Retro : A Sure ‘Bet’

ITALICS: ( “Oh my name is Jeffrey Spaulding, The African explorer, Did someone call me ‘schnorrer’? Hooray, hooray, hooray!”)

“You Bet Your Life” was a phenomena of early television and one of the few series from that era that’s still rerun today.

The NBC program was technically a quiz show, but mainly a vehicle for Groucho Marx to use his quick wit during interviews with contestants.

“He was a marvelous iconoclast who was fearless in his time,” recalled George Fenneman, Marx’s announcer. “He was able to puncture pomposity.”

Marx died in 1977 at age 86.

“You Bet Your Life” made its debut on radio in 1947, then moved to television in 1950 and remained in production until 1961. It finished in the season-long A.C. Nielsen Top 10 six times between the 1951-52 and 1957-58 seasons. Marx won an Emmy Award in 1950 as television’s most outstanding personality.

“I’m a kind of alter ego for America,” he said during an interview in 1957. “I say the things nobody else will say. I get away with it because they think I’m fooling. But I’m not fooling. Not always. Sometimes I’m in dead earnest.”

Each show began with the theme “Hooray for Captain Spaulding,” from the Marx Brothers’ movie “Animal Crackers,” ( “Oh my name is Jeffrey Spaulding, The African explorer, Did someone call me ‘schnorrer’? Hooray, hooray, hooray!”) and Fenneman declaring, “Here he is: the one, the only, Groucho!”

The format was embarrassingly simple by today’s standards. A two-person team would be interviewed by Marx, often subject to his brash, if not abrasive, inquiries, with the female contestant often the recipient of his famous leer and suggestive remarks. If a contestant said the secret word (“It’s a common word, something you see every day”) a duck would drop down with a prize of $100.

During the quiz portion, contestants would wager a sum of money, when fielding generally easy questions.

“I don’t think Groucho ever understood the quiz,” Fenneman said. “He would be on me something terrible because I made mistakes, but he forced mistakes. We gave contestants $100 to start with. You could bet as much of the $100 as you wanted to. Groucho would get people to bet $37.27, and I’d have to add or subtract it from their total.

“The first time it was easy. But then Groucho would get them to bet $27.37 the next time. My math would never come out right.”

Among the “You Bet Your Life” contestants were a young Candice Bergen, Gen. Omar Bradley and heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano.

But most of the contestants were everyday Americans. One was Carolyn Douglas, then a graduate student at USC.

“I was interviewed by a staff person for what seemed to be a couple of hours,” said Douglas, now a librarian at Mount St. Mary’s College. “He asked me just about everything you could. That enabled Groucho to be so witty because he knew so much about you.”

Douglas was paired with a man from UCLA and was subjected to a comment from Groucho about male and female intelligence. Douglas and her partner each won about $85 for answering questions about quotations.

“It was funny to see it, “ Douglas said. “Television was so limited then and not too many people had been on it. It was a novel thing.”

“You Bet Your Life” has an endurance record unmatched by any series with the exception of “I Love Lucy.” Its reruns were picked up in syndication after its 1961 cancellation, and were seen by a new generation of viewers in the ‘70s. It now airs on cable’s Comedy Central channel.

The Bill Cosby-hosted version is the second attempt to recreate “You Bet Your Life.” Comedian Buddy Hackett hosted a short-lived version in the fall of 1980.

Fenneman said he plans to watch the new episodes.

“I think Bill will be wonderful,” he said. “Bill is a very funny and a very bright man. I hope he knows that it is a little more work than he thought.”

The new “You Bet Your Life” airs weeknights at 7:30 on KCBS. The original “You Bet Your Life,” airs weekdays at 9 a.m. on Comedy Central.