Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel's origins are typical of many programs produced for American radio during the early 1930s. Following on the heels of its rival's success with the Texaco Fire Chief Program, the Standard Oil Company sought a vehicle to promote its new product line: Esso gasoline and Essolube motor oil. Working with its advertising agency, McCann-Erickson, Standard Oil agreed to sponsor a weekly variety program called Five Star Theater. Every night of the week featured a different program: detective stories, dramas, musicals, and comedies. As Michael Barson notes in the introduction to his edited collection of the program's scripts, "the jewel of the enterprise was Monday night's entry, Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle, Attorneys at Law," which featured Groucho as Waldorf T. Beagle, a wisecracking ambulance chaser, and Chico as his incompetent assistant, Emmanuel Ravelli. Indeed, with four successful feature films to their credit-The Coconuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, and Horsefeathers-landing even half of the Marx Brothers was quite a coup for Standard Oil.

Beagle, Shyster, and Beagle debuted on 28 November 1932 over the NBC Blue network. Although audience reaction is difficult to gauge, at least one listener, a New York attorney named Beagle, was not amused. Anxious to avoid a lawsuit, the network changed the name of Groucho's character to Flywheel and promptly altered the program's title accortlingly. Not surprisingly, the scripts for Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel are characteristic of the Marx Brothers' penchant for rapid-fire one-liners, puns, putdowns, and malapropisms. And as in their movies, on radio the Marx Brothers had little regard for the rule of law or high society: few cherished American values or institutions were spared a "Marxist" skewering. For example, at the end of one episode, Flywheel (Groucho) advises a would-be philanthropist, "Instead of leaving half of your money to your children and the other half to the orphan- age, why not leave your children to the orphanage ... and the million to me?"

What is most significant about these scripts (the original programs were not recorded, but the majority of the show's transcripts survive in the Library of Congress) is their relationship to the Marx Brothers' film work. In some instances, entire routines from earlier films were reworked for Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. For example, some episodes featured plot lines and dialogue taken from the Broadway hit and subsequent film Animal Crackers. Even the name of Chico's character, Emmanuel Ravelli, came directly from this film. Several scenes from Monkey Business found their way into episodes of the radio program as well. On the other hand, a number of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel scripts foreshadowed the Marx Brothers' later film work. Of particular interest are early drafts of now archetypal routines and dialogue from the Marx Brothers' classic Duck Soup. The film's infamous trial sequence owes much of its funny business to a Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel script, as does Chico's hilarious recitation on his difficulties as: a spy: "Monday I shadow your wife. Tuesday I go to the ball game- she don't show up. Wednesday she go to the ball game- I don't show up. Thursday was a doubleheader. We both no show up. Friday it rain all day-there's a no ball game, so I go fishing." The name of Groucho's character, Waldorf T. Flywheel, would be recycled some years later in the 1941 film The Big Store.

The need for this recycling of old gags and testing of new material is understandable. Along with their writers, Nat Perrin and Alan Sheekman, Groucho and Chico soon grew tired of traveling cross-country from Hollywood to New York to do a weekly radio program. In fact, in January 1933, Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel took the then unprecedented step of relocating its broadcast from WJZ in New York to Hollywood for a time. Still, the time constraints facing both writers and performers undoubtedly contributed to their willingness to borrow from established routines while refining others. By the middle of 1933, however, it was a moot point. Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel was taken off the air. Although its ratings were quite respectable, considering the less-than-desirable air-time of 7:30 P.M., the sponsors were disappointed with the show's performance.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Groucho and Chico returned to the airwaves in various guises. In 1934 they were hired by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) to spoof the latest news in a short-lived program called The Marx of Time. Both Groucho and Chico struck out on their own as well. Chico made a number of radio appearances as a musical accompanist and band leader, and Groucho served as host for programs such as Pabst Blue Ribbon Town. During the war years, the Marx Brothers, including Harpo, made guest appearances on the Armed Forces Radio Service. Of special note, however, is Groucho's role as the judge in Norman Corwin's fanciful courtroom drama from 1945, The Undecided Molecule. Groucho's true calling on radio came in 1947 as a quiz show host on You Bet Your Life. Curiously, this popular program shuffled between the radio networks before finding a permanent home on NBC.

In an odd but telling postscript, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began airing recreations of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel in 1990. The programs proved quite popular with British audiences and have subsequently been picked up for broadcast in the United States through National Public Radio (NPR).