Summer 1933, Chicago. The mobsters were branching out from liquor, going into the numbers racket, call girls, gambling and dope. One of the most successful gangsters is "Big" Jim Harrington; right now he and his gang are in back of Benny Hoff's Blue Poodle nightclub, and they smash a truckload of liquor. Harrington tells Hoff, from now on, he will only buy booze from him-- and Harrington demands 75% ownership. When Hoff balks, one of Harrington's boys, Loxie the Torch, intimidates Hoff. Loxie takes out a whiskey hip flask, but it's not filled with whiskey. Loxie goes, "Alright, now, smell it," as he pours the gasoline on the terrified Hoff, "light a match and >fshhh!!<" and he holds the lighted match up to him. Hoff doesn't want his club to be torched, too; the club becomes Jim Harrington's Blue Poodle. Harrington was out to get ownership of all the speakeasies and nightclubs in Chicago, and flood the town with his rotgut-- 1,000 gallons a day. The violence was a matter for the police; the booze was a federal matter. And so Eliot Ness meets with Hoff, but Hoff doesn't want to talk about it. Hoff also owns another small club on the side, a German beer garden called the Double Eagle. Hoff is manager and best friend of a stand-up comedian named Johnny Paycheck, who is working there this week, and his jokes are strictly from hunger. Paycheck regales the audience, "We were so poor, one day my mom said to the landlord, 'What about the floor?' and he said, 'What about it?' and my mom said, 'We want one'." You get the idea. Harrington is in the audience with his moll Renee Sullivan, and figuring that Paycheck's rotten jokes are no worse than his rotgut, he offers Paycheck a job in one of his downtown speaks, the Blue Poodle. Harrington now has his sights set on taking over the swankiest nightclub in town, Schlessinger's Mohawk club. Eliot Ness warns the owner about Harrington's plan to take over. 6 weeks later, Johnny Paycheck has picked up some better jokes (thank heavens) (thetvdb.com)