Groucho Marx credited as playing...
Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff
- Professor Wagstaff: Baravelli, you've got the brain of a four-year old boy, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it.
- Professor Wagstaff: Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.
- Professor in Wagstaff's Study, Professor in Wagstaff's Study: But, Professor, where will the students sleep?
- Professor Wagstaff: Where they always sleep: in the classroom.
- Professor Wagstaff: In case I never see you again, which would add ten years to my life, what would you fellas want to play football?
- Baravelli: Well, first we want a football.
- Professor Wagstaff: Well, I don't know if we've got a football, but if I can find one, would you be interested? I don't want a hasty answer, just sleep on it.
- Baravelli: I no think I can sleep on a football.
- Baravelli: [through speakeasy's door] Who are you?
- Professor Wagstaff: I'm fine, thanks, who are you?
- Baravelli: I'm fine too, but you can't come in unless you give the password.
- Professor Wagstaff: Well, what is the password?
- Baravelli: Aw, no. You gotta tell me. Hey, I tell what I do. I give you three guesses. It's the name of a fish.
- Professor Wagstaff: Is it Mary?
- Baravelli: Ha-ha. That's-a no fish.
- Professor Wagstaff: She isn't? Well, she drinks like one. Let me see: Is it sturgeon?
- Baravelli: Hey, you crazy. Sturgeon, he's a doctor cuts you open when-a you sick. Now I give you one more chance.
- Professor Wagstaff: I got it. Haddock.
- Baravelli: That's-a funny. I gotta haddock, too.
- Professor Wagstaff: What do you take for a haddock?
- Baravelli: Well-a, sometimes I take-a aspirin, sometimes I take-a calomel.
- Professor Wagstaff: Say, I'd walk a mile for a calomel.
- Baravelli: You mean chocolate calomel. I like that too, but you no guess it. Hey, what's-a matter, you no understand English? You can't come in here unless you say, "Swordfish." Now I'll give you one more guess.
- Professor Wagstaff: ...swordfish, swordfish... I think I got it. Is it "swordfish"?
- Baravelli: Hah. That's-a it. You guess it.
- Professor Wagstaff: Pretty good, eh?
- Professor Wagstaff: You know, this is the first time I've been out in a canoe since I saw the American Tragedy?
- Connie: Oh, you're perfectly safe, Professor.
- Professor Wagstaff: I don't know. I was gonna get a flat bottom, but the girl at the boat house didn't have one.
- Professor Wagstaff: Have you ever had any experience as a kidnapper?
- Baravelli: You bet. You know what I do when I kidnap somebody? First I call 'em up on the telephone, then I send 'em my chauffeur.
- Professor Wagstaff: Oh, have you got a chauffeur? What kind of a car have you got?
- Baravelli: Oh, I no got a car, I just got a chauffeur.
- Professor Wagstaff: Well maybe I'm crazy, but when you have a chauffeur, aren't you supposed to have a car?
- Baravelli: Well I had one, but-a you see it cost too much money to keep a car and a chauffeur so I sold the car.
- Professor Wagstaff: Well that shows you how little I know. I would've kept the car and sold the chauffeur.
- Baravelli: That's a-no good. I gotta have a chauffeur to take me to work in the morning.
- Professor Wagstaff: Well if you've got no car, how can he take you to work?
- Baravelli: He don't have to take me to work, I no got a job.
- Professor Wagstaff: Baravelli, this is the finish: how much would you want to stand at the wrong end of a shooting gallery?
- Professor Wagstaff: [referring to the picture of the pin-up girl] Baravelli, is this your picture?
- Baravelli: I don't think so. It no look-a like me.
- Jennings: If this is a singing lesson I'm a ring-tailed monkey!
- Professor Wagstaff: This is a singing lesson, and keep your family out of it.
- Professor Wagstaff: [the retiring president has just made a speech] Well, I thought my razor was dull until I heard his speech. And that reminds me of a story that's so dirty I'm ashamed to think of it myself.
- Jennings: What are you doing here?
- Baravelli: Me? I'm the music teacher. I give her singing lessons.
- Jennings: [to Connie] Since when are you taking singing lessons?
- Baravelli: Since you came in.
- Jennings: [to Wagstaff] What are you doing here?
- Professor Wagstaff: I'm the plumber. I'm just hanging around in case something goes wrong with her pipes.
- [to audience]
- Professor Wagstaff: That's the first time I've used that joke in twenty years.
- Referee: [sees Wagstaff lying in the middle of the field with a cigar] What are you doing with that cigar in your mouth?
- Professor Wagstaff: Why? Do you know another way to smoke it?
- Professor Wagstaff: What's all this talk I hear about you fooling around with the college widow? No wonder you can't get out of college. Twelve years in one college! I went to three colleges in twelve years and fooled around with three college widows. When I was your age I went to bed right after supper. Sometimes I went to bed before supper. Sometimes I went without my supper and I didn't go to bed at all. A college widow stood for something in those days. In fact she stood for plenty!
- Professor: The trustees have a few suggestions they would like to submit to you.
- Professor Wagstaff: I think you know what the trustees can do with their suggestions.
- Professor Wagstaff: [singing] I don't know what they have to say / It makes no difference anyway / Whatever it is, I'm against it. / No matter what it is or who commenced it, I'm against it! / Your proposition may be good / But let's have one thing understood: / Whatever it is, I'm against it. / And even when you've changed it or condensed it, I'm against it! / For months before my son was born / I used to yell from night till morn: / Whatever it is, I'm against it! / And I've kept yelling since I've first commenced it, I'm against it.
- Professor Wagstaff: I'm Professor Wagstaff of Huxley College.
- Baravelli: That means nothing to me.
- Professor Wagstaff: Well, it doesn't mean anything to me either. I'll try it over again. I'm Professor Huxley of Wagstaff College.
- Baravelli: Well, you didn't stay at the other college very long.
- Frank: Anything further, Father?
- Professor Wagstaff: Anything further, Father? That can't be right. Isn't it anything farther, further?
- Jennings: I love good music.
- Professor Wagstaff: So do I, let's get out of here.
- Jennings: Sit down!
- Professor Wagstaff: [to the audience] I've got to stay here, but there's no reason why you folks shouldn't go out into the lobby until this thing blows over.
- Professor Wagstaff: Young man, as you grow older, you'll find you can't burn the candle at both ends.
- [Pinky/Harpo pulls out a candle burning at both ends]
- Professor Wagstaff: Well, I was wrong. I knew there was something you couldn't burn something at both ends. I thought it was a candle. However, you must be punished. Just for that
- [points to female student sitting in the classroom]
- Professor Wagstaff: You stay after school.
- Female Student: But, Professor, I didn't do anything.
- Professor Wagstaff: I know, but there's no fun keeping him after school.
- Professor Wagstaff: No doubt you would like to know why I am here. I came into this college to get my son out of it. I remember the day he left to come here, a mere boy and a beardless youth. I kissed them both goodbye. By the way, where is my son?
- [Looks around the room]
- Professor Wagstaff: Young lady, would you mind getting up so I can see the son rise?
- [Young lady stands up, underneath, Zeppo rises]
- Professor Wagstaff: So, doing your home work in school, eh?
- Frank: Hello, old timer!