[TC Rider]

duck soup

An easily accomplished task or assignment, a cinch to succeed, as in Fixing this car is going to be duck soup. This expression gained currency as the title of a hilarious popular movie by the Marx Brothers (1933). The original allusion has been lost. [Early 1900s]

http://www.answers.com/topic/duck-soup

Good luck

[Always Right]

Well, I think the expression came about because of the Marx Brother movie.

[gitmo]

The answer is rather obvious. If you'll just think about it, it's a piece of cake.

[Question Liberal Authority]

Well, the ducks are already in the water, so how hard can making soup be?

[TC Rider]

Just found this:

Asked to explain the title, Groucho said, "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life."

[Cagey]

Duck Soup googled

[SlowBoat407]

Probably something about the ducks already wanting to be in the water. Just a guess.

[Always Right]

Famous scenes:

In the "mirror scene", Harpo, dressed as Groucho, pretends to be Groucho's reflection in a missing mirror, matching and mocking his every move. Eventually, Chico, also disguised as Groucho, collides with both of them. This scene has been duplicated in many different films and genres.

In another famous scene the Marx Brothers poke fun at the Hays Code by showing a woman's bedroom and then showing a woman's shoes on the floor, a man's shoes and horseshoes. Harpo is sleeping in the bed with a horse.

[P.O.E.]

Now that you mention it - how many people save the extra duck sauce and soy sauce packets from take-out Chinese food, when the next time they order they know they are going to get more handfuls of them anyway?

[Robert A Cook PE]

No, but why does the phrase "What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" come to mind?

See, does that mean "Only the price of tea (at the London docks) matters, regardless of what you paid for it in China, so what you are asking is irrelevant to the big picture;

Or does it mean, "The British Empire runs on tea, and huge fortunes can be made if "I" can buy tea at the cheapest price (in China) and get it to market first (in London) at the highest price"

... Thus, the ONLY thing that matters is the "price of tea in China"?

[JesseJane]

. A man is driving a pick-up truck down the road with a bunch of ducks standing in the back. A police officer pulls over the driver and informs him that he is speeding and then asks him where does he think he's going with all those ducks. The driver says that he just doesn't know what to do anymore. The officer says, "Look, there's a zoo not far from there and that's where you should be taking them. That will take care of your problem." The man thanks the officer and drives off with his ducks.

The next day the officer again sees the pick-up truck once again speeding down the road. This time, though, all the ducks in the back are standing there with sunglasses. The officer pulls over the driver over and says, "I thought I told you to take them to the zoo!" "I did that," said the driver, "but now they want to go to the beach!"

[UnklGene]

DUCK SOUP
[Q] From George Mannes; Jude Symanski and Loren also asked about the origin of the expression.: “I’m curious to know the origin of the expression duck soup, which a college professor of mine used several times as a synonym for ‘an extremely easy task’ (that is, I think, until he realized that the class was snickering at the oddity of the expression). I’m aware of the Marx Brothers’ film title, but I’ve never heard anyone other than the professor use it in conversation before or since.”
[A] It’s getting more than a little old-fashioned, though it is still common enough to be included in American dictionaries. The first recorded use, according to Prof Jonathan Lighter in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, was in a Tad Dorgan cartoon in 1902, in reference to a man juggling a set of miscellaneous items. It means some action that was easy or presented no challenge, a cinch to complete, like rolling off a log.
It’s a weird phrase. Nobody has the slightest idea where it came from or what it refers to. The cartoon is no help, as it shows a man in a Police Court, juggling a bottle, pitcher, plate and salt shaker, with the caption “Duck Soup”. Nobody has managed to make much sense of it. It’s not even certain that TAD Dorgan actually meant by the phrase that it was something easy—it might just as well refer to something that looks easy, but is actually difficult.
Could the image be of a sitting duck, one that was on the water and easy for a hunter to shoot? Could it be that duck soup was especially easy to prepare? (I’m told that isn’t so.) Might it even refer to a pond with ducks floating on it, which figuratively was already duck soup? All these have been tentatively put forward by various writers who were feverishly exercising their imaginations in the absence of solid fact.
If anybody ever finds out, do let me know.

[Lazamataz]

Why isn't this in Breaking News???