Animal Crackers

About the show

Animal Crackers is a musical play with music and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby and a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. The musical starred the Marx Brothers and is set at the Long Island Home of Mrs. Rittenhouse; a character portrayed by Margaret Dumont in the 1928 production on Broadway. The lyrics and music of several songs in Animal Crackers entered the public domain in the United States in 2024. The full script, copyrighted in 1929, entered the public domain in the United States in 2025.