Episode 71: If She Figures That One Out, She’s Good

What’s your preferred noun to describe us? All of us, I mean, with regard to these Marx Brothers of ours. Are we simply fans, or are we fanatics or superfans? Are we obsessives? Are we experts, scholars, mavens, advocates, or gurus? Are we Marxists or Marxians or Marxologists or Marxmaniacs?

Whatever we are, I think one principle of the Marx Brothers Council is that if possible, we would like to know everything about the Marx Brothers. Yet there’s as much to enjoy in what we don’t know about them, and sometimes more. One of these days we will know the name of the woman who played the manicurist in A Night at the Opera, and when that day comes, we’ll miss the exquisite torture of wondering, and the thrilling pursuit of the answer.

That’s what this episode is about. It’s a look at just a few of the still-unsolved Marx Brothers mysteries we live with every day. We did something like this way back in episode 18, and you can be sure we’ll do it again, too, because we never learn. Obviously!

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*The world’s greatest detectives recording their seventy-first episode*

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Official description: “Matthew and Noah share a few of the most perplexing Marx Brothers mysteries they've encountered in their research, which have remained unsolved despite considerable effort. No, this episode is not about Humor Risk or the manicurist. But Matthew will walk you down winding paths of confusion regarding the authorship of The Big Store and Double Dynamite, and Noah will call your attention to a Marx Bros. Scrapbook anomaly which can only be explained ridiculously.”

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Episode 72: What If…? (featuring Danny Fingeroth)

Episode 70: What Do You Get For Not Directing?