The Marx Brothers grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan back when it actually had affordable neighborhoods for immigrant families.
Wikimedia Commons / The New Orleans Times-Democrat No one warned us that Groucho used to be hot And while the exact time and place have been disputed, one thing is clear – an ornery mule at the Opera House is the reason the Jewish-French-German family act switched from crooning to comedy. The Marx Brothers were originally a singing quartet managed by their mother Minnie. The comedy group would become arguably the most influential act in humor history, inspiring the likes of Monty Python, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, David Zucker, and countless others to follow in their footsteps. When they left, a chorus of laughter and applause followed them offstage, and the cosmic trajectory of American comedy shifted.
One dreary evening at the Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas, the four brothers took the stage as The Four Nightingales, a four-part musical act. That’s the kind of bottom-tier joke that would get you the hook at a 1912 vaudeville show like the one where Julius, Leonard, Herbert, and – um – Adolph Marx unofficially became the legendary comedy group now known as the Marx Brothers. Why didn’t the pony sing at the opera? Because it was a little horse!
