Will a 3-Year-Old Laugh at the Marx Brothers?

Will The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup amuse or confuse Little Miss Seattlest? We'll find out tomorrow morning at 10:00 when we visit SIFF Cinema for the first feature in their spring Films4Families series.

We've prepared her ahead of time. The clip above, featuring the Brothers' famous "mirror scene," was pretty funny. A clip of "the hat gag" went over pretty well, too, though we had to answer a lot of questions about why those men are hitting each other. Reassurances that "they're just being silly" seemed to help.

Will she get that "Rufus T. Firefly" is a pretty funny gag in its own right? Will she giggle at the "I shot an elephant in my pajamas" joke? We've got a pretty verbal kid, but we're thinking puns, even the goofy ones that are Marx Brothers hallmarks, might be a little beyond her.

Nonetheless, it'll be fun. And we promise: If there's fussing, we'll take her out of the auditorium, so don't let our experiment in parenting dissuade you from checking out an American comedy classic. (And hey, we can't get to tonight's gem, Sullivan's Travels, so if you want to guffaw without rugrats around, there's your chance.)

Regardless, we figure Duck Soup can't possibly be as terrifying as Ratatouille or 101 Dalmatians are, burning hats or no burning hats.