Marx Brothers of "The Big Store" the team announced they were retiring from the screen. Four years later, however, Chico persuaded his brothers to make two additional films, "A Night in Casablanca" (1946) and "Love Happy" (1949), to alleviate his severe gambling debts. Both pictures were released by United Artists. From the 1940s onward Chico and Harpo appeared separately and together in nightclubs and casinos. Chico fronted a big band, the Chico Marx Orchestra (with 17-year-old Mel Tormé as a vocalist). Groucho made several radio appearances during the 1940s and starred in "You Bet Your Life", which ran from 1947 to 1961
Marx Brothers one day after heart surgery. In 1966 Filmation produced a pilot for a Marx Brothers cartoon. Groucho's voice was supplied by Pat Harrington Jr. and other voices were done by Ted Knight and Joe Besser. In 1970, the four Marx Brothers had a brief reunion of sorts in the animated ABC television special "The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians", produced by Rankin-Bass animation (of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" fame). The special featured animated reworkings of various famous comedians' acts, including W. C. Fields, Jack Benny, George Burns, Henny Youngman, the Smothers Brothers, Flip Wilson, Phyllis Diller, Jack E. Leonard, George Jessel