As some of you know, my first staff job in television was as a Story Editor on the series, Welcome Back, Kotter. I can't speak for my then-partner Dennis Palumbo but my first day on that job was one of the ten most interesting days of my life and the second day — when we taped the episode this post is about — was a good candidate for the Top Three.
Years ago, I wrote about that day in this article…and in re-reading it, I'm surprised to see that I left out a number of things…like getting briefly trapped in an elevator with Olivia Newton-John and Elliott Gould, crashing into (and almost knocking over) gossip columnist Rona Barrett and three or four other memorable encounters. But the biggie was that Groucho Marx came to the set to tape a cameo appearance that never happened. He was there. Groucho Marx was there.
Recently, the show's star Gabe Kaplan — to whom I have not had occasion to speak this century — was recently on Marc Maron's popular podcast and they talked about that evening along with loads of other fascinating topics. The part about Groucho starts around 12:50 in and if you want to start listening at that point, click this link. If you want to hear the whole podcast from the top, click below…
Gabe's account of how Mr. Marx came to make the appearance on our show in this telling is a little different from the way I told it…and the way I told it is the way I recall Gabe telling it to several of us in 1976. I suspect both accounts are true.
Maron and Kaplan are a little confused about the succession of hosts on The Tonight Show. Jack Paar was not fired. He quit and Johnny Carson was signed to replace him…but Carson still had several months to go on his contract hosting the game show Who Do You Trust? on ABC. So there were several months of fill-in hosts for The Tonight Show between Jack and the start of Johnny. We listed them all here in this post. As you can see, Groucho hosted the week of 8/20/62.
Groucho came to the set to tape a cameo on 10/26/76. We were taping an episode called "Sadie Hawkins Day" which was about one of those girls-invite-the-boys parties that were all the rage for about ten minutes. Since everyone assumes Vinnie Barbarino (John Travolta) has a date, none of the girls ask him and he's left dateless. Once we got the call that Groucho was coming that evening, we had to come up with a quick joke for him to appear in the tag. That's the little minute-or-two of show that comes between the last commercial and the end credits. On the Maron show, Gabe says it was to appear under the closing credits but it was actually for the tag.
The story editors and producers all got together and we wrote a bit giving Groucho, of course, the final line. As I wrote in my article…
Around three o'clock, a call came in to confirm that Groucho would be there, that he would do the cameo walk-on, but that he wouldn't speak. Groucho, we were told, had recently decided never to speak in public again, having decided he was too old.
Earlier today, I discussed this with my pal Steve Stoliar, who was Groucho's personal secretary the last few years of the comedian's life. This meant that he had to deal with the infamous Erin Fleming who was controlling Groucho's life at the time. Steve is puzzled by something. Until almost the day Groucho died, Erin steadfastly refused to give up on the concept that he was still 100% Groucho and could sing and dance and perform…and appear on shows that she hoped to produce.
I don't know who made that 3:00 call to our producers. Steve can't think of anyone who could have made it if it wasn't Erin but Erin wasn't going to ever say Groucho couldn't talk and certainly not that he would never talk in public again. Maybe our producer didn't describe the call accurately…but no matter what was said, it was clear when Groucho arrived that even our little bit was beyond his abilities that evening.
In later books and articles about the Groucho/Erin relationship, it was alleged that she sometimes kept Groucho in a drugged state to make him more obedient…or something. That did not occur to me that evening on the Kotter set but in hindsight, maybe that was why he seemed so out-of-it. Don't ask me to explain why, if she was selling Groucho so hard for new projects, she would drug him when he was going to make what could have been a highly-watched appearance on a hit TV show.
On the Maron show, Gabe says that Groucho did not tape the cameo because Erin had suddenly demanded $10,000 for him to perform. I never heard that at the time. Maybe it's so. Stoliar says Erin — or Groucho being coached by Erin — did sometimes demand that amount when people wanted him to appear. I just think that no matter how much we'd paid him that evening, we never could have gotten a performance out of that man that we would have wanted to broadcast on network TV.
Gabe doesn't say in the interview what the joke was. I think I remember it…
The last scene of that episode took place at the high school dance. Gabe's wife Julie, played by Marcia Strassman, was there as a chaperone. We go to the last commercial break, then come back to the dance for the tag…
A lot of students are dancing or milling in the background. Julie is there. Gabe comes up and is acting a little flirty with his wife and I think there was a line about how this was his first chance to "get lucky" at a high school dance. She says something inviting like, "What do you have in mind?" Whereupon Gabe goes into his Groucho impression and says, "Well, you're a very lovely lady and I'd like to go to Miami and Tampa with ya." ("Tampa" as in "tamper"…I didn't write this.)
The crowd of students parts and there's Groucho. I remember a discussion with the director, Bob LaHendro, on how long and loud the audience reaction would be to the sudden, surprise appearance of Groucho Marx. This was us assuming the audience — which always contained a lot of younger folks — would instantly recognize the man. Based on Groucho's appearance that evening and the response when he did walk out in front of the audience, that was probably an erroneous assumption.
But as we planned it, Groucho would get this tremendous ovation even if we had to dub it in. Then he'd say in response to Gabe's joke, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." Then Julie would say to Gabe, "I think I'd prefer the genuine article tonight" and she'd take Groucho by the arm and lead him off, leaving a stunned Mr. Kotter standing there.
That probably sounds silly here and now but I think it would have gotten a huge reaction if we'd done it. But we didn't/couldn't do it.
Groucho posed for photos with the cast, then left. As I mentioned, a key factor in him showing up at all was Erin Fleming trying to talk her way into an acting job on Kotter — which, of course, also never happened. She did a lot of things like that.
One other thing I should mention: If you listen to the entire podcast — which is pretty good, especially if you're interested in the comedy business in the sixties and seventies — you'll hear Kaplan say some unflattering things about our executive producer, Jimmie Komack. I was only there for most of one season and during a lot of it, Komack was staying far away from Gabe and the show because the two men weren't getting along.
When they were together, there was a lot of arguing and disagreement and it struck me that Gabe was always right and Jimmie was always wrong. There may have been exceptions to this but I don't recall any. Gabe had become the de facto showrunner of the series he starred in, as occasionally happens in television, and the guy knew what he was doing. I don't say that about everyone I ever worked with. For instance, I've never said that about Jimmie Komack.