Play Your Own Version of Groucho Marx's Secret Word Game
BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT
Today's Take-a-Break
Create a unique secret word game, explained below. |
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Today's Take-a-Break was inspired when I recently remembered a feature of "You Bet Your Life," a famous radio and TV show with Groucho Marx that ran from the late 1940's to the early 1960's.
On the show was a rubber duck wearing glasses and a mustache just like Groucho's. Before a contestant came onto the show, the audience would be told a "secret word," which was a common, everyday word, such as car, clock or can opener. Groucho would then start interviewing the contestant and would often introduce a topic in which the word would be appropriate — and the audience would be rooting for the person to stumble across it.
Then, if the contestant happened to say the secret word, the duck would fall from the ceiling with a prize attached to its dilapidated body. In the fall of 1960, the series was retitled The Groucho Show, which was meant to make the show distinctive from quiz shows that were embroiled in a scandal at that time, but the show lasted only one season. It was during that time that the duck was replaced by a beautiful woman lowered down to the stage on a swing with the prize money. In one memorable episode Harpo Marx descended from the swing instead, which delighted the audience.
In any case, the prize was only $100, which wasn't much at a time when other shows were giving away what would be the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in today's money (although the winners were pretty much assured before hand because the games were rigged). But in You Bet Your Life and The Grouch Show the audience, and probably the contestants, didn't care. The main attraction was Groucho's quick wit. A typical interchange between host and contestant might go something like this:
Groucho: "Where are you from?"
Girl: "I'm from Ralph's Grocery Store."
Groucho: "You were born in a supermarket, eh? I thought supermarkets didn't make deliveries anymore. . . Oh? You're the cashier? Now it begins to register!"
Now, I'm not half as clever as Groucho (or his brothers), but I do have an idea you might find rather fun — and doing it can certainly give you a break from the more mundane tasks of life. Here's what you do:
| After you've read your morning paper or some other reading matter, close your eyes and point to some word on the page. That will be a "secret" word or phrase that you will try to get someone else to say during the day. You could tell another person what you're doing to see if he or she tries hard to guess the word, or you could just notice whether anyone happens to mention it. |
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The more unusual the word, the less likely you are to be successful, although you can always get lucky. But if you tell your family, friends, and office mates you're hoping they'll say your secret word, they may ask you to allow them to then play the "twenty questions" game and narrow the topic to an area where they can guess in ernest.
Good luck. Let me know how it turns out by using the Contact Us link above.
© Copyright 2004, Revised 2005 Arlene Harder |
