Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel

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Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel was a short lived radio situation comedy in the 1930s starring two of the Marx Brothers, Groucho and Chico.

The premise was about misadventures of a small time law firm starring the comedians' usual characters. The original series title was Beagle, Shyster, Beagle, but were forced to change when an actual law firm called in part Beagle complained.

The shows included material that the brothers later used in their films.

Despite the fame of the stars, the show was short lived and the scripts and recordings were thought lost. However, a researcher discovered that all but one of the series' scripts were stored in the Library of Congress. The found copies were printed in a book and were later performed with Marx Brothers impersonators on BBC radio (see below). At least one complete original episode of Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel (the last episode) and a couple of partial episodes are known to exist, recorded on transcription disks while the program was being broadcast.

[edit] BBC Radio adaptation

During the early 1990s, adaptations of recovered scripts from the original Marx Brothers radio show were performed before modern audiences and broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

This experiment proved highly successful, and two further series followed. The lead roles were taken by professional soundalikes Michael Roberts (playing Groucho Marx, as Waldorf T Flywheel) and Frank Lazarus (playing Chico Marx, as Emmanuel Ravelli); the cast also included Lorelei King playing all the female roles, and the show attracted guest stars of the calibre of Spike Milligan and Dick Vosburgh.