Groucho Marx undistinguished vaudeville singing group billed as "The Four Nightingales". The brothers Julius, Milton (Gummo Marx) and Arthur (originally Adolph, but Harpo Mark from 1911) and another boy singer, Lou Levy, traveled the U.S. vaudeville circuits to little fanfare. After exhausting their prospects in the East, the family moved to La Grange, Illinois, to play the Midwest. After a particularly dispiriting performance in Nacogdoches, Texas, Julius, Milton, and Arthur began cracking jokes onstage for their own amusement. Much to their surprise, the audience liked them better as comedians than as singers. They modified the then-popular Gus Edwards comedy skit "School Days"
The Time of Their Lives for Washington's Birthday". "The Time of Their Lives" was filmed at Universal Studios from March 6 through May 15, 1946. As in the duo's preceding film, "Little Giant", Abbott and Costello do not play friends or any kind of partners, but are simply individual members of the cast. Also as in the previous movie, Costello's character is largely the hero, while Abbott plays a somewhat unsympathetic dual role. The two comics' trademark vaudeville routines are absent, and in fact they speak directly to each other only during one scene at the beginning of the film. (This loosening of the comics'