In his later years, Groucho Marx would often blame his less than stellar film efforts on his brother Chico. According to Groucho, he’d often make a lesser film ‘because Chico needed the money.’ Though he’d continue making questionable decisions long after Chico had died, Groucho would still insist that any bad film he made during Chico’s Lifetime was solely due to Chico’s gambling addiction and money problems. Groucho, however, never seemed willing to turn anything down himself. His later years were filled with bizarre endorsements.
Since Groucho Marx is synonymous with children’s cereal, of course he’d naturally endorse Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. Children were naturally attracted to the cereal endorsed by a man older than their grandparents whose glory days had not since passed him by.
While Smirnoff Vodka was probably a more age appropriate product for Groucho to endorse, this picture seems to imply either that Groucho had resorted to thievery to keep himself drunk in his later years or had taken a side hobby of flashing poor victims.
When you think of an aging prankster, don’t you wonder which brand of car battery he trusts? Apparently Auto-Lite thought people in the 1950’s trusted Groucho Marx to tell them which battery to buy. Of course, this ad features not Groucho Marx but an unconvincing Groucho Marx lookalike. So we guess the story here is to buy counterfeit car batteries? The only person who probably got a laugh from this ad was Groucho Marx, who got paid to not really endorse Auto-Lite batteries. This time it was probably Groucho who needed the money.
