Harpo Marx on the origin of the "Gookie"
Harpo Marx -- my second-favorite Marx brother -- explains the origin of the Gookie, his magnificent, world-beating funny-face (there was a fantastic Animaniacs version of this -- post links to it in the comments below if you know where it lives online!)
Link (via Kottke)Gookie was funny enough to look at when he wasn’t working, but when he got up to full speed rolling cigars he was something to see. It was a marvel how fast his stubby fingers could move. And when he got going good he was completely lost in his work, so absorbed that he had no idea what a comic face he was making. His tongue lolled out in a fat roll, his cheeks puffed out, and his eyes popped out and crossed themselves.
I used to stand there and practice imitating Gookie’s look for fifteen, twenty minutes at a time, using the window glass as a mirror. He was too hypnotized by his own work to notice me. Then one day I decided I had him down perfect--tongue, cheeks, eyes, the whole bit.
Over the years, in every comedy act or movie I ever worked in, I’ve “thrown a Gookie” at least once. It wasn’t always planned, especially in our early vaudeville days. If we felt the audience slipping away, fidgeting and scraping their feet through our jokes, Groucho or Chico would whisper in panic, “Ssssssssssst! Throw me a Gookie!” The fact that it seldom failed to get a laugh is quite a tribute to the original possessor of the face.
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You mean the one when Wacko tries to find a new gookie?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5eKj4qjKHYc&feature=related
Can't compare to Harpo's though, especially when he was setting the popcorn seller's hat on fire...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=JGhQeOPavoo
Wakko tries out his new gookie
stp sng th trm stmpnk
Travelina, thanks for the YouTube link. I'd forgotten how much I loved The Animaniacs!
Harpo uses his gookie to brilliant effect in this Punch and Judy scene aboard the ship in "Monkey Business," where the ship's officers are chasing him and he disguises himself as a puppet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXZQ0HAoU1k
Harpo's autobiography is well worth reading. It has lots of great stuff like this.
@DocTourneau: the Animaniacs were the cleverest cartoons ever: Pinky and the Brain, Buttons and Mindy, Katie Ka-Boom, Slappy Squirrel-- soooo good. I feel sorry for kids who have to watch the pathetically boring and ugly cartoons offered today. Thank goodness for YouTube. Here's Yakko singing the slightly out of date "Nations of the World":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDtdQ8bTvRc
STEAMPUNK! STEEEEAMMMMPUNNNNKKKKK!
As somewhat of a classic comedy, and specifically Marx Bros. afficionado, I cannot strongly enough reccomend the work of Richard Anobile, who collaborated on extensively with Groucho and others on what are probably the definitive books on the subject. Specifically:
http://www.amazon.com/Marx-Bros-Scrapbook-Groucho/dp/0517515466/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214673741&sr=8-8
No one should confuse "gookie" with a certain racial slur. But I didn't know "gook" could also mean "caked-on makeup", which comes close to the feature facialism on show here:
» http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gook
I don't know what the big deal is. Clearly Harpo's funny face is definitively steampunk.
Harpo became my #1 favorite Marx Brother when I discovered his lovely exotica harp'n'orchestra LPs.
Personally, I think Steampunk is pretty damn Gookie, myself. (Sidenote- Apparently Raybot is incapable of making non-shitty comments. Maybe it's some type of congenital defect.)
Read any of his biographies, he was brilliant. the explanation he gave his many adopted children on how they ....needed a bigger family, and were lucky to find that child....
talented on many musical interests, as well as acting, and doing most of it silently? philanthropist, adopter.... Truly a renaissance man
and yes, all those devices and props? Steampunk!
I second Stephan Jones' recommendation of HARPO SPEAKS!, his autobiography.
Apparently, Harpo could be a very good verbal comedian as well. In his last public performance (a school benefit arranged by song-parodist Alan Sherman, who described it in an article published in, IIRC, Readers Digest), after a wordless act, he came back out for an encore and said "As I was about to say, back in 1923..." and continued to get laughs for fifteen or twenty minutes more before finally leaving the stage.
Alec Woolcott's autobiography also includes a number of anecdotes (they were close friends) about Harpo.
since it's Harpo: is changing the levers on a Celtic lever harp something a novice should undertake?
Harpo Speaks is one of my all time favorite reads.
And the Marx Bros are four or five of my all time comedy heroes.
...and Lucille Ball was a master of the Gookie, too. In fact, she had Harpo on a guest star on I Love Lucy.
http://www.geocities.com/~jbenz/gookie.gif
and THAT is why we should all use tinyurls
I've always found Harpo creepily disturbing.
It's the clown thing.
George Carlin pulls pretty mean gookie on the very 1st episode of SNL about 22 minutes in.