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''Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel'' is a situation comedy old-time radio show starring two of the Marx Brothers, Groucho and Chico, and written primarily by Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman.〔Louvish, 2000; p. 255〕〔Barson, 1988; p. viii〕 It was broadcast in the United States on the National Broadcasting Company's Blue Network to thirteen network affiliates in nine Eastern and Southern states.〔 The show aired Monday nights at 7:30 p.m. beginning November 28, 1932, and ended May 22, 1933. It was the Monday night installment of the ''Five-Star Theater'', a variety series that offered a different program each weeknight, and was sponsored by the Standard Oil Companies of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Louisiana,〔Barson, 1988; p. vii〕 to compete with Texaco's ''Fire Chief'' which starred Ed Wynn.〔''Time'', 1932〕〔Texaco, 1993〕 Episodes were broadcast live from NBC's WJZ station in New York City and later from a sound stage at Radio Pictures in Los Angeles, California, before returning to WJZ for the final episodes.〔〔Barson, 1988; p. ix〕 The show depicted the misadventures of a small law firm, with Groucho acting as attorney Waldorf T. Flywheel, and Chico playing Flywheel's assistant Emmanuel Ravelli. The series was titled ''Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle'' for the first three episodes, with Groucho's character initially called Waldorf T. Beagle, until a lawyer from New York named Beagle contacted NBC and threatened it with a lawsuit unless it stopped using the name.〔〔Dygert, 1939; p. 144〕 There are twenty-six episodes of ''Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel''. Each episode was introduced by the Blue Network announcer, and featured approximately fifteen-minutes of drama, ten minutes of orchestral music between acts, and concluded with a sixty-second skit promoting Esso and Essolube, performed by Groucho and Chico as themselves. The episodes were thought not to have been recorded, as was the practice at the time,〔Barson, 1988; p. xii〕 but in the 1980s, twenty-five of the twenty-six scripts were discovered in the Library of Congress.〔Mitgang, ''New York Times'', 1988〕 Adaptations of the recovered scripts were performed before modern audiences and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1990 and 1993.〔Hume, CNN, 1990〕 A recording of the final episode was discovered and broadcast by the BBC in 2005.〔''The Marx Brothers on Radio'', 2005〕 The show garnered respectable ratings for its early evening time slot but did not return for a second season. The Co-Operative Analysis of Broadcasting (CAB) Rating for the show was 22.1% and placed 12th in the highest rated evening programs of the 1932–33 season.〔Wertheim, 1979; p. 123〕〔The Original Old Time Radio, 1994〕 The CAB Rating was not disappointing – popular established shows such as ''The Shadow'' and ''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' did not perform as well – but it was less than half the 44.8% CAB Rating of ''Fire Chief'', which was sponsored by Standard Oil's rival Texaco, and placed 3rd in the highest rated programs of the season.〔〔Barson, 1988; p. x〕 ==Episodes== Flywheel and Ravelli are stowaways on an ocean cruise, hiding from the ship's crew in a lifeboat. To evade capture, Flywheel impersonates the famed African explorer Sir Roderick Mortimer, with Ravelli as his assistant. Mrs. Rivington, a society woman, meets them at the boat to bring them to her Long Island mansion. While giving an impromptu lecture on life in Africa (taken directly from the Marx Brothers' film ''Animal Crackers''), word of an escaped circus lion reaches Flywheel and his audience. Taking the opportunity to sneak out when the real Sir Roderick arrives, Flywheel and Ravelli are chased by the lion into the back of a waiting paddy wagon, taking them back to jail. ''This is the last episode of the radio series.'' 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「List of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel episodes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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