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1976: Groucho Marx Visits Welcome Back Kotter and Makes Everyone Sad

13 Mar

March 13, 2018

I wrote a frankly excellent post back in 2010 about Groucho Marx and his cultural impact in the 1970s. It is possibly my favorite post and it is constantly being reblogged and linked. 

Briefly, it is the story of a man whose famous past has outlived him, and the sorry way he was treated in the fast-declining years of his life. One of the saddest, but true, stories is about a visit Groucho made (or was forced to make) to the set of Welcome Back Kotter for a guest spot. Everyone was shocked at his fragile body and mental deterioration. He was such a shell of himself that some people in both the cast and audience shed tears. Groucho was unable to do the part, the spot was canceled, and even the publicity photos were never released.

Now flash ahead to 2018.

I was listening to the truly laugh out loud funny Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast, episode 191 with guest Mark Evanier. It was hysterical, and right in my wheelhouse because Evanier knows everyone in comedy from Jack Benny to Sergio Aragones, and guys like Jack Kirby as well. During the show, he told an extended version of Groucho’s visit to the Welcome Back Kotter set. Mark was there, and saw it all, first hand. He worked on the show. Here’s his account from his blog, and it fleshes out my version, which I am happy to say is verified as accurate.

There are big points revealed in his post and his podcast appearance.

First, that the whole reason the guest appearance came about was apparently so Erin Fleming could wrangle a guest spot in a future episode. Poor Groucho should not have even left his house in the shape he was in.

Second, he was in such poor, confused shape that he was not able to talk and they first changed his guest spot to a silent cameo, then finally canceled it altogether.

Third, and even more interesting, the photos were not only never released but they were claimed to have been destroyed.

But at least two weren’t. Someone sent them to Mark and they can be found online now. They weren’t there in 2010 when I first searched.

grouchokotter01

Honestly, I was expecting far worse.

But this is not the way to remember this great man.

This is.

 

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Survivor-Man Me?

8 Feb

February 8, 2018

Let me tell you what I was wearing. Not because I think you’ll get a thrill out of it, but because it is relevant to the story.

Blue sweat pants. Brown slip-on Skechers that I say are trendy and Saarah says are not. No socks. An old, thin green worn out t-shirt that is only good for wearing around the house. A winter coat.

That’s quite an ensemble and no, I was not on my to the Queen’s Ball. I was outside throwing out the trash. It was midnight and about 25 degrees outside. (That’s degrees Fahrenheit, not that Celsius nonsense. Celsius is just a scam perpetuated by the big mercury conglomerates to make us buy new thermometers.)

Does the dude in this stock photo look cold? He just looks creepy to me.

I walked around the side of my building to where the garbage cans are and put my trash in one of the already full cans so that my bag was precariously balanced atop a mountain of who knows what. I’m pretty sure that my building’s super empties these cans once in a while, but then again, what do I know? They never seem to get any emptier. (Yet they never get any fuller either. Maybe he empties just enough to keep the status quo.)

So, mission accomplished, I was walking back around the building when there was a gust of wind and I realized just how poorly I was dressed for the weather. Good thing I was only going to be outside for a minute or two and had a warm home to go back to.

But what if I didn’t? What if I were homeless?

Dressed as I was, was I prepared to survive a night of sudden homelessness?

I was already feeling a chill in my toes and since I wasn’t wearing socks my feet weren’t particularly comfortable to begin with.  So if I was forced to spend a night outdoors, braving the elements, how would I handle it?

My first worry was about frostbite. My hands I could jam in my jacket pockets, but with no socks my toes were an obvious frostbite target. I could probably tear up my shirt and wrap my feet in the cloth, then jam them into my shoes. But then I’d be shirtless (calm down ladies). Well, I was wearing a winter coat so I could zip it all the way up. My head was bare and my jacket didn’t have a hood. Maybe I could save some of the ripped t-shirt to wrap around my head like a bandanna to protect my ears from frostbite. Nothing I could do about my legs. The wind blew right through the sweatpants.

I had to face the fact that I was barely dressed to survive the minute and a half I’d be out in the winter, there was no way I’d survive overnight.

It was one thing to toss out the trash dressed that way, but I’d have to prepare better if I were to live outside.

If I were ever really homeless, I’d somehow make my way down to Florida. It’s much easier to be homeless in the winter laying on Miami Beach than it is here on Coney Island Beach.

That’s the life!

Being homeless on the beach does have some perks.

 

 

 

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