Episode 91: Whatever Will B. Johnstone (featuring Meg Farrell)
Will B. Johnstone, drawing and smoking
Here, at long last, is our big Will B. Johnstone episode.
Johnstone, as you’re probably aware, was one of the Marx Brothers’ most important writers, responsible not only for I’ll Say She Is and its seminal Napoleon scene, but for substantial contributions to Monkey Business and Horse Feathers. And his work as a writer for the stage and screen was a mere sideline to his career as one of the twentieth century’s greatest political cartoonists.
From Gimme a Thrill:
“B.J. Lewis, one of Johnstone’s editors at the New York Morning World, credited him with ‘lampoon[ing] out of existence more American shams than you can remember.’ Lewis remembered Will walking into his office every day at 4:00 with a fresh cartoon, sharply satirizing some current hypocrisy or injustice, often with a surprising and thought-provoking take, and always with exquisite draftsmanship. ‘He was always good-humored, always ready with a smile,’ Lewis recalled, ‘but there wasn’t any fooling Will. He could still be good natured as he busted the bubbles of conceit and deceit with his cartoons.’”
Our guest is musicologist Meg Farrell, the great-granddaughter of Will B. Johnstone and custodian of both his creative legacy and his diaries. Meg joins us for a rollicking exploration of the Johnstone-verse, from Will B.’s early days as an art student in Chicago, through his New York period and fateful introduction to the Marx Brothers, in Ned Wayburn’s office in 1923, and beyond.
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Johnstone’s naked taxpayer, one of the defining images of the Great Depression
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Official description: “We welcome ethnomusicologist Meg Farrell, the great-granddaughter of Will B. Johnstone — an unsung hero of the Marx story who set the template for their Broadway act with I’ll Say She Is, and later contributed to Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and A Day at the Races.
“Meg treats us to entries from ‘Grandpit’s’ private diary, revealing surprising Marx Brothers stories from the 1920s, and insights into Johnstone’s day job as a political cartoonist. We’ll discuss the importance of the Napoleon scene from ISSI, and Johnstone’s complicated relationship with S.J. Perelman.”
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Footnotes:
Meg’s article, “I’ll Say She Is! (1924): The ‘laugh-a-minute revue’ that made the Marx Brothers,” Studies in Musical Theatre, March 2013
Video of The Thrill of I’ll Say She Is, the centennial celebration at Marxfest on May 19, 2024
“Who Was Will B. Johnstone?” Mikael Uhlin, Marxology
