Groucho Marx: ‘Hello, I Must Be Going’

Captain Spaulding is the signature character played by actor Groucho Marx for the stage play and film Animal Crackers. The character of Captain Jeffrey (or Geoffrey, the name appears both ways in the film) T. Spaulding (the “T” stands for “Edgar”) first appeared in the Broadway play Animal Crackers and later in the 1930 film of the same name (shown here). Spaulding is a famous explorer on return from a trek across Africa to be the guest of honor at a high-society party. Although despite his hosts’ frequent claims that he is one of the most courageous travelers in the world, his own accounts of his safari reveal his cowardice. He eventually gets caught up in the mystery of a stolen painting.

The character’s theme song, “Hooray for Captain Spaulding”, became forever associated with Groucho in the public mind. A jazzy instrumental version of the song was later the theme for his quiz show, You Bet Your Life. At Groucho’s Carnegie Hall concert in the early 1970s, accompanist Marvin Hamlisch played the song as Groucho made his entrance on stage.

The song’s most esoteric line is a Jewish reference that definitely went over my head the until I looked up the meaning. The line goes “Hooray for Captain Spaulding / The African explorer / ‘Did someone call me schnorrer?’ / Hooray Hooray Hooray!”
Schnorrer is a Yiddish term meaning “beggar” or “sponger”

Groucho also delivered two of his most famous lines in the Captain Spaulding role, both while recounting his exploits in Africa: “We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren’t developed. But we’re going back in a couple of months!” and “One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas, I don’t know.” These were simpler times before political correctness sucked the joy out of humorous recounts of endangered species poaching and child pornography.

The dance step he does is called the Corkscrews.