Throwback Thursday Comedy Nostalgia: Mel Brooks as a Waiter at the Last Supper

One of Mel Brooks' funniest bits is a scene from his 1981 film A History of the World: Part 1, in which Brooks, in the role of a waiter, is assigned to serve a group attending a private supper in Jerusalem.

He enters the room to find Jesus and his disciples sitting around a long table. Oblivious to the background of the diners and unsuspecting of the significance of what would later be seen as a seminal event, he asks for their dinner orders and whether the diners want separate checks.

When Leonardo da Vinci enters to capture the Last Supper in the famous painting, Brooks manages to insert himself into the picture.

Enjoy!

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#Throwback Thursday     #TBT

Throwback Thursday Comedy Showcase: Groucho Marx Sings "Lydia the Tattooed Lady"

Today's throwback video goes back 77 years to the Marx Brothers movie At the Circus. In the movie, Groucho Marx sang Lydia, the Tattooed Lady, a 1939 song written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg.After it appeared in the movie it became one of Groucho's signature tunes. 

In 1950, Groucho famously 'stopped' trading at the New York Stock Exchange by commandeering a microphone and singing the song before telling jokes for 15 minutes, during which time traders suspended their work to watch him perform. 

The lyrics made many contemporary references to topical personalities such as Grover Whalen, who opened the World's Fair in 1939. The complex lyrics written by Yip Harburg with clever rhymes such as "Lydia/encyclopedia" and "Amazon/pajamas on" were inspired by W. S. Gilbert.

Among the items, persons, and scenes tattooed on Lydia's body are the Battle of Waterloo (on her back), The Wreck of the Hesperus (beside it), the red, white and blue (above them); the cities of Kankakee and "Paree", Washington Crossing the Delaware, President Andrew Jackson, Niagara, Alcatraz, Buffalo Bill, Picasso, Captain Spaulding (Groucho's character in Animal Crackers) exploring the Amazon, Lady Godiva (with her pajamas on), Grover Whalen, the Trylon, Treasure Island, Nijinsky, Social Security Number and a fleet of ships (on her hips).

Enjoy!

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#Throwback Thursday, #TBT

Florida Jewish Film Festivals Feature "Dough" - A Comedy Worth Seeing

February in South Florida isn't just sun, sand, and lectures on Jewish humor. It's also time for Jewish Film Festivals, and we've been doing our fair share of attending premieres of new Jewish films from all over the world. 

Dramas and films with Israel and Holocaust themes are well represented, but we're partial to comedies and we saw one today that we just have to share with you. It's titled Dough and we rate it a must see for laughs and Yiddishe nachas.

Jonathan Pryce (Miss Saigon, Evita, Pirates of the Caribbean, Game of Thrones) and Pauline Collins (Shirley Valentine) star in this hilarious new comedy that shows you don't have to be baked to make some Dough!

Curmudgeonly widower Nat Dayan (Jonathan Pryce) clings to his way of life as a Kosher bakery shop owner in London’s East End. Understaffed, Nat reluctantly enlists the help of teenager Ayyash (Jerome Holder), who has a secret side gig selling marijuana to help his immigrant mother make ends meet. 

When Ayyash accidentally drops his stash into the mixing dough, the challah starts flying off the shelves and an unlikely friendship forms between the old Jewish baker and his young Muslim apprentice. Dough is a warmhearted and humorous story about overcoming prejudice and finding redemption in unexpected places.

You're lucky if you'll be in South Florida this month, because Dough starts playing on February 12 in theaters from Miami to Lake Worth as follows:

Boca Raton - Living Room Theaters FAU
Boca Raton - Regal Shadowood 16
Delray Beach - Movies of Delray
Lake Worth - Movies of Lake Worth
Tamarac - The Last Picture Show
Fort Lauderdale - The Gateway Theatre
Aventura - AMC Aventura 24
Miami Beach - Regal South Beach 18
Miami - O Cinema Wynwood

We hope you enjoy the trailer below and attend a showing if you're in Florida. Otherwise you'll just have to wait until it comes to theaters nationwide this spring.

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Funniest Jewish Film Moments: Heimish and Amish from The Frisco Kid

The Frisco Kid starring Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford is one of our all-time favorite funny movies. 

It has a few great Jewish film moments, and today we're sharing one of the best.

In the film Wilder plays Rabbi Avram Belinski, an underachiever in his rabbinical school in Poland. He is dispatched to America to become the new rabbi of a congregation in San Francisco. He has with him a Torah scroll for the San Francisco synagogue. 

Belinski, an innocent, trusting, and inexperienced traveler, falls in with three con men who trick him into helping pay for a wagon and supplies to go west, then brutally rob him and leave him and most of his belongings scattered along a deserted road in Pennsylvania.

He makes his way across a field where he spots a group of farmers wearing black hats and black clothing, similar to the clothing worn in his Polish homeland. Assuming that he has come across a group of Jewish landsmen, he embraces them. Then the fun begins. He tries to speak to them in Yiddish, but they are Pennsylvania Amish. The realization that he has made a big mistake is one of the funniest Jewish film moments.

Enjoy!

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The Great Jewish Comedians: Danny Kaye Plays Two Roles in William Tell Overture

Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; 1911-1987) was an American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and rapid-fire novelty songs.

Kaye was born to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, the youngest of three boys for Jacob and Clara Nemerovsky Kaminsky. He was the only son born in the United States.

Kaye starred in 17 movies, notably Wonder Man (1945), The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), Hans Christian Andersen (1952), White Christmas (1954), and The Court Jester (1956). His films were popular, especially his bravura performances of patter songs and favorites such as "Inchworm" and "The Ugly Duckling". He was the first ambassador-at-large of UNICEF in 1954 and received the French Legion of Honor in 1986 for his years of work with the organization.

One of the best examples of Kaye's patter songs is his rendition of the finale of Rossini's William Tell Overture. Kaye performed it on his Danny Kaye Show, which aired on CBS from 1963 to 1967.

The show premiered in black-and-white, but later switched to color broadcasts. At the time, Kaye was at the height of his popularity, having starred in a string of successful films in the 1940s and '50's, made successful personal appearances at such venues as the London Palladium, and appeared many times on television. 

His most recent films had been considered disappointing, but the television specials he starred in were triumphant, leading to this series. Prior to his television and film career, Kaye had made a name for himself with his own radio show, and numerous other guest appearances on other shows.

Today's video clip is remarkable, considering the state of technology in the 1960s. We had to watch it a few times, wondering who was playing William Tell's dad, before we realized that Kaye was playing both roles with a bit of camera trickery.

If you'd like to hear the piece played by a full orchestra, we're including a second video of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra performing it.

Enjoy, and Hi Yo Silver, Awayyyyyy!

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Rutgers Jewish Film Festival to Feature Comedies Including "Hunting Elephants," "Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story," and "Sturgeon Queens"

 

Every year we see a new crop of films of Jewish interest made in Israel, the USA, and other countries. They make their first appearance at Jewish film festivals from New York to California and lots of places in-between.

We've been tracking these festivals to watch for movies of special interest to us, which naturally means funny films, or films that evoke a nostalgic kick that give us a good dose of Yiddishe nachas.

The Rutgers Jewish Film Festival, which will run from October 29 through November 9 at the Regal Cinema Commerce Center in North Brunswick, New Jersey, will show 15 films that touch on serious themes as well, but we'd like to call attention to the three that fit our Jewish humor profile.

Hunting Elephants, a film made in Israel in 2013 by director Reshef Levi (107 minutes, English and Hebrew with English subtitles), is a bank robbery caper pulled off by a collection of aging former Zionist underground fighters. The group is led by a visiting uncle who is a disgraced British lord played by Sir Patrick Stewart.

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Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story, a 75-minute-long documentary made in Canada in 2013 by director Barry Avrich, tells the story of Canadian comedian David Steinberg. After attending yeshiva in Chicago, Steinberg went on to comedy fame with performances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and directing stints that included Seinfeld, Mad About You, Golden Girls, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.



The Sturgeon Queens, a film we reported on back in January, will also be shown at the festival. While not a comedy that will leave you laughing out loud, it's a film that will make you smile and leave you hungering for some pickled herring, lox, or whitefish as served for the last 100 years at the Lower East Side appetizing store of Russ and Daughters.



Tickets for each film are available online for $12, $10 for seniors, and $6 for students.

Enjoy!

Laugh Until You Cry - A Survey of Jewish American Humor

Laugh until you cry (Lakhn Biz Trern in Yiddish) is the title of a 21-minute- long survey of Jewish American humor produced by Micaela Saperstein, a student at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, for a course titled Serious Comedy and Social Justice. 

Since it was posted last December it has been viewed 140 times, but when we spotted it, we thought you'd like to see this funny survey of Jewish American humor and boost the view count.

Using clips from TV shows and films, the video starts with a Neil Diamond excerpt from the film Keeping Up With the Steins and ends with the classic scene from Blazing Saddles with Mel Brooks as an Indian chief reacting in Yiddish to the sight of an African-American wagon train.

Along the way, we see bits by Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar, Joan Rivers, Rodney Dangerfield, Groucho and Harpo Marx, Jack Benny, Victor Borge, Henny Youngman, and Phyllis Diller.

Enjoy!

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.) 

Comedy Flashback: Buddy Hackett as Lou Costello in "Who's on First" Routine

When the producers of the Abbott and Costello planned the film biography Bud and Lou - Comedy is No Laughing Matter in 1978, they picked two Jewish comedians to play the roles of comedy legends Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Harvey Korman was cast as Abbott, and Buddy Hackett as Costello.

Hackett and Korman appeared on Dick Clark's Live Wednesday show that year to perform the "Who's on First" routine on the Dick Clark Show. It was a live rendition of the same routine that they did in the film

The "Who's on First" routine is probably the most viewed of all comedy skits. So which version do you think is funnier, the film biography version or the original? We located both versions and we're sharing them below. Take a look and let us know which you think is funnier.

We won't be posting on Wednesday and Thursday because we're taking a couple of days off to observe the holiday of Shavuot, which includes attending a series of lectures all through the first night of the two-day yom tov, and consuming copious quantities of cheesecake to make the learning go down more smoothly.

Enjoy, and we'll see you again on Thursday with the usual mix of jokes, impossible but true anecdotes, and lots more.

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