing as he answered their questions. What he was doing was sitting there, smoking a cigar while Dayton Allen answered the questions in his voice.
I told them that story and the producers said, "Great! We'll get Dayton Allen! Now, what about Chico?" I told them that the great cartoon voice actor, Paul Frees, did a killer Chico impression. The Vincent Price movie, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, had just come out and there was a place in it where Mr. Frees had dubbed in his wonderful Chico imitation. If they wanted to hear it, it was on the movie's soundtrack album.
"Terrific," they said. Whereupon one of them actually asked me, "Who could do Harpo?"
I thought the guy was kidding so I answered, "Marcel Marceau." When he wrote it down, I realized he wasn't kidding and that these people would never do a Marx Brothers show. Nor should they.