|
Why A Duck
"Why a Duck?" is a comedy routine featured in the Marx Brothers movie ''The Cocoanuts'' (1929). In a scene in which Groucho and Chico are discussing a map, Groucho mentions the presence of a viaduct between the mainland and a peninsula. Chico, who is playing the role of an immigrant with poor English skills, replies "Why a duck?" This leads into a long schtick with Chico responding "Why a no chicken?", "I catch ona why a horse", and so forth. "Why a Duck?" is a touchstone scene for Marx Brothers fans, as evidenced by Richard Anobile's book of the same name (featuring a foreword by Groucho) which focuses on the minutiae of the Marx Brothers' routines. Duck as a theme The duck is a recurring reference throughout the Marxes' and especially Groucho's career. His signature walk was called "the duck walk" and on Groucho's television program '' You Bet Your Life'' a stuffed duck made up to resemble Groucho would drop from the ceiling to give contestants money if they said the day's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Why A Duck
"Why a Duck?" is a comedy routine featured in the Marx Brothers movie ''The Cocoanuts'' (1929). In a scene in which Groucho and Chico are discussing a map, Groucho mentions the presence of a viaduct between the mainland and a peninsula. Chico, who is playing the role of an immigrant with poor English skills, replies "Why a duck?" This leads into a long schtick with Chico responding "Why a no chicken?", "I catch ona why a horse", and so forth. "Why a Duck?" is a touchstone scene for Marx Brothers fans, as evidenced by Richard Anobile's book of the same name (featuring a foreword by Groucho) which focuses on the minutiae of the Marx Brothers' routines. Duck as a theme The duck is a recurring reference throughout the Marxes' and especially Groucho's career. His signature walk was called "the duck walk" and on Groucho's television program '' You Bet Your Life'' a stuffed duck made up to resemble Groucho would drop from the ceiling to give contestants money if they said the day's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duck Soup (1933 Film)
''Duck Soup'' is a 1933 American pre-Code musical black comedy film written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin, directed by Leo McCarey. Released theatrically by Paramount Pictures on November 17, 1933, it starred the Marx Brothers ( Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo in his final Marx Brothers’ movie) and also featured Margaret Dumont, Louis Calhern, Raquel Torres and Edgar Kennedy. It was the last of five Marx Brothers movies released by Paramount Pictures. Groucho plays the newly installed president of the mythical country of Freedonia. Zeppo is his secretary, while Harpo and Chico are Sylvanian spies. Relations between Groucho and the Sylvanian ambassador deteriorate during the film, and they go to war at the conclusion. Compared to the Marx Brothers' previous films, ''Duck Soup'' was a box office disappointment, though not entirely a "flop" as is sometimes reported. The film opened to mixed reviews, although this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1929 Quotations
Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music * 19 (band), a Japanese pop music duo Albums * ''19'' (Adele album), 2008 * ''19'', a 2003 album by Alsou * ''19'', a 2006 album by Evan Yo * ''19'', a 2018 album by MHD * ''19'', one half of the double album '' 63/19'' by Kool A.D. * '' Number Nineteen'', a 1971 album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron * ''XIX'' (EP), a 2019 EP by 1the9 Songs * "19" (song), a 1985 song by British musician Paul Hardcastle. * "Nineteen", a song by Bad4Good from the 1992 album ''Refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quotations From Film
A quotation is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is introduced by a quotative marker, such as a verb of saying. For example: John said: "I saw Mary today". Quotations in oral speech are also signaled by special prosody in addition to quotative markers. In written text, quotations are signaled by quotation marks. Quotations are also used to present well-known statement parts that are explicitly attributed by citation to their original source; such statements are marked with ( punctuated with) quotation marks. Quotations are often used as a literary device to represent someone's point of view. They are also widely used in spoken language when an interlocutor wishes to present a proposition that they have come to know via hearsay. As a literary device A quotation can also refer to the repeated use of un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy Sketches
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: in Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing '' agon'' or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cultural References
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylor, Edward. (1871). Primitive Culture. Vol 1. New York: J.P. Putnam's Son Culture is often originated from or attributed to a specific region or location. Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies. A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group. Accepting only a monoculture in a social group can bear risks, just as a single species can wither in the face of environmental change, for lack of functional responses to the change. Thus in military culture, valor is counted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inherently Funny Word
An inherently funny word is a word that is humorous without context, often more for its phonetic structure than for its meaning. Vaudeville tradition holds that words with the letter ''k'' are funny. A 2015 study at the University of Alberta suggested that the humor of certain nonsense words can be explained by whether they seem rude, and by the property of entropy; the improbability of certain letters being used together in a word. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer posited that humor is a product of one's expectations being violated. Funny words in English Vaudeville words can be found in Neil Simon's 1972 play ''The Sunshine Boys'', in which an aging comedian gives a lesson to his nephew on comedy, saying that words with ''k'' sounds are funny: Richard Wiseman, a professor of the public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, conducted a small experiment to determine whether words with a ''k'' sound were actually considered funnier than others for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the List of most visited websites, second most visited website, after Google Search. YouTube has more than 2.5 billion monthly users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. , videos were being uploaded at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute. In October 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 billion. Google's ownership of YouTube expanded the site's business model, expanding from generating revenue from advertisements alone, to offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content produced by YouTube. It also offers YouTube Premium, a paid subscription option for watching content without ads. YouTube also approved creators to participate in Google's Google AdSens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Night At The Opera (film)
''A Night at the Opera'' is a 1935 American comedy film starring the Marx Brothers (Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx and Chico Marx), and featuring Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont, Sig Ruman, and Walter Woolf King. It was the first of five films the Marx Brothers made under contract for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after their departure from Paramount Pictures, and the first after Zeppo left the act. The film was written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind from a story by James Kevin McGuinness, with additional uncredited dialogue by Al Boasberg. The film was directed by Sam Wood. One of MGM's biggest hits at the 1935 box office, ''A Night at the Opera'' was selected in 1993 for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horse Feathers
''Horse Feathers'' is a 1932 pre-Code comedy film starring the Marx Brothers. It stars the Four Marx Brothers (Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo), Thelma Todd and David Landau. It was written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S. J. Perelman, and Will B. Johnstone. Kalmar and Ruby also wrote the original songs for the film. Several of the film's gags were taken from the Marx Brothers' stage comedy from the 1900s, ''Fun in Hi Skule''. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term "horse feathers" is U.S. slang for "nonsense, rubbish, balderdash," attributed originally to Billy DeBeck. Plot The film revolves around college football and a game between the fictional Darwin and Huxley Colleges. Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley College, is convinced by his son Frank, a student at the school, to recruit professional football players to help Huxley's losing football team. Baravelli is an "iceman", who delivers ice and bootleg liquor from a local speakea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sketch Comedy
Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is used widely in variety shows, comedy talk shows, and some sitcoms and children's television series. The sketches may be improvised live by the performers, developed through improvisation before public performance, or scripted and rehearsed in advance like a play. Sketch comedians routinely differentiate their work from a "skit", maintaining that a skit is a (single) dramatized joke (or "bit") while a sketch is a comedic exploration of a concept, character, or situation. definition 3b, Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved 5/4/2019 History Sketch comedy has its origins in |
You Bet Your Life
''You Bet Your Life'' is an American comedy quiz series that has aired on both radio and television. The original and best-known version was hosted by Groucho Marx of the Marx Brothers, with announcer and assistant George Fenneman. The show debuted on ABC Radio on October 27, 1947, moved to CBS Radio debuting October 5, 1949, and went to NBC-TV and NBC Radio on October 4, 1950. Because of its simple format, it was possible to broadcast the show on both radio and television but not simultaneously. Many of the laughs on the television show were evoked by Groucho's facial reactions and other visual gimmicks; the two versions were slightly different. The last episode in a radio format aired on June 10, 1960. The series continued on television for another year, recording a season on September 22, 1960 with a new title, ''The Groucho Show''. Gameplay on each episode of ''You Bet Your Life'' was generally secondary to Groucho's comedic interplay with contestants and often with Fennema ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
