''Five-Star Theater'' (also written as ''5-Star Theater'') is an American radio series that premiered on Monday, November 28, 1932, on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

Blue Network The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American Commercial broadcasting, radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945. Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the N ...

, sponsored by the

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...

Companies of

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, Pennsylvania and

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

and the Colonial Beacon Oil Company. It was broadcast every weeknight at 7:30 p.m., but with a different program of comedy, music or drama each night. The series ran through May 22, 1933. '' Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle'' was a Monday night comedy program with

Groucho Marx Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (; October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit an ...

as attorney Waldorf T. Beagle and

Chico Marx Leonard Joseph "Chico" Marx (; March 22, 1887 – October 11, 1961) was an American comedian, actor and pianist. He was the oldest brother in the Marx Brothers comedy troupe, alongside his brothers Adolph ("Harpo"), Julius ("Groucho"), Milton ...

as his assistant Emanuel Ravelli. For the first three episodes, the series was called ''Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle''; however, a lawyer from New York called Beagle contacted NBC and threatened them with a lawsuit. It was then retitled ''Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel''. The series depicted the misadventures of a small

law firm A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to r ...

, with Groucho playing attorney Waldorf T. Flywheel, and Chico playing Emmanuel Ravelli, a character lifted directly from the 1930 film ''

Animal Crackers An animal cracker is a particular type of cracker, baked in the shape of an animal, usually an animal either at a zoo or a circus, such as a lion, a tiger, a bear, or an elephant. The most common variety is light-colored and slightly sweet, but ...

''. The 1980 discovery of scripts for this 1932–33 series led to publication by Pantheon Books, as described in ''The New York Times'' in 1988:

Now, one of the funniest "lost" radio shows of the early 1930s — ''Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, Attorneys at Law'', starring Groucho and Chico Marx — has been unearthed. Not the voices; in those years radio programs were not regularly recorded. But the transcripts of 25 of the original ''Flywheel'' episodes have been found in the archives of the Library of Congress. For viewers and listeners who want to discover — or rediscover — what comedy was all about in those more slaphappy days, the actual scripts of ''Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel'', edited by Michael Barson, will be published in October by Pantheon Books. It happened that in 1980, as part of his Ph.D. studies, Mr. Barson worked as a specialist in the Deposit Collection of the Library of Congress (which oversees the Copyright Office). In a section called "unpublished dramas", he came across the ''Flywheel'' scripts. Nobody was aware that they still existed; their copyrights had not been renewed. ''Flywheel'' had fallen into the public domain.

After the rediscovery of the Marx scripts, many of them were adapted by the BBC, new recordings made with contemporary actors,

broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

on Radio 4 in 1990-1992. The Josef Bonime Orchestra aired on Tuesdays,Hickerson, Jay, ''The Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming and Guide to All Circulating Shows''. Hamden, Connecticut: Jay Hickerson, Box 4321, Hamden, CT 06514, second edition December 1992 with baritone

John Charles Thomas John Charles Thomas (September 6, 1891December 13, 1960) was an American opera, operetta and concert baritone. Biography John Charles Thomas was born on September 6, 1891 in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania. He was the son of a Methodist minister of ...

. Wednesday night showcased a dramatic anthology, ''The Esso Theater''. Opera was featured on Thursday night with the Aborn Opera Company. On Friday evenings, a radio drama based on the ''

Charlie Chan Charlie Chan is a fictional Honolulu police detective created by author Earl Derr Biggers for a series of mystery novels. Biggers loosely based Chan on Hawaiian detective Chang Apana. The benevolent and heroic Chan was conceived as an alter ...

'' film franchise was heard, with a cast that included Ray Collins.

References

{{reflist 1930s American radio programs 1932 radio programme debuts 1933 radio programme endings American comedy radio programs American radio dramas NBC Blue Network radio programs