Elephant Joke

Number 53 in AFI's top 100 Movie Quotes of All Time was this line from Groucho Marx in "Animal Crackers". Like "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more" and "Beam me up, Scotty" and "Play it again, Sam", almost everyone gets the line wrong.

Understandable, I guess, when you consider that for many years "Animal Crackers" was seldom seen in theatres or on television. It's a little jolting when you hear the way Groucho actually phrased the joke.

However, I just stumbled across something that makes me wonder if people weren't just recalling the joke in a completely different context.

Or maybe not. Anyway, it's interesting to hear Groucho himself sounding like one of the bad Groucho impersonators in this clip.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• groucho
• marx
• animal
• crackers
• you
• bet
• your
• life
• shot
• elephant
• pajamas
• movie
• misquote

[richardhutnik]

How about it being remembered as shooting an irrelevant in pajamas? I am now trying to find out why I remember it that way.

[dadoctah]

@richardhutnik In another Marx Bros movie, "Duck Soup", Chico is on trial as a spy and asks the prosecutor a riddle: "What has a trunk, but no key, weighs 2,000 pounds and lives in a circus?" The prosecutor says "That's irrelevant!" and Chico congratulates him on getting the right answer.

[dadoctah]

Sure it's suggestive. Elephant in your pajamas? Gosh, what kind of image does *that* conjure up?

Remember that in the same routine (in "Animal Crackers", not the game show) he said "we took some pictures of the native girls but they weren't developed yet, but we're going back in a couple of weeks".

(Back in the old days you had to send pictures off to a lab to get them developed. Took weeks before you could actually see them. I only point this out for you youngsters of the digital era.)

[Antimidate]

It is spelled pyjamas you idiot.

[dadoctah]

@Antimidate I checked the closed captioning on the DVD, and you're wrong.

[puck30]

is there really a right or wrong way?

either way it's funny and that's the bottom line!

[vaudevilleUK]

@puck30 I doubt it, given how many stage shows in which Groucho would have made this joke before it was even filmed I imagine he said every possible permutation

[80111live]

This clip of Groucho Marx is the look he always be remembered for..

[alchaisy]

hahaha

[Xxbuthead12xx]

there's no :40

[TheTubePortal]

@cjs33139 Although Groucho was infamous for witty puns and naughty double entendre it wasn't intended for this joke. It was just a silly pun. The whole routine was: "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. The tusks. That's not so easy to say. Tusks. You try it some time. As I say, we tried to remove the tusks. But they were embedded so firmly we couldn't budge them. Of course, in Alabama the Tuscaloosa,"

[TheTubePortal]

@Antimidate It's spelled pyjamas in England and Australia (and India), but pajamas in the United States. Just like the wheels on a car are spelled tyres in England and Australia (and India), but tires in the United States.

[acer3573]

@richardhutnik There's also the line "in Alabama the Tuscaloosa, but that's irrelevant."

[Gurkiewicz]

@dadoctah

Dude, you missed the innuendo about the native girls not being developed yet.

Also, it doesn't matter if Groucho changed the phrasing of the joke - it's his joke and he can tell it however he wants. The rhythm of the movie asked for one version and the flow of the show demanded something else.

[thrakker84]

The wording is irrelephant.

[dublinfool25]

@Antimidate I know this comment is a year old, but it can be spelled both ways.....idiot. sometimes its better to keep you mouth shut and let people think youre a moron, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Fuckin grammar police.