Musical Numbers
Groucho's songs, "Hello, I Must Be Going" and "Hooray for Captain Spaulding", both written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, became recurring themes for Groucho through the years. The latter song became the theme of Groucho's radio and TV game show You Bet Your Life. It referred to a real Captain Spaulding, an army officer arrested a few years earlier for selling cocaine to Hollywood residents. The original full version of "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" was edited in compliance to the Hays Code when it was re-released in 1936: the sexually suggestive line "I think I'll try to make her" was removed - it came after Mrs. Rittenhouse's line: "He was the only white man to cover every acre." There is no known print or audio of those few seconds that were trimmed from the film. Prints of the film reveal an obvious edit when they reach that point in the song.
Ironically, Groucho used an even more risqué line in introducing Chico's piano sequence: "Signor Ravelli's first selection will be, 'Somewhere My Love Lies Sleeping', with a male chorus." Chico's own piano composition "I'm Daffy Over You" would be played again in their next feature film, Monkey Business, by Harpo on the harp.
- You Must Do Your Best Tonight (Hives and Footmen)
- I Represent (Zeppo)
- Hooray for Captain Spaulding Part I (The Cast)
- Hello, I Must Be Going (Groucho)
- Hooray for Captain Spaulding Part II (Cast)
- Why Am I So Romantic? (Arabella and John, and as a harp interlude with Harpo)
- I'm Daffy Over You (Chico; the refrain is sometimes confused with the 1950s song "Sugar in the Morning")
- Silver Threads Among the Gold (Chico)
- Brief piano interlude (Harpo)
- Gypsy-chorus (a.k.a. Anvil Chorus) (Chico)
- My Old Kentucky Home (Marx Brothers)
Read more about this topic: Animal Crackers (film)
Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or numbers:
“I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bayed the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding; for besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seemed all one mutual cry. I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The only phenomenon with which writing has always been concomitant is the creation of cities and empires, that is the integration of large numbers of individuals into a political system, and their grading into castes or classes.... It seems to have favored the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)