Tuesday, March 11, 2025

"Monkees a la Mode"

Yester-day, I watched the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races (1937) and found an-other joke that's used (in only a slightly different form) in The Monkees, again in "Monkees a la Mode."  Near the beginning of the movie, Groucho, as Dr. Hackenbush, takes over as chief of staff of a sanitarium.  Mrs. Upjohn, a patient at the sanitarium who's also considering becoming one of its business partners, introduces him to some of the other doctors, each of whom steps forward and gives his credentials:
Johnson, Bellevue Hospital, 1918

Franco, Johns Hopkins, '22

Wilmerding, Mayo Brothers, '24
To these, Hackenbush replies, "Dodge Brothers, late '29," giving the model and year of his car.

In "Monkees a la Mode," there's a similar set up with writers* at Madame Quagmeyer's Chic magazine who introduce themselves to the Monkees as:
Miss Collins, Vassar, '64

Miss Osborn, Bryn Mawr, '63

Miss, uh, Delassups, Bennington, '62
Mike responds with, "Mike Nesmith, Eagle Scout, '61."  It's not as great a departure as Hackenbush's reply, but the jokes have the same structure.

Perhaps just coincidentally, Hackenbush also mentions Vassar when Mr. Whitmore, the sanitarium's business manager, asks about his medical training:  "To begin with, I took four years at Vassar."  When Mrs. Upjohn objects, "Vassar?  But that's a girls' college," he replies, "I found that out the third year."

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*I had to guess on the spellings of their names.