Line #7 YMMV/MarxBrothers


1	* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Is Groucho really mentally insane or is he ObfuscatingInsanity? This also applies to Chico and Harpo, to an extent.
2	* AudienceAlienatingEra: When the brothers went to MGM, the senior creative executive, Irving Thalberg, was their biggest supporter at the studio. After he died during the production of ''Film/{{A Day at the Races\|1937}}'', the brothers lost their best advocate while the rest of the management turned on them, denying them the creative control and personnel they needed, and their films were never the same.
3	* BrokenBase:
4	** One of the most hotly debated topics among fans is whether or not Harpo sings during the "Sweet Adeline" bit at the opening of ''Film/MonkeyBusiness.''
5	** There's also the argument regarding exactly when their Creator/{{MGM}} films stopped being any good, or whether they simply didn't make ''any'' good movies after leaving Creator/{{Paramount}}.
6	* CrossesTheLineTwice: A real life example. When the brothers were introduced to Creator/TallulahBankhead at a dinner party, Chico (notorious not only for his [[ReallyGetsAround womanizing]] but for being rather crude at that) was warned not to make any obscene comments to her. Near the end of the party, Chico walked over to her and said, as politely as possible, "Y'know, I'd really like to [[PrecisionFStrike fuck you]]." Her response? "[[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments And so you shall, you old-fashioned boy]]."
7	* CoveredUp: A rare non-song example: Nowadays ''Film/ANightAtTheOpera'' and ''Film/{{A Day at the Races\|1937}}'' are better known as the titles of Music/{{Queen}} albums than as Marx Brothers movies.
8	* FandomRivalry: Often with the fans of Film/TheThreeStooges.
9	* SpiritualSuccessor:
10	** ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' and ''Creator/MontyPython'' are probably the closest comparison, with some of Creator/WoodyAllen's early films also bearing a resemblance.
11	** Creator/HaroldRamis actually quipped about ''Film/{{Caddyshack}}'' that they intended to make a poignant-coming-of-age film and then accidentally made a Marx Brothers film.
12	* StuckInTheirShadow: Groucho and Harpo have always been the most prominent names in the group. If you're lucky, some people may remember Chico's name too. The one who everybody forgets is Zeppo, though admittedly he only appeared in their movies until ''Film/DuckSoup'' (1933) and was basically the StraightMan to his brothers, which made him less memorable anyway. (In fact, nowadays he's only known ''because'' he was the straight man of the team, to the point where the most "boring" member of any group act will often be called "the Zeppo".) But perhaps even more obscure than Zeppo is their fifth brother, Gummo, Zeppo's predecessor in the "straight man" role, during their vaudeville years in the 1910s. Gummo left the act in 1918 after being drafted into the Army during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI (only to never see any action because the armistice was signed shortly afterwards), having never much cared for the theater scene anyway. Both Zeppo and Gummo ended up going into the talent agent business after leaving the spotlight.
13	* ValuesDissonance:
14	** Harpo's Creator/BennyHill-esque gag of randomly chasing women around would ''never'' fly today.
15	** Chico's portrayal of an Italian immigrant, Harpo's original "Irish bruiser" character from his vaudeville days, etc. Hey, [[FairForItsDay it was the '30s]]!
16	** There's the scene in ''Film/TheBigStore'' where they have black actors literally picking their cotton in-store. Again, this was FairForItsDay, as the brothers often went out of their way to hire black performers and risk having their films blacklisted in the South. ''Film/{{A Day at the Races\|1937}}'' has, for no particular reason, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di-a-jf1c6g a large-scale production number]] with about fifty Afro-American performers led by the amazing Ivy Anderson.
17	* VanillaProtagonist: Zeppo was invariably overshadowed by his [[LargeHam much hammier]] brothers. Without him, they wouldn't look so hammy by contrast.

Context YMMV / MarxBrothers