Yesterday, we had Groucho Marx in a TV version of his play, Time for Elizabeth. Talking with a few fellow Marx Brothers enthusiasts last night, I got to wondering: Did Groucho do that, at least in part, with an eye towards maybe angling into a situation comedy?
By 1964 when Time for Elizabeth aired, You Bet Your Life had run its course and Groucho has followed it with a short-lived series called Tell it to Groucho which, I'm sure, its makers hoped would replicate the success of the previous show. It didn't…so it was unlikely Mr. Marx would be seen in that format again. At about the same time that the latter went off, Jack Paar was announcing his abdication from The Tonight Show and Groucho reportedly let it be known that he might be interested in the position. When Johnny Carson got the nod, there was a six-month interval between Paar's leaving and Johnny's arrival, filled by guest hosts. Groucho was one and in letters to friends, he said he wished he'd gotten the job. (One of the nights he hosted, his guest was a young actress, then shining on Broadway, named Barbra Streisand. Some of the audio still exists of that episode.)
Anyway, he wanted to work. At the time, the most likely way a former star of movie comedy got work in television was to star in a situation comedy. So did anyone propose this for Groucho? He was still a pretty big star, appearing in specials and making guest appearances, so it's hard to believe no one raised the possibility. But if they did, there's no known evidence of it.
There is, however, evidence that Chico Marx tried to get his own situation comedy. In fact, we have here an imperfect but watchable copy of that unsold pilot. It was called Papa Romani and it was produced in 1949 and aired, like they used to do with unsold pilots, as part of an anthology series — in this case, on 1/9/50. It's not all that funny despite the presence of Chico and, among other actors, Margaret Hamilton and William Frawley. In '51, of course, Mr. Frawley would get into a rather successful situation comedy called I Love Lucy. Here's Chico's unsuccessful attempt…
