Movie Quote of the Day (‘Horse Feathers,’ With Groucho in a Unique College Football Moment)

Referee [sees Wagstaff lying in the middle of the field with a cigar]: “What are you doing with that cigar in your mouth?”

Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff [played by Groucho Marx)]: “Why? Do you know another way to smoke it?”—Horse Feathers (1932), written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S.J. Perelman, Will B. Johnstone, and Arthur Skeekman (uncredited)

Wouldn’t you find the football game in Horse Feathers a lot more unexpected and entertaining than any of the bowl games you’ll watch on TV today?

TV Quote of the Day (‘M*A*S*H,’ As Potter and Radar Consider Cigars)

Col. Sherman Potter [played by Harry Morgan]: “Cigar?” 

Cpl. Walter “Radar” O'Reilly [played by Gary Burghoff]: “Will it stunt my growth?”

Col. Potter [eyeing the short Radar]: “What do you got to lose?”

Radar: “Is it habit forming?”

Col. Potter: “Nah. I've been smoking five cigars a day for 45 years. Never got the habit.”— M*A*S*H, Season 6, Episode 1, “Fade Out, Fade In,” original air date Sept. 20, 1977, teleplay by James Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, directed by Hy Averback

Talking about tongues planted firmly in cheek! Just as M*A*S*H used the distant mirror of the Korean conflict to comment on the Vietnam War, its writers realized that their audience would know that, 13 years before, the Surgeon General’s report had warned that smoking causes lung cancer and probably heart disease.