The well-received half-hour show - basically a silent two-reel comedy with Harpo and Chico that could have been produced thirty years earlier - features only the briefest unadvertised appearance by Groucho.
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In this thoroughly enjoyable meeting of two comic legends, Benny attempts to win some money by going on You Bet Your Life in disguise. Benny was known to be a great audience for comedians and he seems to be struggling not to break up with each ad lib or movement of Groucho's eyebrows.
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The television adaptation of the classic Frank Capra film starring James Stewart had a forgettable one-season run on ABC, but it is notable for the episode that was Harpo Marx's last television appearance.. In "The Musicale," Senator Smith mistakes Harpo for a famous French pianist and invites him to play at the White House.
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When it was announced in the summer of 1950 that Chico would star in his own series that fall, the show was called Ravelli's Sugar Bowl. He played Chico Ravelli, and looked very much like he'd just strayed from the set of a Marx Brothers picture. The show was broadcast live and only lasted for 26 weeks. It featured a large cast of young New York stage actors, singers and dancer - including 23-year-old Andy Williams. In this, the final episode of the series - and the only one known to survive - Chico considers an offer to sell his popular college hangout.
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The premiere of Red Skelton's new one-hour show was a tour-de-force for Harpo, who was on camera almost as much as Skelton. In an extended sketch, he's Red's inept guardian angel, and plays his own composition, "Guardian Angels," in a solo harp spot. Harpo and Red also play World War I soldiers on opposite sides of the battlefield in a pantomime segment that Variety called, "both funny and touching."
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Harpo was a serious golfer and jumped at the chance to travel to Las Vegas to take on the legendary Sam Snead. He claimed a 21-stroke handicap and clowned his way through the match, but occasionally displayed a pretty good swing. He might have been the best 73-year-old comedian golfer in the business.
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There's something fitting about Chico making one of his last public appearances with a deck of cards in his hands. Chico was considered one of the best card players in show business - but that reputation was clearly not earned for financial reasons, as he became well known for gambling losses as anything else.
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You Bet Your Life had been off the air for four years when Groucho accepted an offer to do a new version of the show in England. Simply called Groucho, the show utilized essentially the same format as the American show. Announcer Keith Fordyce - well known in England as the host of the popular music program, Ready Steady Go! - was Groucho's "British George Fenneman."
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With You Bet Your Life consistently among the top-rated shows on television, NBC frequently called upon Groucho to liven up the proceedings on some of the network's other shows.
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Harpo only made one television appearance during the 1961-1962 season - this special in which he and Carol Burnett walk through New York's Central Park looking at toys. Among the toys, they found Audrey Meadows, Mitch Miller, Eva Gabor, Elsa Maxwell and Milton Berle.
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