Comic Relief: Billy Crystal Casts Audience Members in a 1950s African Movie

In 1994 in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Billy Crystal was performing on stage and decided to have some fun with his audience. He invited three audience members to join him in doing sound effects to enhance his re-enactment of a scene from a classic African movie.

One audience member used her hands to crunch a huge bowl of potato chips to make the sound of Crystal walking. Two others volunteered to make jungle bird calls. And the show went on.

Enjoy!

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Comedy Nostalgia: Mark Schiff Performs Standup Comedy at the Improv in 1989

When Mark Schiff was twelve, his parents took him to a nightclub. There, live on stage was Rodney Dangerfield doing his act. At that moment, he knew the path he had to follow. 

Mark has headlined in all the major casinos and clubs across the country and has appeared many times on both The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman. He has had both HBO and Showtime specials and has been the featured act at the Montreal Comedy Festival.

In this video clip from 1989, Mark takes the stage at the Improv in Los Angeles.with his observations about driving, clothes shopping, and supermarket shopping at 3 am.

Enjoy!

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Wacky Wednesday Comedy Special: Iliza Shlesinger Imagines Being a Pharmacist

Originally from Dallas, Iliza Shlesinger moved to Los Angeles after graduating from Emerson College. She is the only female and youngest comedian to hold the title of NBC'S Last Comic Standing. Most recently she was the host of CBS's syndicated comedy dating show Excused, in which she filmed 230 episodes. 

Iliza's TV credits include her own half-hour Comedy Central Presents special, as well as NBC'S Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Comedy Central's Live at Gotham, E! Network's Chelsea Lately and The Soup, NBC'S Last Call with Carson Daily, TBS’ Who Gets the Last Laugh?, and Showtime's Pauly Shore and Friends and Bridging the Gap Comedy Festival.

As Lior Zaltzman wrote in Kveller,

Shlesinger, who had a Bat Mitzvah and even went to Israel as a teen (she once lamented being rejected from Birthright because she had previously travelled to the Jewish state),  says that her comedy is very much inspired by Judaism’s seeking of the truth. “Judaism is so steeped in asking, ‘Why?’ Rabbis and men sit around in rooms all day questioning Torah. I think that trickles down in questioning other things,” she said in 2016 interview.

In this clip from her comedy show War Paint, Iliza acts out her fantasy of being a medieval witch doctor pharmacist.

Enjoy!

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The Great Jewish Comedians: Mort Sahl at 89, Still Going Strong

Mort Sahl is #40 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ranked between Billy Crystal and Jon Stewart. In 2003 he received the Fifth Annual Alan King Award in American Jewish Humor from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.

Sahl's humor is based on current events, especially politics, which led Milton Berle to describe him as "one of the greatest political satirists of all time." His trademark persona is to enter the stage with a newspaper in hand, casually dressed in a V-neck sweater. He would often recite some news stories combined with satire. He was dubbed "Will Rogers with fangs" by Time magazine in 1960.

Sahl was born on May 11, 1927 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the only child of Jewish parents. His father, Harry Sahl, came from an immigrant family on New York's Lower East Side, and hoped to become a Broadway playwright. He met his wife when she responded to an advertisement he took out in a poetry magazine. Unable to break into the writing field they moved to Canada where he owned a tobacco store in Montreal.

Two years ago, at the age of 87, Sahl made an appearance on the TV show Set List: Stand-up Without a Net, in which comedians come on stage without a routine. They have to improvise based on a series of topics that are flashed on a screen. Sahl showed that he's still a pro at comedy.

And now, at 89, he's still going strong. Every Thursday at 7pm Sahl takes the stage at the Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, California to deliver a show filled with his legendary, take-no-prisoners wit. 

Enjoy!

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Mike Nichols and Elaine May - Teenagers on a First Date

Our last post was a tribute to the late director, producer, actor, and comedian Mike Nichols. We had so many positive comments and requests for more of the skits that he performed on TV with Elaine May that we decided to run some more.

Here is another classic skit showing Nichols and May as a pair of awkward teenagers sitting in a car on their first date. The dialogue captures the anxiety, uncertainty, and eagerness of young budding love. Some of it was said to be improvised, and it shows the quick wit of both comedians.

May, now 82, was born Elaine Iva Berlin in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1932, the daughter of Jewish parents, theater director/actor Jack Berlin and actress Ida Berlin. As a child, Elaine performed with her father in his traveling Yiddish theater company, which he took around the country. Her stage debut on the road was at the age of three, and she eventually played the character of a generic little boy named Benny.

There is no sound for the first 17 seconds of the routine, but it doesn't affect the story line, so just be patient until the sound kicks in.

Enjoy!

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Throwing Candy at a Bar or Bat Mitzvah? Why Not at Other Occasions? A HaHafuch Comedy Skit

Israel's HaHafuch comedy troupe has been featured many times here at Jewish Humor Central. They do improv and sketch comedy in their periodic shows in Jerusalem. We try to see their performances whenever we're in Jerusalem. 

This year they're performing in mid-June and we're visiting now and in December. So we'll have to manage with viewing the funny video clips that they post on YouTube. And they're really funny. 

Most of us are familiar with the custom of throwing candy, either as individual pieces or wrapped up in small bags at Bar Mitzvah boys and Bat Mitzvah girls when they complete their Torah reading in the synagogue. But the HaHafuch crew asked why should such a fun custom be limited to these occasions? Why not throw candy on other happy occasions?

The occasions they picked for this video should produce at least a chuckle, if not an outright LOL. How about throwing candy when a waiter brings your order immediately? On acceptance of an engagement ring? When a dog does what he's asked to do? Or when two JDaters realize that they both look exactly like their online photos? The possibilities are endless.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom from the City of Gold.

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Comedian Molly Livingstone Gets Jerusalem Street Reactions to Thanksgivukkah

As we get ready to light the turkey and stuff the menorah (oops, we meant the other way 'round) on the first night of Chanukah, we are bringing our Thanksgivukkah coverage to a close when the dual holiday finally arrives tomorrow. 

Please bear with us for two more posts about this rare holiday. We promise that after tomorrow we'll be focusing on Chanukah alone and leaving Thanksgivukkah to the history books.

Today's post features Molly Livingstone, Jerusalem comedian and co-founder of the HaHafuch improv troupe as she heads to the streets of Talpiot in Jerusalem for a set of impromptu interviews of unsuspecting subjects who happen to be in range of her microphone.

Enjoy!

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HaHafuch Comedy Special: Top Chef: Jerusalem - The Ultimate Kosher Challenge

HaHafuch, the comedy improv troupe based in Jerusalem, is at it again. We've already posted a few of their funny skits, including Jerusalem's Next Top Model, Real Housewives of Jerusalem, and Man on the Street: What Israelis Really Know About the US and Canada.

Now, as they're preparing for their next comedy show in Jerusalem on March 27, they released a new skit poking fun at Top Chef, the American reality cooking competition show. Never missing an opportunity to lighten up the sometimes serious rivalries between the many kashrut certifying authorities in Israel, this skit focuses on the challenges of preparing a kosher meal that would be acceptable to the many groups of kashrut-observing Jews in Israel.

Enjoy! 
(And, if you're going to be in Jerusalem on March 27, join us at the show as Jewish Humor Central captures the skits on video to share with you!)

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A Comedy Reporter Tries Her Hand Selling at the Jerusalem Shuk

Molly Livingstone, co-founder of the Jerusalem-based comedy troupe HaHafuch, took a day off to try her hand as a vendor in Machaneh Yehuda, the famous shuk (market) in Jerusalem.

Combining her experience in improv comedy and reporting with an understanding of what it means to be an immigrant in Israel, Molly learned a few lessons in how to sell and how not to sell everything from peppers and pita to fresh fish.

The stall owners seemed to take the reporter's antics in good spirits and joined in the fun.

Enjoy!

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Tuesday is Election Day in Israel - Funny Man-in-the-Street Reactions

Tuesday is Election Day in Israel. But it's not anything like the US presidential or congressional elections. Voting is not for a president. It's for a party, and there are 17 of them currently represented in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. 

So it's no surprise that there's a lot of confusion. And unlike the Republican and Democratic parties in the US, which have been in existence for many years, many of the Israeli parties change their names every few years, adding to the confusion about which party stands for what and who is who.

To see how the residents of Jerusalem are reacting to the coming election, Molly Livingstone, a founder of and intrepid reporter for the HaHafuch comedy troupe took to the streets with a camera and microphone to hear what the people have to say.

And what they have to say is...confusing. We'll have to wait until after Tuesday to find out the results.

In the meantime, enjoy!

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Looking For a Date on Tu B'Av, "Jewish Valentine's Day"

Today is Tu B'Av, the 15th day of the Jewish month of Av. And it's a holiday. A very ancient holiday that went almost unnoticed in the Jewish calendar for many centuries. But in recent decades, especially in Israel, it has taken on the trappings of Valentine's Day -- a Hebrew-Jewish day of love and romance.

Originally a post-biblical day of joy, it served as a matchmaking day for unmarried women in the second Temple period (before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.).

The website MyJewishLearning.com explains the origins of the holiday:

There is no way to know exactly how early Tu B'Av began. The first mention of this date is in the Mishnah (compiled and edited in the end of the second century), where Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel is quoted saying, "There were no better (i.e. happier) days for the people of Israel than the Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, since on these days the daughters of Israel/Jerusalem go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards. What were they saying: Young man, consider whom you choose (to be your wife)?"(Ta'anit, Chapter 4).

The Gemara (the later, interpretive layer of the Talmud) attempts to find the origin of this date as a special joyous day, and offers several explanations. One of them is that on this day the Biblical "tribes of Israel were permitted to mingle with each other," namely: to marry women from other tribes (Talmud, Ta'anit 30b). This explanation is somewhat surprising, since nowhere in the Bible is there a prohibition on "intermarriage" among the 12 tribes of Israel. This Talmudic source probably is alluding to a story in the book of Judges (chapter 21): After a civil war between the tribe of Benjamin and other Israelite tribes, the tribes vowed not to intermarry with men of the tribe of Benjamin.

After moving to Israel a few years ago, American-Israeli comedian Benji Lovitt took to the streets of Jerusalem with his roving microphone to look for a date for Tu B'Av. Was he successful? Watch the video and see.

Benji, who now lives in Tel Aviv, will be on a comedy tour in North America between October 27 and November 15. He is now booking shows where he will share his hilarious perspective about life in Israel. You can contact him by clicking here.

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Man on the Street: What Israelis Really Know About the US and Canada

On July 4 the United States celebrated Independence Day and on July 1 Canadians celebrated Canada Day. In Israel a few random Israelis got the opportunity to show their knowledge of the USA and Canada, or lack thereof, with HaHafuch's "Man in the Street" interviews with Molly Livingstone, the comedy troupe's co-founder.

HaHafuch, the comedy and improv troupe by and for native English speakers in Israel, has been performing at irregular intervals in various performance spaces in Jerusalem. In addition to staging these live performances, the HaHafuchers film stand-alone skits and staged events like this one for distribution via the internet. We posted their satire Real Housewives of Jerusalem here last December.

Molly, in addition to acting as the "man in the street" for these HaHafuch walks, takes part in the producing, writing, filming, directing and acting in the group's performances. Her main goals for the future include the group's touring all over Israel and eventually the world, teaching improvisation to locals, international students and tourists alike and showing the world the funny side of Israel.

If you're planning a trip to Jerusalem, check the HaHafuch website before you go. They just might be performing at a theater near you during your stay.  Enjoy!

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