You Bet Your Life


by
Robert Liberty
© October 2006

THEME MUSIC UP:

VOICE OVER:

Good evening -- Blessings Unto Yog Sothoth -- and welcome once again, ladies and gentlemen, to the most popular game show in America. Formerly filmed in the ruined city of Hollywood, California, now direct from the contagious, noisome, mongrel streets of New York City, in the heart of this cesspool of huddling masses we call home, it‘s You Bet Your Life, starring Groucho Marx. Brought to you by DeSoto and your DeSoto and Innsmouth dealers across America and the good folks at Channel 666, Your All Cthulu Station, of Arkham, Massachusetts. I’m your announcer, George Fenneman.

THEME MUSIC DOWN:

GEORGE FENNEMAN IS BOLTED TO THE STAGE, CAMERA LEFT OF GROUCHO’S PODIUM. FENNEMAN IS HELD ERECT BY A SERIES OF WEIGHTS AND PULLEYS CONNECTING ALUMINUM ALLOY RODS, UPRIGHTS AND CROSSBARS, GIVING HIM THE HUMOROUS ASPECT OF A DESICCATED MARIONETTE.

GEORGE FENNEMAN:

Here he is, the one, the only,

AUDIENCE :

GROUCHO!

MUSIC UP -- CAPTAIN SPALDING THEME. (LOOPED TO GIVE TIME FOR HIS ENTRANCE.) GROUCHO IS WHEELED OUT TO HIS PODIUM ON A HOSPITAL GURNEY BY A BEVVY OF BEAUTIFUL NURSES; IV STANDS FOLLOWING, ALONG WITH MONITORS. HIS EYEBROWS ARE REGULARLY RISING AND FALLING IN ACCOMPANIMENT TO THE SOUND OF HIS RESPIRATOR.

GEORGE FENNEMAN:

Good evening Groucho, you’re looking well.

GROUCHO: (HIS HEAD IS RAISED AND TURNED TO FACE FENNEMAN BY A HYDRAULIC CLAMP AT THE BASE OF HIS PAPER-THIN SKULL. THE CAMERA COMES IN FOR A MEDIUM CLOSE UP. NOT TOO CLOSE, THOUGH, BECAUSE GROUCHO’S EYES HAVE BEEN REPLACED SO MANY TIMES HIS LIDS SPORT TINY ZIPLOCS. BOTOX ERUPTS ACROSS HIS FACE LIKE SAND DUNES IN THE MOJAVE. WISPS OF DEAD HAIR FLOAT AROUND A VEINED SCALP.)

GROUCHO:

Well here I am again, God help me, with a thousand doubloons to give to one of our couples tonight. If any of them say the secret woyd the duck’ll fly down and give em another hunnerd dollars, to go with that Oh, there it is now…

DUCK DROPS FROM ABOVE AND BOUNCES OFF GROUCHO’S GLASSES, KNOCKING THEM ASKEW. ONE OF THE LOVELY, BUXOM NURSES SETS THEM STRAIGHT AND GROUCHO ROLLS HIS EYES TO THE DUCK TO READ

… and the secret woyd tonight is, autopsy. Hell I’ve had so many of those I feel like a deli platter. You’re about due, yourself, aren’t you, George? You’re looking a little like Pinocchio standing over there. Better not tell a lie, we’ll have to let your trousers out.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER – APPLAUSE

GEORGE FENNEMAN: (SARCASTICALLY AND WITH LITTLE ENTHUSIASM)

Oh, stop it, Groucho, you’re killing me.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER – APPLAUSE

GROUCHO:

You think we’d get that lucky? I don’t know I looked at my contract last week and there isn’t a loophole I could fit through.

AUDIENCE:

J. Cheever Loophole!

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER – APPLAUSE

GROUCHO:

Yes, that’s right. J. Cheever Loophole. Can’t fool you people, can I? Ah, yer a delightful audience and I’m having a wonderful time. Not now, later this evening when you lot clear outta here.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER – APPLAUSE

GROUCHO:

Now, George, you look like you’re itching say something. Why don’t you tell us who’s on the show. That oughtta get rid of your itch, And if that doesn’t I have some talcum powder in my shoes you’re welcome to.

AUDIENCE TITTER – WEAK APPLAUSE

GROUCHO:

Oh, yeah? You try coming up with these things for a couple a hunnerd years. See how clever you are.

AUDIENCE SILENCE

GROUCHO:

Ah, the hell with you. George, who we got tonight?

GEORGE FENNEMAN:

Well, Groucho, first a housewife from Decatur, Illinois, named Hilde Hildebrand, and a lesser Great Old One, listed in the Pnakotic Manuscripts as a cacodaemon from The Nameless City, keeper of the Crawling Chaos, warder of the Zo-Kalar, Tamash and Lobon worm gardens, destroyer of Randolph Carter, mother to Bnazic and father to Athok the Horrible, Groucho, it’s none other than Nyarlathotep, himself.

GROUCHO:

Mind if I call you Nails? I’d have to shave my tongue if I tried saying your real name.

NYARLATHOTEP:

I will eat your soul and shit you out in little piles upon the cobbled streets of Dylath-Leen.

GROUCHO:

I was talking to Hilde.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER – APPLAUSE

GROUCHO:

Hilde, dear, where are you from?

HILDE:

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!"

AUDIENCE TITTER – WEAK APPLAUSE

GROUCHO:

Tell me dear, have you any children?

HILDE:

Well, I have twelve children, Groucho, three boys and the rest girls.

GROUCHO:

Why do you have so many children?

HILDE:

Well, I love my husband very much.

GROUCHO:

Hey, I enjoy a good cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER – APPLAUSE

GROUCHO:

Where did you meet your husband?

HILDE:

Well, I met him in Laguna Beach.

GROUCHO:

Was he a gentleman when you met him?

HILDE:

Why of course, Groucho I wouldn’t marry anything else.

GROUCHO:

Well, I don’t know, Hilde. I’d take another look if I were you. There are no gentlemen in Laguna Beach. Where is this cad now?

HILDE:

Why, he’s abroad now, Groucho.

GROUCHO:

Couldn't be Christine, could it? I used to know a girl with a mustache thicker than mine, and her name was Christine!

AUDIENCE TITTER

NYARLATHOTEP:

Puny bone bag, why do you dare ignore the Great Nyarlathotep? Do you not quiver in fear at the very utterance of my name? Do you not quake with loathing in my presence? Have you the fortitude to hold in your liquefied organs when, by the mere hint of my Cyclopean, unnamable antiquity, I cause all about me to putrefy in obeisance to the Old Laws?

GROUCHO:

First time on the show, eh, Knuckles? Have you got a lot to learn.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER

GROUCHO:

Now, Hilde, dear…you know how to play our game, don’t you?

HILDE:

Well, I think so, Groucho. I’ve watched you on the television at least a million times. I was a little girl the first time I saw you.

GROUCHO:

Yeah? Well so was Fenneman. That doesn’t make you special.

AUDIENCE TITTER

NYARLATHOTEP:

I have heard the gods. I have heard earth's gods singing in revelry on Hatheg-Kla! Behold me, the god, the proud god, the secret god, the god of earth who spurns the sight of man!

GROUCHO:

Well, I can see I’m not gonna get any peace unless I start talking to you. All right, Knuckles, where are you from and how’d you get here?

NYARLATHOTEP:

I am from The Nameless City.

GROUCHO:

You don’t say? What’s it called?

NYARLATHOTEP:

The Nameless City.

GROUCHO:

No, seriously. What’s it called?

NYARLATHOTEP:

It’s called The Nameless City, skin-wrapped groveller.

GROUCHO:

Look, I think you’re confused, here. This isn’t the Abbot and Costello show, you know. They tape over at Rockefeller Center. This is You Bet Your Life. Now gimme a straight answer.

NYARLATHOTEP:

You toy with me at your peril, you churning, loathsome, grotesque envelop of puss. I shall suck your bones through your nose and wipe my ass with the flaccid parchment of your flesh.

GROUCHO:

Now, there’s no call for that, Knuckles. I’m only having a little fun. Say, if you can’t tell me the name of your hometown, can you at least describe it to the audience? I know I don’t care, but they might.

NYARLATHOTEP:

It protrudes uncannily above the sands as parts of a corpse may protrude from an ill-made grave. Remote in the desert of Araby it lies crumbling and inarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by the sands of uncounted ages. It has been thus since before the first stones of Memphis were laid, and while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked.

GROUCHO:

Are you sure your name’s not Christine? Because you just described Laguna Beach.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER – APPLAUSE

NYARLATHOTEP:

May you fester, impaled upon a minaret, in the stench-filled sewers of Ooth-Nargai.

GROUCHO:

You know something; you’re beginning to get on my nerves. I never forget a face but in your case, I’d be glad to make an exception. You’re a guy with an open mind - I can feel the breeze from here! Talking to you is like feeding hay to a dead horse.

AUDIENCE APPLAUSE

GROUCHO:

Well, that’s enough chitchat. Let’s get on with the game. I’m gonna ask each of you three questions and the one who gets them all right, wins the thousand dollars. If you say the secret woyd any time during the game, you get a hunnerd dollars. Boy we’re just made of money, aren’t we?

GROUCHO:

Now Hilde, dear. This one’s for you; who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?

HILDE:

Why that’s Cary Grant, Groucho. I saw him just last week; we had a picnic at the graveyard.

GROUCHO:

That’s right, dear, Cary Grant. I know he’s buried there because he’s still upset about it. I don’t think he’s dead yet.

AUDIENCE APPLAUSE

GROUCHO:

And now for Knuckles; Describe the monatomic process for creating high spin metals and what are they used for?

NYARLATHOTEP:

What? I don’t know that! How come she got the easy question and you give me something like that? This is not fair. This game is rigged.

GROUCHO:

Well, I’m sorry you feel that way, Knuckles, but you know the rules. You answer your own questions and don’t gripe about it.

GROUCHO:

Now for your next question, Hilde, dear. My you are an attractive woman aren’t you? How long have you been married to that cad of yours?

HILDE:

Twelve years, Groucho.

GROUCHO:

Twelve years and Twelve children? My, you have been busy. Well, he’s been busy; you’ve just been available. Tell me, how do you like marriage?

HILDE:

Oh, it’s all right I guess, but it lasts so long.

GROUCHO:

You try hosting this nag for eternity, see how long, long really is. You’ve only been looking at your husband’s ugly mug for twelve years, I’ve hadda look at Fenneman’s ferret face forever. Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER

NYARLATHOTEP:

Skin sack! You will ask her the question and get on with it! Or I shall reach into your chest and draw forth your lungs to play as a squeezebox.

GROUCHO:

Keep your shirt on, pretty boy, Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.

NYARLATHOTEP:

I grow weary of you. I will kill you, later.

GROUCHO:

You really don’t have a clue, do you? You must be the nephew of somebody important to be this sheltered from the real world. All right, Hilde, next question; how many pecks in a bushel?

HILDE:

Why, four, Groucho. Everybody knows that. What a silly question.

GROUCHO:

I don’t write em, Hilde, I just say em. Now Knuckles, here’s your second question; when did King Seqenenre Tao II reign in Egypt and who do the Freemasons think he really was?

NYARLATHOTEP:

WHAT? What? Where are you finding these ridiculous questions? Who would know something as inconsequential as that. This is completely unfair. I protest the asking of these questions.

GROUCHO:

Looks like you’re having a bad day, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t wanna be in your shoes when your uncle gets home.

AUDIENCE:

OOOOH!

GROUCHO:

Hilde, sweetheart. Your final question…say, you wouldn’t wanna gimme your phone number would you? Just in case things don’t work out between you and Christine?

HILDE:

Oh, I don’t know, Groucho, I’m pretty happy with him so far. Maybe in a couple of years.

GROUCHO:

Well, heaven knows I’m not going anywhere. I’ll wait for you as long as it takes, honey. Are you ready for your last question? Here we go; How do you get from here to Grand Central Station?

HILDE:

I just hail a cab, Groucho. The subway is murder these days.

GROUCHO:

That’s right, sweetheart. Only a fool would ride the subway.

NYARLATHOTEP:

This is unacceptable, I protest. This is not how the game is supposed to be played. You’re making this up as you go along. And I will see your putrescence evaporate in the sun this very afternoon!

GROUCHO:

Does that mean you don’t want your last question?

NYARLATHOTEP:

No, no. Give it to me. I will try one last time.

GROUCHO:

All right, then. Here we go – and you’re being a real sport about this, I must say – How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

NYARLATHOTEP:

Share a cab with Hilde and then crush them both into gristle!

GROUCHO:

Well, I’ll be damned. You’re right. Unfortunately, you only got one question right and Hilde got all three. That means she wins the thousand dollars and you get nothing. And, because this is, You Bet Your Life, on Channel 666, you know what comes next.

NYARLATHOTEP:

No, I refuse to submit. This game has been rigged from the start. I will not allow … fhtagn, fhtagn, fhtagn and glay-ven and the pretty laaydie!

HILDE TURNS TO NYARLATHOTEP AND OPENS HER MOUTH. AMAZINGLY, HER MOUTH CONTINUES TO OPEN WIDER AND WIDER UNTIL HER JAWS ARE DISLOCATED AND, LIKE A SNAKE, SHE STRIKES. HER BITE ENCOMPASSES THE WHOLE OF HIS HEAD AND SHE SNAPS IT OFF CLEANLY. THEN, WITH A SERIES OF CONVULSIONS SHE SWALLOWS THE HEAD, CLOSES HER MOUTH, SMILES AND LOOKS BACK TO GROUCHO AS THOUGH NOTHING HAS HAPPENED.

SHE APPEARS TO COME OUT OF A TRANCE AND SEES THE HEADLESS BODY OF NYARLATHOTEP.

HILDE:

Oh, my. What’s happened to Knuckles? Looks like he needs an autopsy.

DUCK DROPS DOWN WITH A HUNDRED DOLLARS IN ITS BEAK. AUDIENCE APPLAUDS AND HOOTS ITS APPROVAL.

MUSIC UP

GEORGE FENNEMAN:

This has been, You Bet Your Life, starring Groucho Marx. You Bet Your Life, was brought to you by DeSoto and your DeSoto and Innsmouth Dealers across America. Join us again next week, same time same channel. Good night everybody, and all hail Yog Sothoth!

           

The End