Well, I rediscovered Groucho Marx today. I bumped into a satirical letter he penned to the Warner Brothers in reply to their threat to sue him for using the name infamous “Casablanca” in a movie title. It reminded me of, well, me and my EULA with Zug and Ugzug.
In reply to his reply, the top-notch WB legal team dispatched another parchment asking for a more precise clarification as to what he intended on doing in his movie, his reply included even more eccentric harebrained plots.
And in the end, his tenacity paid off, as his film “A Night In Casablanca” was eventually relased in 1946.
Among quotes attributed to Groucho that I enjoyed most are:
“Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.”
“A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five.”
“I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.”
“I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.”
And the last Groucho quote I’ll end with tonight is his Seance Question:
“Groucho Marx, who loathed pretension and could not abide the occult, was once coaxed into attending a seance. He sat, quiet and respectful, as the Swami stared into a crystal ball, called up departed souls from the beyond and answered queries from his guests in an eerie monotone. After a long spell of omniscience the sorcerer intoned, ‘My medium is growing tired. There is time for one more question.’ Groucho asked it. ‘What is the capital of North Dakota?’”