When Jews Were Funny _ Full Documentary - Marc Maron, Bob Einstein - video Dailymotion

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Watch When Jews Were Funny _ Full Documentary - Marc Maron, Bob Einstein - Movie Time on Dailymotion

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00:00:00Who is going to interview me?

00:00:18Nobody. No, we're going to have a conversation, maybe.

00:00:21Who is going to converse with me?

00:00:24Alan.

00:00:25I will.

00:00:26I've spoken to you already.

00:00:28Sarah, he's going to talk to me?

00:00:33Oh, boy.

00:00:49Hello, everybody.

00:00:52I'm very glad to see you here tonight on this Solomon and suspicious occasion.

00:00:58Personally, I think the show is rotten.

00:01:00It's my show. I put up the money for it. I can say what I like about it.

00:01:03But a lot of silly fools come here and spend good money to see a show like that.

00:01:07Maybe I'm wrong. And I'm glad I ain't.

00:01:10I had to put up the money for this show.

00:01:12Otherwise, the actors would have starved.

00:01:14And after I seen the show, I'm sorry they didn't.

00:01:17I'm sorry.

00:01:18Did you think of yourself as a Jewish comedian?

00:01:23No, nothing.

00:01:24You avoided it like the plague.

00:01:27There was no Jewish comedian, per se.

00:01:30It was outlaw then. It wasn't in.

00:01:34Nobody, nobody, nobody, you didn't talk Jewish to anybody.

00:01:38You'd be, you'd be like an outlaw. You know, it meant nothing.

00:01:42I had nothing to do with it.

00:01:44So...

00:01:45Never did Jewish jokes.

00:01:46Weird.

00:01:47I never catered to that. I didn't need it.

00:01:49So...

00:01:50But there was no stress on Jewishism, or Hebrewism, or Judaism, or whatever you call it.

00:01:58This whole interview is about Jewishness.

00:02:00I guess.

00:02:01And I have nothing to contribute.

00:02:03I know Jewish comedians.

00:02:05Of course, I know, I don't deny, I'm Jewish.

00:02:10Okay, well, people have told me that Jews change...

00:02:15Got a sense of humor over the other people.

00:02:17Well, that they changed American humor.

00:02:20Like, before Jews got into it, Americans laughed at this kind of stuff.

00:02:25After Jews, they laughed at something different.

00:02:28I don't know about that.

00:02:35When I was a kid, and I watched Ed Sullivan, it seemed to me all the comedians were Jewish.

00:02:40No.

00:02:41They weren't?

00:02:42No.

00:02:43Most?

00:02:44Well, you know, right here on our show...

00:02:47I never heard...

00:02:48Right here on our show today, right here from Las Vegas, is a Jew.

00:02:53Got a Jew comic coming out here.

00:02:56Bring that Jew out here now.

00:02:58I never heard him do that, you know?

00:03:00I didn't consider myself a Jewish comic, per se.

00:03:03Right.

00:03:04I never stressed it.

00:03:05I never made a point of being a Jewish comedian.

00:03:10You know, our humor had to be completely broad for everybody.

00:03:14And that's what I did.

00:03:16But I can do a Jewish affair and be 100% totally Jewish.

00:03:21I talk about the rabbi who got a new temple in a shabby part of town, and there were mice all over the temple.

00:03:30So he called an old rabbi and asked him what to do.

00:03:32And the old rabbi said, go and get little tiny yarmulkes and put them on the mice and bar mitzvah them.

00:03:41And you'll never see them in the temple again.

00:03:44But that's a funny joke.

00:03:46That's Jewish.

00:03:47I'd like to talk to you about your comedy, but I'd also like to talk on the general subject of whatever, Jewish sensibility, Jewish culture.

00:03:57Jewish?

00:03:58Yeah.

00:03:59Well, I can talk about Jewish sensibilities and Jewish culture, but I don't think that that's worldly enough for conversation.

00:04:11It's too specific.

00:04:14Okay.

00:04:15Well, then let's talk about your comedy and we don't...

00:04:18My comedy?

00:04:19Yeah.

00:04:20Well, my comedy doesn't indulge various religions.

00:04:26My comedy just, you know, if it's funny, okay, keep it.

00:04:30So I feel like when I talk to you and when I talk to some other comedians of your era who were Jewish, you don't like being called a Jewish comic.

00:04:47You don't like the idea that...

00:04:49I don't go around disliking it.

00:04:52It's just that I prefer not to be called, to be thought of as a Jewish comic.

00:04:59As a matter of fact, it never was my thing.

00:05:01It never was.

00:05:02The comedians of our world were basically Jewish, predominantly Jewish.

00:05:08The singers were Italian, the directors were atheists, because they don't believe in anything.

00:05:18You know, it wasn't that I avoided being Jewish, it was the fact that we didn't do that then.

00:05:25You know, the audiences that we had were all over the country, Midwest, where they never saw a Jew.

00:05:31Do you think people knew you were Jews? Like, did your Midwest audience know that you're a bunch of Jews?

00:05:38Oh, I think so. I think so, because every once in a while we'd throw in something, you know, that gave you away and doesn't...

00:05:45Nobody ever tried to keep it a secret.

00:05:47I miss the guys that were my peers. I really do.

00:05:51We did Yiddishkeit. We did... was our own personal, private shtick that we did with each other,

00:05:58which we don't do anymore because it was not for the public.

00:06:02But they're all gone. Jan Murray's gone. Rick Hackett is gone. Red is gone.

00:06:10The guys that I was... was friendly with.

00:06:15Shikki's left, but Shikki moves to Palm Springs. He's gone. And, um...

00:06:20Palm Springs is gone?

00:06:22Well, he's gone. He hates it there.

00:06:24Yeah, he's becoming morbider and morbider every day because he hates it. His wife loves it.

00:06:30Shikki hates it there. He wants to come back here.

00:06:33But we won't let him because he's too Jewish.

00:06:36Jewish humor was like European type of humor. What made them laugh, you know?

00:06:41The Jews didn't laugh when a guy slipped on a banana.

00:06:44You know, somebody says, that's funny, the guy slipping on a banana.

00:06:47Jews wouldn't laugh at that. Jews would say,

00:06:49Look at the way he ruined the banana. The banana was all right.

00:06:53What was bottom with that? Why didn't he pick it up?

00:06:55And he could have had bananas in cream. What's the matter?

00:06:58You know, that's what I'm getting at.

00:06:59Every people, and I'm sure everybody's going to say,

00:07:01the Irish had their humor. The Italians had their humor.

00:07:04But being Jewish, I, you know, did the Jewish things.

00:07:08If I was Polish, I would have done...

00:07:11That's a great joke, but nobody knows Polish.

00:07:18There was a time when the Italians came to America.

00:07:24There was a time when the Irish came to America.

00:07:28We were looking at these people coming into our nation,

00:07:32and we had Jewish stand-ups.

00:07:35I remember distinctly Bluehost telling this joke, which is classic today.

00:07:42He said, Sam Lapidus, that was his character that he used.

00:07:49Sam Lapidus goes to the grocery store to buy some salt.

00:07:55And he goes to the grocer, and he says to the grocer,

00:08:02Have you got, you have salt?

00:08:05And the man says, Have I got salt?

00:08:10Have I got salt?

00:08:12Here, take a look at this wall. Salt. Salt.

00:08:15Take a look down here. Salt. Salt.

00:08:18Take a look here. Barrel salt. Box is salt.

00:08:21Come on downstairs, I'll show you more salt.

00:08:24That kind of salt. We have salt here.

00:08:26And where else? Salt. Salt, my God.

00:08:29And Sam Lapidus says, This is marvelous.

00:08:32But will you ever sell all this salt?

00:08:36Salt is salt. And the grocer, he says,

00:08:39The grocer says, Me, I can't sell salt.

00:08:44But the guy who sells me salt, oh, can he sell salt?

00:08:49That was the kind of joke that we were loving that time.

00:08:55But the Italians were loving their jokes.

00:08:59And were the Irish learning their jokes?

00:09:03Why shouldn't the Jews be there as well?

00:09:06And why are we giving them extra, extra attention?

00:09:13God knows, they weren't really, I swear,

00:09:17they weren't really better than everybody else.

00:09:21But when you had a Jewish comedian, he was damn good.

00:09:26That was about it.

00:09:28I cannot, I will not join you in that special acceptance of Jews as the comedians.

00:09:41I don't think that.

00:09:43When I was a kid and I saw you on Ed Sullivan and some other Buddy Hackett,

00:09:48my parents said, He's Jewish, he's Jewish, he's Jewish.

00:09:51And I thought, I just accepted they were Jewish.

00:09:54And I thought, this was Jewish comedy.

00:09:57Yeah, well, there's a lot of, that's a great misnomer.

00:10:02A lot of people do that.

00:10:04A lot of Jewish people do that.

00:10:06He's Jewish.

00:10:07He must be Jewish.

00:10:08He's not Jewish.

00:10:09Come in there.

00:10:10To hell with him.

00:10:11He's not Jewish.

00:10:12He's Jewish.

00:10:13He's not Jewish.

00:10:14Everybody's Jewish.

00:10:15He's a great Jew.

00:10:16Everybody.

00:10:17I knew him was a Jew.

00:10:22That went on all the time, you know.

00:10:23Well, I mean, when people talk about Jewish humor, I wonder,

00:10:26do they mean a little Yiddish thrown in or do they mean something?

00:10:29Yeah, they mean a little Yiddish thrown in, you know, giving you a Jewish slant,

00:10:34you know.

00:10:35Sarah, you went through a red light and you went through two stop signs.

00:10:39And Sarah said, I'm driving.

00:10:42You know, that kind of thing.

00:10:44The little Yiddish accent helped proceed with the joke.

00:10:49My wife speaks perfect Yiddish.

00:10:52And so do I.

00:10:53We're the last of a breed.

00:10:55I can speak perfect Yiddish.

00:10:58Mamolution, we call it.

00:11:00Yeah.

00:11:01Mamolution.

00:11:02You don't miss talking Mamolution?

00:11:05No, there's no one to talk to.

00:11:07All the great Jews are dead.

00:11:09Jewish comedians have died.

00:11:11Jewish humor is dead.

00:11:13I'm just saying.

00:11:14Yiddishkeit is something that's just innate.

00:11:17Or it's innerving, maybe not innate.

00:11:20But I don't know.

00:11:24I don't dwell on it and I don't search for it.

00:11:27Not that I don't seek it.

00:11:28It's just not around anymore.

00:11:30So do you miss Yiddishkeit just in your social life, in your day-to-day life?

00:11:36Do you miss whatever it is that being around Jews gives you?

00:11:41I have no comment here.

00:11:46I don't even know what you're asking.

00:11:49Ed, where else but on the Ed Solomon show can 44 Catholic nuns be followed by one lonely Jew?

00:11:57I mean, last Sunday my mother and father celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary.

00:12:04She had the house decorated with old pictures of the family.

00:12:06Because nobody recognized anybody else because it was before the nose jobs.

00:12:10Well, my parents were so happy.

00:12:12For this occasion they declared an armistice.

00:12:15No fighting while the children were in the house.

00:12:17Now, I don't want to take any sides.

00:12:18I know they're watching.

00:12:19But my mother is the world's champion grizzer.

00:12:23Now, if you've never heard my explanation of the word grizzer,

00:12:27It's an old Yiddish expression.

00:12:29It means to gnaw, to grind, to turn.

00:12:33But you never use it to describe a physical act.

00:12:35You would never say a carpenter grizzer to screw into the wall.

00:12:40But every day of your married life, your wife gives you a little mmmmm.

00:12:45And that's aggression.

00:12:46You understand that?

00:12:47Okay?

00:12:48For 49 years she never got off my father's back.

00:12:51Mmmmm, Bernie.

00:12:52Mmmmm, Bernie.

00:12:53Do you know my father hasn't opened his mouth in a house in 17 years?

00:12:56And do you know that my mother doesn't know that my father hasn't opened his mouth in a house in 17 years?

00:13:01Two Jews sit down in a park and as they sit down in a park bench,

00:13:09One goes, oy!

00:13:11And the other one says, I thought we weren't going to talk about the kids.

00:13:14The immigrants who came from Russia, my parents, Russia and Romania,

00:13:19They had nothing.

00:13:22They had nothing.

00:13:23They didn't know the language.

00:13:25They had each other.

00:13:27And they had humor.

00:13:28Every story was sort of, you take the poorest person like a Tevye,

00:13:33And he'd make them holler at God like crazy and find humor in the worst situation imaginable.

00:13:40My father and my aunt Dusi were filthy in Yiddish.

00:13:43They would never let me be in the room when they were talking for fear that I would understand what they were saying.

00:13:49They were, you know, always talking about someone's fin in him as his ass.

00:13:53And laughing hysterically, putting everyone down.

00:13:58And listen, Jews own humor.

00:14:02And I'm sort of proud to say that that's true.

00:14:05And do you think that that's still true?

00:14:07No, it's not still true.

00:14:10The thing that helps humor is oppression.

00:14:15The thing that kills humor is assimilation.

00:14:19That group, that immigrant, that group that came over, your grandparents, maybe your parents to a degree.

00:14:26Yes, there's something lost in assimilating.

00:14:31Really, that's what it is.

00:14:32Getting comfortable.

00:14:33If you've had a great childhood and a good marriage and a little bit of money, you're going to make a lousy stand-up comedian.

00:14:42So the Jewish dilemma was they had nothing.

00:14:45So the humor just poured, it came out of their pores, really.

00:14:49I have the feeling now that the average Jew is not as funny as the average Jew was when all your friends were Jewish.

00:14:59Like when I was a kid, a 60-year-old Jew, that was an old Jew, I'd be sitting and eating my soup.

00:15:05Like whatever.

00:15:06You're not like to me.

00:15:07You're definitely old enough chronologically to be an old Jew, but you don't remind me of...

00:15:12No, I'm not the old Jew.

00:15:13I laugh at old Jews because I'm not one of them.

00:15:16But I had the same thing.

00:15:18They're sitting with the soup and they'd all sit there and they're slurping it.

00:15:21And then, you know, we used to sit wherever you could get a seat and just horn and harness and fill it.

00:15:26And they slurping it.

00:15:27You have to make that noise when you eat.

00:15:29What do you know about noise?

00:15:31You don't know noise.

00:15:32I know noise.

00:15:33These old Jews are gone.

00:15:36You know, they're gone.

00:15:37My father was the funniest human being I ever met to this day.

00:15:40And I met all the greats.

00:15:42Bob Hove, George Burns, you know, Jack Benny, Red Skeletons.

00:15:46And they're all brilliant.

00:15:48My father would have put them away.

00:15:50Funniest man.

00:15:51He was in Voldemort as a young guy.

00:15:53He was a singer, dancer, comedian.

00:15:57And he had a contract to do movies with the Three Stooges.

00:16:01He went home from California.

00:16:03He hadn't been home for a couple of years.

00:16:04He went home.

00:16:05He was in Voldemort since he was nine.

00:16:06And he went home and his father, who was a leading rabbi in Philadelphia, had a whole talk with him.

00:16:12You cannot perform on Friday night, which is Shabbat.

00:16:16You can't have a job where they make you work Friday night to Saturday night.

00:16:19Or Saturday.

00:16:20Until Sunday.

00:16:21You can't do it.

00:16:22Our people are survivors.

00:16:24We survive on our tradition.

00:16:26You're violating the tradition.

00:16:28Never got on stage again.

00:16:30Regretted it his whole life.

00:16:32I was taught by my father that there's something funny in everything.

00:16:36And you want to know how he taught me that?

00:16:38He said there's something funny in everything.

00:16:40We were walking down the street.

00:16:41I was about five.

00:16:42He said, well, look at Mr. Conley.

00:16:45Fixing the car, his car.

00:16:48He said, now tell me what's funny.

00:16:50It was a hot July day.

00:16:52Conley, no shirt on.

00:16:53Little overweight guy.

00:16:55He was in the street.

00:16:56He was trying to change the tire.

00:16:58And the nut.

00:16:59One nut wouldn't come off.

00:17:01And he's trying.

00:17:02And he's banging the tools.

00:17:03And he's kicking it.

00:17:04And he's screaming.

00:17:05And he's yelling.

00:17:06He's infuriated.

00:17:07He's sweating.

00:17:08I said, there's nothing funny.

00:17:11He says, now.

00:17:12Call me Kingy.

00:17:13He says, Kingy, I want you to look.

00:17:15I want you to look at it through this extra eye that you have.

00:17:19It's the funny eye.

00:17:21And now only think funny and look at the situation.

00:17:25Tell me what's funny.

00:17:26And I look.

00:17:27And I start laughing.

00:17:29I said, his pants are coming off.

00:17:31You can see his rear end.

00:17:33I said, that's so funny.

00:17:35He said, there's something funny in everything.

00:17:38My father was an insanely brilliant comedian.

00:17:45And he died very young.

00:17:50He died when he was 54 years old at a Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz roast.

00:17:58He got up, killed the audience, sat down, had a heart attack, and died at the Beverly Hilton.

00:18:04And so I was very young at the time.

00:18:07And so it affects you for the rest of your life.

00:18:10But he did a Greek dialect comedian.

00:18:13Park your carcass.

00:18:14Everyone thought he was Greek.

00:18:15I used to watch my father when he would watch television.

00:18:18And I would watch what he laughed at.

00:18:21He enjoyed intelligence.

00:18:23He enjoyed clever humor.

00:18:25And when it was funny, when it was really funny.

00:18:29I mean, I go out to dinner a lot and I watch people laughing hysterically at nothing.

00:18:38And I envy them.

00:18:39And I'm not being a jerk.

00:18:41I'm being truthful.

00:18:43Because laughing is such great medicine.

00:18:45And they're just, I don't know what they're laughing at, but they find it funny.

00:18:50They're going nuts.

00:18:52And so he never did that.

00:18:55I like to think that everything I've done is Jewish humor.

00:18:58Because I'm a Jew.

00:19:00And I think that I have the sensibility of a Jew.

00:19:04And I don't mean that arrogantly.

00:19:06I think that's just who we are as a people.

00:19:09As silly as Super Dave is, there's something there that comes from my soul.

00:19:17And it's Jewish.

00:19:19Yeah, well, I mean, I thought Super Dave was not Osborne.

00:19:24That's not Jewish.

00:19:25Well, as Super Bob Einstein, you don't go far.

00:19:29You get two shows and you're never heard from again.

00:19:31Because there's no Jewish daredevil.

00:19:33Jews own daredevils.

00:19:35They don't perform.

00:19:37They manage them.

00:19:39Okay?

00:19:40You asked about my father.

00:19:42Yeah.

00:19:43I'm going to give you an instance which will describe his brilliance.

00:19:47We were visiting my older brother in Fort Ord up near San Francisco.

00:19:53And we walked down a pier and we saw a place called the House of a Thousand Names.

00:19:58And we walk in and it's nothing but a thousand little green cups with every name and every derivation of that name on the cups.

00:20:08Bob, Bobby, Robbie, Rob, Rob, Rob, Rob, everything, kind of thing.

00:20:12So I walk in there.

00:20:13I'm a little kid.

00:20:14And my dad walks in and my dad goes to the door and says, Tunic, let's go.

00:20:20And I got it.

00:20:22And they chased us down.

00:20:24What's his name?

00:20:26Tunic.

00:20:27How?

00:20:28T-U-N-I-C.

00:20:29Oh, my.

00:20:30Because he looked around, saw a name that wasn't on the cups and called me it.

00:20:33So that is a complete piece of humor.

00:20:37Right.

00:20:38And how, yeah.

00:20:40That just, that he wants to put a pin.

00:20:44I don't know.

00:20:45I don't want to analyze it, but I want to kind of analyze it.

00:20:49There's no reason to analyze it.

00:20:51He just formed a piece of humor.

00:20:52He saw it.

00:20:53He saw a house of a thousand names.

00:20:55He knew these people had, had spent every waking moment of their life making sure they had every name they could positive.

00:21:01And he fucked up.

00:21:02I can't swear on this.

00:21:04Yeah, you can swear.

00:21:05Oh, he fucked up this store.

00:21:07Is what he did.

00:21:08It's a store where they sold cups.

00:21:11Yes, that's what I said.

00:21:12No, no, I thought.

00:21:13How come you don't understand what I just said?

00:21:15I was more.

00:21:16You were what?

00:21:17You were asleep?

00:21:18Are you listening to me?

00:21:20Because I'm wasting my time if you're not.

00:21:22I'm listening.

00:21:23I just didn't know what the names were on.

00:21:25I thought they were on balloons.

00:21:27There's a guy that wants to join a country club that doesn't let Jews in.

00:21:33So he says to his friend, you know, the guy, his name is Mo Ginstein.

00:21:38He says to his friend, Hugh, I want to be a member of your club.

00:21:43He says, listen, Mo, they don't want Jews.

00:21:45So when you register, don't say your name is Mo Ginstein.

00:21:49Don't say you have a big Cadillac.

00:21:51Don't say the kids go to Brandeis University.

00:21:53You gotta fudge it up.

00:21:55So Mo goes to the registrar, says to the guy, I want I should be a member.

00:22:05They bring him the form.

00:22:06He says, sir, what's your name?

00:22:08He says, Jack Smith.

00:22:10Smith.

00:22:11He says, what kind of a car do you have?

00:22:14A Saab.

00:22:15Put down Saab.

00:22:17Where do your kids go to school?

00:22:19He says, Yale.

00:22:20Yale, Yale.

00:22:21They go to Yale.

00:22:22Sir, what's your religion?

00:22:25He says, Goyesh.

00:22:26It's like there are TV shows on the air, like, like, well, Seinfeld.

00:22:35And that was a show where I felt like every character in it was a Jew, even though they changed their names.

00:22:44It's like George Costanza and his family were all Jews, but they have an Italian name.

00:22:51Right.

00:22:52And Elaine Bennis, also supposed to be a Gentile, is a major Jew.

00:23:01On the Golden Girls, Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur are supposed to be Italians, also major Jews.

00:23:12It's kind of like, it's like if Myron Cohen were to start calling himself Patty O'Brien.

00:23:21Right.

00:23:22You'd go, okay, but you're still a Jew.

00:23:25Oh, don't try to get one past me.

00:23:29You're a Jew.

00:23:31So why, even in the era of Seinfeld, did they not just make them Jewish?

00:23:36Why didn't they just admit they were Jews?

00:23:39Like, what did they think they were going to gain?

00:23:41I don't know, but I remember seeing something about the making of the Mary Tyler Moore show, where she was originally supposed to be a divorced woman who's trying to make it on her own.

00:23:57And they warned her.

00:24:00They said, no, there's two things that the public doesn't like.

00:24:04Divorced women and Jews.

00:24:06Typical Jewish joke.

00:24:09Woman goes to the hospital, says, Mrs. Ginsburg, how's my husband?

00:24:14She said, he's dead.

00:24:15They said, well, give him an enema.

00:24:17Doctor says, it wouldn't help.

00:24:19And she said, but right.

00:24:21Did you feel like you had to hide your Jewishness?

00:24:26Never in the Catskills.

00:24:28See, that's your stronghold.

00:24:29I worked at Concord for years.

00:24:31Their joy was to say who they walked out on.

00:24:33I walked out.

00:24:34Johnny Carson, wasn't funny.

00:24:36I walked out on him.

00:24:37Unbelievable.

00:24:38Marie Chevalier, how did he ever make it?

00:24:41Well, why did they do it?

00:24:42They would do it.

00:24:43And the funny thing about the Concord is when you were on stage, they had four doors.

00:24:49Big doors.

00:24:50And you knew how you were doing, because when the door opened as they were leaving, the light would come shining through.

00:24:57Right.

00:24:58So that's how, how'd you do today?

00:24:59Two doors.

00:25:00How was he?

00:25:01It was a terrible act.

00:25:02He was a four-door act.

00:25:03Very few four-door acts.

00:25:05I'll tell you, a four-door act.

00:25:06Yul Breda was a four-door act.

00:25:08Do you think Jews are still the same?

00:25:11No.

00:25:12No.

00:25:13No.

00:25:14No.

00:25:15Jews are not the same.

00:25:18Jews are...

00:25:20We're intellectually superior.

00:25:22I don't care what people...

00:25:23They may get pissed off at me by saying this.

00:25:25We have the same joy in our kids.

00:25:29That never changed.

00:25:30It always was a Jewish thing to take care of his kids.

00:25:34And I say in my act that Jews care about kids.

00:25:38You don't get a Jewish guy saying to his kid, strap a bomb on, blow yourself up, you get 80 virgins.

00:25:43We say, here's a hundred, get a hooker, now go to law school.

00:25:46This is what our dream is.

00:25:48I find, and I'm not saying all, my Jewish friends charming, intellectual, and funny.

00:25:57Some are boars, some are terrible boars, but that's everybody.

00:26:01But I think a Jew looks to be funny.

00:26:04He doesn't look to camouflage it.

00:26:07If there's a chance to be funny, he's funny.

00:26:10I never thought I'm funny because I'm Jewish.

00:26:13I thought I'm funny because I'm funny.

00:26:15But Jews are funny.

00:26:16I'm hanging with my gentile friend, they're not funny.

00:26:19They're not funny.

00:26:21My argument has always been that Jewish people are funny even when they're not trying to be funny.

00:26:26I was watching Paul Simon perform in the park and my dad's friend said about Paul Simon.

00:26:32He said, that Paul Simon's okay.

00:26:34He's not one of those jazzed up characters in the cockamamie outfits.

00:26:38So to me that was like, hilarious.

00:26:40Right.

00:26:41Now, I have to say that when I recount that, recall that, many people think that it's not hilarious to me.

00:26:47They don't get why that is hilarious.

00:26:49Well, maybe you should do it with an accent.

00:26:51That Paul Simon, he's okay.

00:26:54He's not one of those jazzed up characters in the cockamamie outfits.

00:26:57I just love the, oh, the...

00:27:00That killed.

00:27:01Yeah.

00:27:02Well, the thing is, is that I've never heard anybody say jazzed up character.

00:27:05Right.

00:27:06I mean, probably I've had heard it, but cockamamie.

00:27:08But put cockamamie in there.

00:27:10And then my, the other example I use is my friend Bill, who was my comedy partner, but he wasn't trying to be funny.

00:27:15It was Whitney Houston's song was on.

00:27:17And it was, she was singing How Will I Know, that song, How Will I Know.

00:27:20And my friend Bill said, you'll know Whitney, you'll know.

00:27:23Believe me, you'll know.

00:27:25So that, to me, that's, that's, that's the Jewish thing.

00:27:29And I feel like, is that been assimilated into Italian and everything else?

00:27:34Is it also partly New York?

00:27:36I never identify initially as Jewish, but I feel like the rhythm of everything I do can go back there.

00:27:44Any rhythm that is that kind of rhythm is a, you know, it's a Yiddish rhythm.

00:27:50Right.

00:27:51Let's look at Don Rickles.

00:27:52Okay.

00:27:53Now, is what Don Rickles says funny in and of itself?

00:27:57Yeah, maybe.

00:27:59But it's the, it's all rhythm.

00:28:00Right.

00:28:01It's all rhythm.

00:28:02And then I have to hear it from this guy.

00:28:05And then there's a man with a blue coat, and he's standing in the, he's standing on the sidewalk.

00:28:09And then I got to hear it from this guy.

00:28:10And then, and then this, I got this over here.

00:28:12I got that over here.

00:28:13And then this guy going around with the thing.

00:28:16It's all rhythm.

00:28:18Right.

00:28:19Or, or Seinfeld, you know, even though the words and the premise might be funny.

00:28:22He's going to a place where a man never went.

00:28:27Well, actually, the other day I realized that I never related to William Shatner being Jewish.

00:28:34Wow.

00:28:35Is he Jewish?

00:28:36Yeah.

00:28:37Now that you mentioned that, it's that rhythmic.

00:28:40Right.

00:28:41Pausing.

00:28:42And then, and then, you know, I was on radio with him on Shatner, and he said, this is the weirdest thing I've ever heard in my life.

00:28:48He said, Peter, the traffic coming over here was absolutely holocaustic.

00:28:57Congratulations, Bill.

00:28:59You've reduced the Holocaust to a traffic report.

00:29:02Congratulations.

00:29:03I've always thought that comedy was Jewish jazz.

00:29:06It was our people's way of expressing our powerlessness and our intelligence at the same time.

00:29:12All comedy, I think, comes from frustration.

00:29:14People say it comes from pain, but I don't want to go that far because it's not quite true.

00:29:18But I think it comes from frustration, some kind of frustration.

00:29:21And who feels more frustrated than a group of very intelligent people who've been bred into intelligence?

00:29:26Right?

00:29:27Forced bread into intelligence, because so many of us were eliminated, feeling that we have to say something.

00:29:36We have to talk about this.

00:29:38We have no choice.

00:29:39Right.

00:29:40There's a melancholy to Jewishness that I think comes out in most Jewish comics.

00:29:45There is a testiness that comes out in Jewish comics that's a function of their alienation and their suspicion about the way that the mainstream culture treats them.

00:29:54And I think that the Jewish comic were the shock troop.

00:29:57They were the shock troops of modernism in that kind of a way.

00:30:01So that even though they were able to express it more easily, because we've always been an expressive people,

00:30:07because we're not beholden to a certain culture, so we don't have to worry about what people think of us in quite the same way,

00:30:13because we've got our community to back us up.

00:30:15We were able to say things that the Gentile community only wished they could say.

00:30:19And when they heard it, they went, yeah, we're afraid too.

00:30:23Although we don't express it the same way.

00:30:26In fact, we don't express it at all.

00:30:27But thank you, Jew, for saying it.

00:30:29We're really glad you said it for us.

00:30:32I mean, you know, I have to ask, just basically, do you believe that as a basic model of American humor?

00:30:40I know I've already asked it, but I've had so much doubting of that premise that I've come to do.

00:30:47The history of 20th century humor is Jewish, period.

00:30:52Okay.

00:30:53Period.

00:30:54Can I tell you not a trouble with me?

00:30:58I appeal to everyone who can do me absolutely no good.

00:31:05My whole life, I don't get no respect.

00:31:07No respect from anyone.

00:31:09Well, the other day, my boy came home from school.

00:31:11He was depressed.

00:31:12I said to him, why are you depressed?

00:31:14He told me that day he learned a new saying.

00:31:16Like father, like son.

00:31:19Well, I tell you, I always wondered how my wife got her license the first time she took the test.

00:31:24I found out the inspector said he wouldn't go through that again.

00:31:28Well, they say when you're driving, you know, watch out for the other guy.

00:31:31I tell you, when my wife is driving, you don't have to worry about the other guy.

00:31:34I mean, she'll get him.

00:31:36I'm used to working in tough places.

00:31:39Tough.

00:31:40I work places like the Pink Elephant, the Club Jinx, Aldo's, formerly Vito's, formerly Nunzio's.

00:31:51Oh, that was a tough place, Nunzio's, tough.

00:31:54As you entered this place, you went down two steps, physically and socially.

00:32:00Every night, the boss would say to me, be funny.

00:32:03My people come here to forget their troubles.

00:32:05I mean, how do you make a guy forget he's up for manslaughter?

00:32:09A Jewish guy who's marooned on the desert island,

00:32:14and out of the tools of the earth constructs two enormous, magnificent synagogues

00:32:20over a period of ten years.

00:32:22And when he's rescued, they say, this is magnificent work.

00:32:25But why, too?

00:32:27And he says, in this one I go.

00:32:29In that one I wouldn't set foot.

00:32:32I think that comedy ultimately comes from darkness.

00:32:36It does.

00:32:37Because that sense of humor is a great conduit to survival.

00:32:41And I think that as Jews, you know, just culturally, we suffer a lot of pain.

00:32:46And even when there isn't pain to be suffered,

00:32:48we enjoy giving it to ourselves.

00:32:50We've gone through the hardest, toughest time.

00:32:52I think other cultures have also.

00:32:54Right.

00:32:55But I think traditionally, we have a hard time.

00:32:57In fact, we are very comfortable in our hard time.

00:33:01We're very comfortable, kvetchin.

00:33:03Even if things are good, you know, we don't, we even question that.

00:33:07How are things doing?

00:33:09They're doing.

00:33:10You know, we can't, I don't think we're comfortable if things are fabulous.

00:33:14That's not even a Jewish word.

00:33:17You don't hear Jews going, what a, fabulous.

00:33:20No.

00:33:21It was nice.

00:33:22It was good.

00:33:23We even have to squeeze into the niceness.

00:33:25You can see with our expressions and everything.

00:33:27You can't even say something's wonderful without, you gotta, you gotta squeeze into it.

00:33:32Right?

00:33:33Right.

00:33:34I had a time, I had a wonderful, it's even, even when we're talking about wonderful, we

00:33:40make it painful.

00:33:41Right?

00:33:42I had a, it, there was a, it was sensational.

00:33:48It was the nicest, but look, take this expression and you can say the same, the same thing as

00:33:55this thing's sensational.

00:33:57You could, and they all died and there was fire and there was, there was, there was raping

00:34:04and there was, and then take these same expressions, these same Jewish expressions and you can make

00:34:08it, it was the best vacation I ever, you see, you don't even, we don't even change the expression.

00:34:15That's why we don't, and we don't even know, we don't, you know, things are great.

00:34:19That's why we answer questions with questions.

00:34:21Because we can't even face the wonderfulness.

00:34:24How are you?

00:34:25How am I?

00:34:26How am I?

00:34:27They can't just say, you ask a non-Jew, how are you?

00:34:30I'm fine.

00:34:31That's it.

00:34:32Right.

00:34:33We can't just be fine.

00:34:34We want to question the fine, because we might feel fine.

00:34:36But it's not right for a Jew to just be fine.

00:34:39Right?

00:34:40How are you?

00:34:41I'm, how are you?

00:34:42How should I be?

00:34:44Yes.

00:34:45The big crucial event for this culture was the first crusade in 1096, which marks the

00:34:51first time that a bunch of gentiles in Europe decided having nothing better to do, we'll

00:34:55kill every Jew we can find for no apparent reason.

00:35:00And this had a terrible effect on people.

00:35:03And all of a sudden you had this, what had been, I'm not saying they got along, nobody

00:35:07really knows, but there had been a sort of coexistence that wasn't totally oppositional.

00:35:16That just changed overnight.

00:35:18And you had like, you know, those other people, they just weren't not you, they were your enemy.

00:35:24And it's like you said, all of a sudden, if you saw three gentiles and there was one of

00:35:30you, you figured, chances are good that they're going to kick the shit out of me.

00:35:34Even, you know, even if I haven't done anything, they're them and I'm me and what they're here

00:35:39for is to beat the hell out of me.

00:35:41And once you got to that, there wasn't anything to do with complaint, to the point where people

00:35:49got to the point where they didn't even know how to express satisfaction, except in terms

00:35:54of a complaint.

00:35:55The joke that sums up that whole way of looking at things is the famous one about the old man

00:36:01on the train.

00:36:02You know this joke?

00:36:04Okay, guy gets onto a train, sits down, across from him there sitting an old Jewish man.

00:36:09The train is now 10 minutes out of Grand Central Station.

00:36:12The old man leans back in his chair, looks up at the scene and goes,

00:36:16I am I toisty.

00:36:18Okay, I do know it.

00:36:1910 seconds pass.

00:36:20He says, I am I toisty.

00:36:23After about 90 seconds have elapsed, the other man realizes that he is going to be listening

00:36:29to I am I toisty for the entire train trip if he doesn't do something.

00:36:34So, he stands up, goes down all the way to the other end of the train, takes one of those

00:36:40conical Dixie cups down, fills it up with water.

00:36:43The guy is still sitting there going, I am I toisty.

00:36:47I am I toisty, as if there is somebody who is actually paying attention to him.

00:36:52The man with the water gets there, he reaches out his hand, he says, here, drink this.

00:36:57The old man looks up at him, takes the cup, drinks it.

00:37:00There are 10 seconds of elapsed.

00:37:02The old man leans back in his seat and he goes, I was I toisty.

00:37:08This is the typical Jewish joke.

00:37:11Right.

00:37:12This is not only complaining to show satisfaction, but that kind of passive aggressive hostility.

00:37:21The way of conveying to this guy like, just because I am not thirsty does not mean that

00:37:26you can shut me up.

00:37:27I don't know who you think you are.

00:37:29When you were a kid, did you think your grandparents were funny?

00:37:32Um, yeah, because, well, at least in the case of one grandfather, he was definitely playing for laughs.

00:37:42My favorite thing, it's why I remember him fondly.

00:37:46Uh, I must have been about 11, 12 years old, driving with him somewhere.

00:37:51I had no idea where we were going.

00:37:53There's a woman walking on the street and he says to me in Jewish, she says, oh, you see her?

00:37:58I said, yeah.

00:37:59So she's suing the city.

00:38:00I said, well, you know who she is?

00:38:02How do you know she's suing?

00:38:03He says, they built the sidewalk too close to her ass.

00:38:05Uh, so he was already a character.

00:38:11Uh, you know, he, he was working at it.

00:38:14When you hear the word, the word Jewish humor, do you think about your mother and your grandfather

00:38:21or do you think about Alan King and Shaggy Green?

00:38:25Um, I think about all of it because I think it's all together.

00:38:29I think it's a style.

00:38:30I think Alan King performed it and I think my grandmother lived it.

00:38:35That's the only difference.

00:38:37I don't think that Marc Maron, who's a friend of mine, who's very funny, will come close to my uncle Khuna for being funny.

00:38:47Like, Marc is funny, but Uncle Khuna is funny.

00:38:50In what?

00:38:52The way he eats soup.

00:38:54Right.

00:38:55Marc Maron could never come up with a routine that's funnier than watching Uncle Khuna eat soup.

00:38:59I wonder for myself whether I'm fantasizing something that didn't exist.

00:39:04Because if I ask my uncles, was your mother, my grandmother funny?

00:39:08No.

00:39:09Was on my father's side, were they funny?

00:39:12No.

00:39:13Like, who was funny?

00:39:14And yet, in my memory, at some Purim party or something like that, the old people were just hilarious.

00:39:22Right, but that's funny because, you know, it fits in our understanding of what that stereotype is, what the expectations of it for.

00:39:30Were they trying to be funny?

00:39:31No.

00:39:32Are we laughing at them?

00:39:33Yeah.

00:39:34Most of what we're referencing is a series of tics and idiosyncrasies that are hilarious because they comfort us.

00:39:42What is it?

00:39:43How many Jewish grandmothers did it take to screw in a light bulb?

00:39:45None.

00:39:46Oh, I'll sit in the dark.

00:39:47So, whatever.

00:39:48That character in that joke is not a funny person.

00:39:51Right.

00:39:52It's the stereotype that's funny.

00:39:53So, what you're responding to is the sort of comfort you find in the consistency of old Jewish people to have a certain amount of mannerisms that are funny, but are they trying to be funny?

00:40:05No.

00:40:06So, therefore, it therefore follows that that'll never exist again because you and I, when we are actually old Jews, won't be making those noises.

00:40:20No, of course we'll be making those noises.

00:40:22I'm sure you're making those noises now.

00:40:23I mean, you're making those noises now.

00:40:24I can't even hear you making them.

00:40:26I can see them happening.

00:40:28Okay.

00:40:29So, this old Jewish man, it's 3 a.m. on New Year's Eve.

00:40:32He's driving around by himself.

00:40:33He's a 90-year-old Jewish man, 3 a.m., driving around Beverly Hills by himself.

00:40:38A cop pulls him over and says, where are you going?

00:40:40He says, I'm going to a lecture on alcohol abuse, how alcohol ruins your families and destroys your health.

00:40:46The cop says, who's giving this lecture at 3 in the morning?

00:40:49The guy said, my wife.

00:40:51My aunts were funny.

00:40:52My aunts and uncles were very funny.

00:40:54So, were they funny in what you would call a Jewish way?

00:40:57Yes.

00:40:58Yeah, my aunts and uncles, I remember my uncle and aunt, they were 55th wedding anniversary.

00:41:03I was in Florida at their house.

00:41:05And I said, happy anniversary.

00:41:08And my uncle looked at me and said, and she was in the room, he goes, I didn't kill her yet.

00:41:13And she said, go ahead and try.

00:41:15This was on their 55th wedding anniversary.

00:41:18They always had something to argue about.

00:41:22I told you not to get this cake.

00:41:24You know, this would be a half hour fight because they got the wrong cake.

00:41:29So, it's hysterical really when you think about it.

00:41:32But, you know.

00:41:33Yeah.

00:41:34Like even that voice that you just did.

00:41:36Without that voice, would it be as funny?

00:41:39Like, is that gone?

00:41:40Is that gone?

00:41:41Yeah, that is gone.

00:41:42There was a little bit of European accent mixed in with some Lower East Side and the Bronx.

00:41:48Surely I'm going to tell you what's going on here.

00:41:51You know, that type of, like they swallowed a softball.

00:41:57I tell you, it's a light, you know.

00:42:02I like that.

00:42:03I mean, I love hearing that voice.

00:42:04So, what are we going to do when that voice is gone?

00:42:07Right, right, right, right.

00:42:09Maybe I am an old Jew like them, but I don't think mommy and my crew would disagree.

00:42:14I don't complain enough.

00:42:16Not yet.

00:42:17Not yet.

00:42:18Well, you know that joke about the waiter comes over and all these Jewish women sitting

00:42:21at a restaurant and he goes, is anything all right?

00:42:24Do you have a favorite Jewish joke?

00:42:27Oh, yeah.

00:42:28I mean, one of my favorite ones is like those jokes, the one where the Jewish...

00:42:33You mean specific examples?

00:42:34Yeah, sure.

00:42:35Yeah, like the Jewish kid, the Jewish mother is with a child at the beach and this is the

00:42:42one, right?

00:42:43Yeah.

00:42:44Yeah, and he goes out swimming and then starts to drown and the lifeguard saves the child

00:42:50and he brings the child back to the mother and says, your child was in the ocean and it

00:42:55was dry and here I saved your son.

00:42:57And the mother said, he had a hat.

00:43:02That's the...

00:43:03You can't get any better than that.

00:43:04No.

00:43:05He had a hat.

00:43:06Although the one...

00:43:07You embellish it more, right?

00:43:08No, no.

00:43:09Well, we tell it without a lifeguard.

00:43:12Oh.

00:43:13I think it's better without a lifeguard.

00:43:15My version, the grandmother prays to God and says...

00:43:20Wow.

00:43:21Like, I know I haven't been that good at you.

00:43:23Oh, that's great.

00:43:24That is great.

00:43:25And I haven't been to Temple, but if you would see it in your mercy to bring back my

00:43:30grandson and a wave deposits him on the shore and she says he had a hat.

00:43:35Yes.

00:43:36Wait, you're talking about why Jews are funny and you haven't talked about Jewish mothers

00:43:41yet?

00:43:42You know, I would have no act without my Jewish mother.

00:43:47I think a lot of people would have no act without their Jewish mothers.

00:43:50I mean, even if you don't talk about your Jewish mother in your act, you're funny because

00:43:56of your annoying Jewish mother.

00:43:57So my mother's in a nursing home now.

00:44:00She actually calls herself an inmate.

00:44:03So, you know, you call up, hey, what's up?

00:44:05Oh, I had lunch with the other inmates and we have a book club, me and a couple of inmates.

00:44:13I mean, and it's, the thing is, there's no reaction.

00:44:16It's just...

00:44:17She's not saying it ironically?

00:44:18No, it's just the inmate.

00:44:20That's it.

00:44:21And you know, it's hilarious.

00:44:23See?

00:44:24She's like, what do you want to, what am I supposed to call myself?

00:44:27They can't say what they mean.

00:44:29So they, uh, New Year's Eve, I called my mother.

00:44:34She's like, what are you doing, Phineas?

00:44:35So we're having a dinner party.

00:44:37We ordered a filet mignon caviar.

00:44:39I'll be eating shit.

00:44:41I'd bring a friend home.

00:44:43I'd be like, ma, this is my new friend, Beth.

00:44:46Do you think she would hide you?

00:44:48Do you?

00:44:49Wow.

00:44:50You know, I just got my knee replaced.

00:44:53So, uh, I said, oh, I'm going to the doctor next week.

00:44:58Does he know you're walking like a hilarity?

00:45:01First of all, what is a hilarity?

00:45:03And second of all, how about, you know, oh, you know, I noticed that you were, uh, limping

00:45:10a little.

00:45:11Is it going to be okay?

00:45:12Nothing is ever tender.

00:45:14You know, my son, Henry's 16 now.

00:45:16And I look at his friends who were girls.

00:45:18I can't imagine them talking like this all the time.

00:45:22Like my grandparents were all born in the 1800s.

00:45:25So my memory is of, of that.

00:45:28They, these kids are having a completely different experience of what it's like to be Jewish.

00:45:33Jews used to be a much more tighter knit community.

00:45:38Now it's like all separated.

00:45:40You understand?

00:45:41It's like, Jews, they came here from America.

00:45:44They all lived down in the, in the Lower East Side.

00:45:47Right?

00:45:48They all lived in, in ghettos in America, where they experienced everything together.

00:45:53So the guy eating that soup, right, that you're talking about and he made it funny, because

00:45:58he knew everybody else ate that soup.

00:46:00You know, they all went, they all went to Ratner's or they all went to Second Avenue Deli

00:46:06or they've all been there and they know the price of the soup.

00:46:09Your connection to, to Judaism is through comedy.

00:46:12I was, I remember, I was, I think I mentioned it before, but the other day I was in, uh,

00:46:16in Second Avenue Deli and the smell is so geschmacked.

00:46:21It's so delicious and beautiful.

00:46:23And this guy walked in, looked just like you with his wife, goes, ah, smells like Judaism.

00:46:29To him, that pastrami, that scent in the air, the rogelach, the pickles, the whole thing,

00:46:35that to him is Judaism.

00:46:37Right?

00:46:38It's going to a comedy club, having some guy say, uh, you know, whatever the joke is

00:46:43and making a Jewish shtick out of it.

00:46:45And that's the, that, that, that's your experience to it.

00:46:48For people that are so small in the world, that make such a big blast and such a big,

00:46:54we talk so much about it.

00:46:56Yeah.

00:46:57No other comedians go up and discuss it and, and do a call back to it and bring it around,

00:47:04you know?

00:47:05Right.

00:47:06It, it, so we bring attention to it.

00:47:09Right?

00:47:10Yeah.

00:47:11Once in a while you'll hear a comic say, I'm a, I'm Irish Catholic.

00:47:13Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:47:14Right?

00:47:15And then whatever the whole line is or his line.

00:47:17But Jews are, you know, constantly, and they can always bring back to it.

00:47:21And it, you know, and, and such a small group of people in world, in the world.

00:47:26Right.

00:47:27But we're so loud.

00:47:28It's just so funny that we're so loud.

00:47:31You know?

00:47:32Yeah.

00:47:33It, it is funny.

00:47:34I mean, it's, we're self-obsessed for sure.

00:47:36For sure.

00:47:37Look at you.

00:47:38We've got a camera crew to discuss your Judaism.

00:47:40There's, there's, there's, there's, it's so self-obsessed.

00:47:43What, what, what guy, what Christian in the world is running around now with a camera crew?

00:47:47Talk to me about being Christian.

00:47:49No one cares.

00:47:50What's the thesis of this whole piece?

00:47:53Okay.

00:47:54Cause if you're trying to say that you're either saying Jews aren't as funny as they once were,

00:47:58or Jews are funnier, both are wrong.

00:48:01There is a thesis.

00:48:02Yeah.

00:48:03The thesis is probably.

00:48:05Yeah.

00:48:06It's probably.

00:48:07What I most want to do is go back and sit at a Hanukkah party with my old relatives.

00:48:15Yeah.

00:48:16Cause.

00:48:17They're hilarious.

00:48:18I can't do that.

00:48:20Everything.

00:48:21If I, if I want to reconnect and experience that again, I can't, what can I do?

00:48:30Yeah.

00:48:31What can I do?

00:48:32You can, you can go to the Friars club and just sit with those guys.

00:48:35They're still, they're still around.

00:48:37It's, it's sad that it's definitely the end of an era.

00:48:41Definitely.

00:48:42Like even the Friars.

00:48:43I mean, I used to go to the Friars and see Milton Berle and Henny Youngman just having lunch,

00:48:47right, right there.

00:48:48And it was just like, this is incredible.

00:48:50And Buddy Hackett and, and, and they all died.

00:48:53I don't know if you heard.

00:48:54Well, first of all, older people are just funny in general.

00:48:57They have those thick Eastern European accents.

00:49:00So everything was just funny.

00:49:02There's nothing funny about my, the way I speak right now.

00:49:05I have a joke in my act that I talk about how we all text black.

00:49:08Right.

00:49:09And no, we do.

00:49:10We have this societal peer pressure to sound hip and cool when we text.

00:49:14Right.

00:49:15And what people do we associate with being hip and cool?

00:49:17Certainly not my people.

00:49:19Nobody texts Jewish.

00:49:20So how's everything by you?

00:49:22You know, no, you text black.

00:49:23Yo, what's up?

00:49:24What's up?

00:49:25You know, like, where are you at?

00:49:26Yo, what up?

00:49:27Where are you at?

00:49:28You know, that's how you got a text.

00:49:29You get, you know, my 70 year old Jewish father texted me the other day, literally,

00:49:33apostrophe, S-U-P, S-O-N.

00:49:36Sup, son.

00:49:37Sup.

00:49:38Sup.

00:49:39This is a man who talks like this.

00:49:40How are you?

00:49:41It's nice to see you.

00:49:42It's always a pleasure.

00:49:43And then he's like, sup, son.

00:49:44Sup.

00:49:45This is the only place you're going to find crowds nowadays, ladies and gentlemen, on

00:49:48television.

00:49:49I worked a nightclub last week.

00:49:52We had a crowd.

00:49:54I thought he'd never leave.

00:49:56He was an audience.

00:49:59Give me a nice round of applause.

00:50:03Springtime in New York.

00:50:05The weather.

00:50:06I looked down on the windowsill this morning, there was a robin.

00:50:10Frozen stiff, but he was there.

00:50:12I came with my poor family in our house.

00:50:16We had wall-to-wall poverty.

00:50:19Instant nothing we had.

00:50:21In fact, they had to pull down our house to make a slum.

00:50:24Didn't they tell you blackjacks in a pencil box?

00:50:27Teachers came to school and armored trucks.

00:50:30We didn't crash it.

00:50:31We were acquitted.

00:50:33There's a joke.

00:50:34I'm trying to remember the setup of it, but it has to do with, like, an 80-year-old Jew,

00:50:39you know, you know, Moshe, he's, uh, he's about to die.

00:50:46It's near the end.

00:50:48He's with his buddies, and he goes, sees a church.

00:50:52And, uh, he says, you know what?

00:50:54I'm gonna go and convert.

00:50:57You know?

00:50:58And they say to him, Moshe, you've been a Jew all your life.

00:51:02How could you do this?

00:51:03How could you convert?

00:51:04He goes, ah, better one of them to die.

00:51:07The question is, what does it mean to be Jewish?

00:51:10Well, I mean...

00:51:11I mean, the answer partially is, like, it's defined partially from the outside.

00:51:14Like, certainly, the, the sort of stereotypes exist of, like, a secret cabal where Jews meet,

00:51:20like, no one thinks I'm not part of that cabal.

00:51:23You know what I mean?

00:51:24Like, no one's, like, it's really the Hasids that meet up and control the money,

00:51:28not this nice Jew who didn't have a bar mitzvah.

00:51:31Like, so you're just partially defined from the outside as just being Jewish.

00:51:36And then, of course, there's just probably everything that comes with any religion

00:51:40that has all weird rules about, like, if your goat falls in a neighbor's hole

00:51:45or, you know, whether you should have a beard or don't have sex with men a lot

00:51:49if you're, or don't sleep with the neighbor's wife even though she's delicious.

00:51:53You know, all that stuff.

00:51:54Like, I don't know.

00:51:55Like, probably don't steal and probably don't kill.

00:51:57But if my goat falls on your land, like, whatever.

00:52:00Look, I'm not gonna make you pay for my goat.

00:52:04So...

00:52:05Does that answer your question of what it means to be Jewish?

00:52:08Being a Jew means no matter what religion you might change to,

00:52:14when whoever is coming to round up the Jews will put you in there

00:52:21whatever the means of travel is back then to get you to whatever the means of mass genocide is.

00:52:29So, yeah.

00:52:30And it's funny.

00:52:32It's like, I think, like, Spielberg said, growing up, he was embarrassed about being a Jew.

00:52:41And I remember thinking, well, weren't we all?

00:52:46It is a thing of, if you're in a very Jewish situation, you feel like, oh, God, I hate these people.

00:52:57But I think that's, I think every ethnic group has that.

00:53:02When I left my parents' home, I was 18, you know, and I was never gonna go back in the synagogue again, I don't care what, I kind of thought this Jew thing was gonna end.

00:53:15I really thought it was kind of, a lot of people thought this Jew thing was gonna end, trust me.

00:53:24For centuries, people thought this Jew thing was gonna end.

00:53:29But yeah, no, well, that's true, I guess.

00:53:32If it wasn't for the Orthodox, the religion would disappear.

00:53:35Right, the religion, right.

00:53:38They keep the religion going.

00:53:40So in order to keep the Jewish...

00:53:43We would just, just, you know, fit in with everybody else and it would be gone.

00:53:50It would just, we'd drop a little of this, a little of that before you know it.

00:53:54You're eating white bread with mayonnaise.

00:53:57For me, I thought that being Jewish would always be part of who I am, but I didn't want it to be, I didn't want it to define me, I guess.

00:54:04Right.

00:54:05Do you feel like it defines you?

00:54:07You'll better get the more it does, yeah, absolutely.

00:54:10It's my soul.

00:54:12So, you know.

00:54:15Okay, I mean, that's a mouthful, it's your soul.

00:54:19Like, you have a Jewish soul.

00:54:21Right, well, if you believe in a creator and they've given you a soul,

00:54:26mine is a Jewish one.

00:54:29So does your Jewish soul have more in common with another Jewish soul than it does with the Christians?

00:54:33Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:54:35Okay.

00:54:36We have a group that we call the funniest men in America,

00:54:38which was Seinfeld, Paul Reiser, Larry Miller, and myself.

00:54:42And when we were all Jewish guys, when we first started comedy, we were broke one New Year's Eve.

00:54:48We had lunch New Year's Day, and we had such a good time.

00:54:51We said, let's all have lunch every New Year's Day for the rest of our lives.

00:54:54And we did it for 30 years straight.

00:54:56And it's not a coincidence that you were four best friends in all Jews.

00:55:01No, it's probably not.

00:55:03It's probably not.

00:55:04I mean, we all have non-Jewish friends, of course.

00:55:07You're not good enough to eat with, though.

00:55:10Yeah, yeah.

00:55:12We had a lot in common with being Jewish and being funny.

00:55:16Yeah, so that's a...

00:55:18It was a thread.

00:55:20Yeah, so do you still feel that, like just a natural kinship with Jews?

00:55:24Yeah, totally.

00:55:25Totally.

00:55:26Yeah.

00:55:27The worse it gets for Jews, the closer I feel to them.

00:55:29You know, anti-Semitism and just going out of, you know, going crazy all over the world.

00:55:38So, I mean, I feel more for my people now more than ever.

00:55:43I mean, we've been chased since the beginning of time, and we will always be chased.

00:55:47It's in the DNA of the world.

00:55:50That's the way it is.

00:55:52Get the Jews.

00:55:53The level of anti-Semitism hasn't changed.

00:55:56It's the same as it always was.

00:55:58And if you go to a deli, you understand it.

00:56:01Because Jews tend to eat with their mouth open.

00:56:04You can all...

00:56:05You never have to ask a Jew, what did you have for lunch?

00:56:07Because you can see it.

00:56:08I was in a golf tournament, okay?

00:56:11And you, as a celebrity, your whole job is to be nice to the people you're with.

00:56:16And people know me as Super Dave Osborne.

00:56:19They don't really know me as Bob Einstein.

00:56:22So, I'm riding with this man, who's a very nice man.

00:56:27And I said, do you have children?

00:56:28He said, yes, we have a daughter.

00:56:30I said, oh really, how old?

00:56:32He said, 20.

00:56:33I said, is she married?

00:56:34He said, no, but she's going with a Jew.

00:56:36And I said, you know what, there's no real reason for us to talk the rest of the game.

00:56:41So, you...

00:56:42And I get this, why are you Jewish?

00:56:46And then for the rest of the 18-olds, he's trying to explain he didn't mean it in a bad way.

00:56:52He meant going with a Jew and then he was going to continue on.

00:56:56He was just being specific.

00:56:57He was being specific.

00:56:59I'm just, thank God.

00:57:01We had Bertie Madoff and now his son is being indicted.

00:57:05Thank God Sandusky was not Sandustine.

00:57:08So, I'm just trying to think who else I'm glad isn't Jewish.

00:57:11Charles Manson.

00:57:13I wouldn't mind it if he was Jewish.

00:57:16Because we're not known as serial killers.

00:57:18So, I don't think that would have hurt our reputation.

00:57:20It wouldn't have hurt our reputation.

00:57:22I think if you...

00:57:23What about Jeffrey Dahmer?

00:57:25No, I think if they did...

00:57:26EA Treiff.

00:57:27I think...

00:57:28That's the difference, okay?

00:57:29I think Bernie Madoff is the worst.

00:57:32Bernie Madoff is the worst.

00:57:33Because he did...

00:57:34Because it was money.

00:57:35Yes.

00:57:36Exactly.

00:57:37So, I think if you...

00:57:38If Bernie Madoff had killed people, like, I don't know, Roman Polanski or something,

00:57:43I don't think people would hate the Jews for that.

00:57:46I...

00:57:47I really don't know what you're saying.

00:57:49You know what it's like now?

00:57:50It's like I'm on a bad balloon trip over Italy.

00:57:53And you're on my...

00:57:54You're the one person I'm with.

00:57:55And I didn't know you.

00:57:56I really liked you until we got on it.

00:57:58And now you made no sense.

00:57:59But it's a long ride and we're gonna have fun.

00:58:02We're often in the room where we're the only Jew.

00:58:06And most of the time I don't notice it.

00:58:09But sometimes I just sort of get a shiver and it's like, fuck, I'm the only Jew in the room.

00:58:14I'm frequently the only Jew in the room.

00:58:17And I'm the only one who cares.

00:58:19And that's what's changed.

00:58:21You know, in the 30s, if my father was the only Jew in the room, he'd be looking for the exit.

00:58:26Right.

00:58:27This is no longer the case.

00:58:28In fact, if anything, maybe it's something that makes us just exotic enough to be interesting.

00:58:33But it's no longer a matter of survival.

00:58:36Not in North America.

00:58:37Not in Toronto.

00:58:38Not in a middle class environment.

00:58:41Certainly not in show business.

00:58:43I know what you mean about the tam, the taste, I think is the word for it.

00:58:47Right.

00:58:48You want to sit in a deli.

00:58:50You want to hear these people yapping at, like, full volume and full speed, full throttle, complaining, because that's the essence of Jewish humor is to kvetch, to complain.

00:59:02And it's not happening anymore, because we don't have to complain, because we're powerful enough now to do what we want, and to get what we want.

00:59:10That's the death of humor.

00:59:12Yeah.

00:59:13That's so depressing, what you just said.

00:59:15It's weird that it's depressing, that it came, we...

00:59:19We won.

00:59:20That's the problem.

00:59:21Yeah.

00:59:22We won.

00:59:23You know, tonight, ladies and gentlemen, you're looking at a guy who's been married for 34 years, and I'm still in love with the same woman.

00:59:29My wife ever finds out she killed me.

00:59:34Now, you take my wife.

00:59:35Please, you all know that she killed me.

00:59:37I'll never forget our wedding night.

00:59:38God knows I've tried, but...

00:59:42There she was in one corner of the room of the lingerie, I was in the other corner with a chair and a whip.

00:59:48My wife went to the beauty parlor, she got a mud pack for two days, she looked nuts.

00:59:52Then the mud fell off.

00:59:54She puts this mud on her face before going to bed at night.

00:59:56I said, goodnight, swamp.

00:59:59She ran after the garbage man. Am I too late for the garbage?

01:00:01She says, no, jump in.

01:00:04Man, do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who'll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness?

01:00:09It means you're in the wrong house, that's what it means.

01:00:12A man goes to visit his mother in Century Village.

01:00:15And, uh, she's 92 and he's decided it's finally time to tell his mother that he's gay.

01:00:22So, he tells his mother, you know, that he's a homosexual.

01:00:25And his mother just, she just looks at him, she says, you're a homosexual?

01:00:30Does that mean that you put your mouth on another man's private part?

01:00:37And, uh, he says, yes, it does.

01:00:40And she says, you'll do that, but you won't even try my kishka.

01:00:43My mother was, you know, very interested in Eastern philosophy and, you know, if it's Tuesday, it must be Ram Dass.

01:00:51My mother wasn't your typical Jewish mother.

01:00:53Interestingly, my father kind of personifies the, I mean, he's incredibly cheap and, you know, we go to a restaurant and my father gets very tense.

01:01:03You know, and he just looks at me and me and my sisters and he'll be like, all right, no tricks, which I don't know what he means.

01:01:09Like, like I'm going to order crab cakes, you know?

01:01:14Yeah.

01:01:15He's terrified that we're going to order an appetizer at a main course.

01:01:19He just, he goes crazy.

01:01:20Like, and if you do, he's like, what are you, a truck driver?

01:01:22You need that much food?

01:01:24It's easier when you share a common background.

01:01:28And that's, that's part of the reason why I like marrying a Jew.

01:01:31Also, I'd really like to complain.

01:01:33And they, they, they're at my level of complaining.

01:01:36You know, when I've dated Gentiles, they would be shocked that everything was like, you know, we ran out of tinfoil, is up there with, we're being.

01:01:43We're being audited.

01:01:44And I, you know, only another Jewish person can relate to that.

01:01:48And, you know, that's very comforting and sexy, you know, for me at least.

01:01:52I mean, you know, that's sort of funny.

01:01:54I mean, when we were looking at names, my wife, my wife's not Jewish.

01:01:58She said a certain name.

01:01:59I can't remember what it was.

01:02:01And without even thinking, I said, Tukoyish.

01:02:03Like, I can't have that name in my house.

01:02:05Of course, you know.

01:02:06And then she said, like, sort of like, how do you get to play the Jew card?

01:02:12You don't go to shul.

01:02:14You don't do this.

01:02:15And it's like, no, but I'm Jewish.

01:02:19I'm Jewish because certain names would make me sad.

01:02:25I couldn't have a daughter named whatever.

01:02:28Dylan.

01:02:29Priscilla.

01:02:30I don't know what it was.

01:02:32What are your kids' names?

01:02:34My son is Rufus.

01:02:37And my daughter is Ariel.

01:02:39Those aren't Jewish names.

01:02:41They're not Jewish names.

01:02:42But they're not that goyish.

01:02:43They have Yiddish names?

01:02:44So basically, you're making a film because you feel guilty that you married a Gentile.

01:02:49That you didn't raise your daughter Jewish.

01:02:51You didn't give her a bat mitzvah.

01:02:53I don't know that we can solve all your problems.

01:02:55You know what I'm saying?

01:02:56I don't know.

01:02:57I think what you probably should do is next, you have a year.

01:03:01You have a year.

01:03:02Next, young kipper, you know, atone for it.

01:03:08Internally, really atone for it.

01:03:10All right, I am a Jewish mother.

01:03:13And my parenting skills, which I unfortunately got from my parents.

01:03:19But the one thing that I've taught my kids is, now my kids can say anything abusive, horrible,

01:03:29awful to me, and they won't get in trouble if it's funny.

01:03:33In my house, funny trumps everything.

01:03:36So, an example, you know, they named a sandwich after me at the Carnegie Deli last year.

01:03:41And I went home.

01:03:42I was very excited.

01:03:43So I went home to my son, Henry.

01:03:45I said, oh my God, guess what?

01:03:46They're naming the sandwich after me at the Carnegie Deli.

01:03:49And I'm so excited.

01:03:50And he says to me, oh, what are they going to call it?

01:03:53The Who's Judy Gold?

01:03:56And I was like, okay.

01:03:59No punishment.

01:04:00That was good.

01:04:01But then he says, what are they going to put on it?

01:04:04Expired meat.

01:04:05I was like, get to your room.

01:04:06That sucked.

01:04:07No computer.

01:04:08Okay.

01:04:09It is an amazing thing when you grow up in a Jewish household where everyone's trying

01:04:15to one-up each other.

01:04:17And you go out in the real world and you say something, someone says something and you

01:04:22make a glib remark and they're like, what?

01:04:25It's sad that people who are not sort of Jew savvy.

01:04:34Is that, would that be?

01:04:35Jew savvy.

01:04:36And people that don't know the Jewish culture would think, you know, you're negative instead

01:04:44of funny.

01:04:45That they can't even open their mind to say, no, that's, that is actually really, really

01:04:50funny.

01:04:51I mean, it's, it's incredible to me that people can't see the humor in everything.

01:04:56The thing is, I think most Jews see the humor in every situation, no matter how morose.

01:05:05Look, Jews are realistic.

01:05:07We're not, I don't say we're negative.

01:05:09I mean, we are, yes, there are negative Jews.

01:05:12We're realistic.

01:05:13I've never really heard a Jew say when you say, hey, how you doing?

01:05:16Can't complain.

01:05:17My grandparents, like all four of them were hilarious.

01:05:22They lost their entire family in the Holocaust.

01:05:25How could you not be hilarious?

01:05:27My parents are painfully unfunny.

01:05:31They were content.

01:05:32Content isn't funny.

01:05:33Goyim are content.

01:05:35Jewish audiences are, are insanely critical.

01:05:38They, they, we love to criticize.

01:05:40They love to go to a show and leave the show and go, I didn't care for it.

01:05:44I have a thing I should show you and it's here somewhere.

01:05:47I played the Catskills, which is the Mecca for comedy, especially Jewish comedy.

01:05:52But in, in, and they knew that.

01:05:54They knew that I was at the Concord and I have a, I have a menu from the Concord from the weekend

01:06:00and it says brisket, soup, Howie Mandel.

01:06:03I'm on the menu.

01:06:05Comedy is like part of the, it's like part of the weekend.

01:06:08You eat and then you laugh.

01:06:11Laughter is part of the Jewish diet.

01:06:13So now my question is, I don't know where to go to get my hit of Jewishness.

01:06:20Cause I don't feel it from our generation.

01:06:23You don't feel, you, you know what?

01:06:26So this film is about where you can get in touch with that, that Jewish kind of comedy or the Jewish feeling that you had.

01:06:36It's still there.

01:06:37We just have different accents now.

01:06:39Everybody I know that is in this business, and those are the people that I know that are in this business, they kvetch.

01:06:46You know, we still kvetch.

01:06:48We just don't say kvetching.

01:06:50We don't say that word.

01:06:51There's not a lot of people to use the ch sound around anymore.

01:06:54That's what we're missing.

01:06:55It's just the accent.

01:06:56We're the same people.

01:06:57We complain, we eat, and we're funny.

01:07:01Okay.

01:07:02Those are the three life forces of Judaism.

01:07:06I play Scrabble on Facebook.

01:07:08Right.

01:07:09And, you know, it rejects words that aren't in the dictionary.

01:07:12So you can't put Italian.

01:07:14You couldn't put Finn.

01:07:15You couldn't put Indian.

01:07:17You couldn't put Muslim.

01:07:18But you can put Jew.

01:07:19So I'm thinking, well, why Jew?

01:07:22Cause it's a verb.

01:07:25It's the only possible reason.

01:07:27They don't allow any proper names.

01:07:30There's no capital letter, name, words in Scrabble.

01:07:34You can't put Canadian.

01:07:35You can't put Christian.

01:07:37You can put Jew.

01:07:38Because it's a verb.

01:07:40But just so you know, to Jew, it doesn't mean to study hard and then share your knowledge with society.

01:07:47It doesn't mean to make a nice meal and take it over to a sick person when they're at home.

01:07:52I know.

01:07:53I thought maybe it meant that.

01:07:54No.

01:07:55It means to rip somebody off.

01:07:56To cheat them.

01:07:58Do you think being Jewish is, for us, deeper ingrained in our bones than other cultures are for other people, like being Finnish?

01:08:12I don't know.

01:08:13How would I know?

01:08:14Well, I mean, by looking around...

01:08:16Well, here's one way...

01:08:17What?

01:08:18My vast Finnish group that I hang out with?

01:08:21My many Finnish friends?

01:08:22Well, okay.

01:08:23Here's how I look at it.

01:08:25There are 13 million Jews.

01:08:28There are...

01:08:29I'm going to be conservative now and not be exaggerated.

01:08:32There are 100,000 books basically called to be a Jew.

01:08:39I don't think there's 100 books called.

01:08:42What does it mean to be a Finn?

01:08:44Right.

01:08:45But they live in Finland for the most part.

01:08:47I mean, Finland's a place.

01:08:49Right.

01:08:50Jews don't have a place.

01:08:52Jews, our culture is portable.

01:08:54That's the whole point.

01:08:55There is no Jew land.

01:08:57Whatever they want to say about our biblical rights to Israel, it is not Jew land.

01:09:02Jews are a dispersed culture that we carry in a book and we talk about and is passed on between us wherever else we happen to be.

01:09:13So you're...

01:09:14Okay.

01:09:15But I mean, that is a really interesting distinction of culture and a place, but most places think they're cultures.

01:09:23Well, they're allowed.

01:09:25But they're...

01:09:26Most places, you're saying, aren't cultures.

01:09:29I'm saying that Rome today is a very different culture than Rome when Caesar was in charge.

01:09:36Right.

01:09:37I mean, it is not even close to the same thing.

01:09:40Whereas we are...

01:09:42Whereas we are pretty much the same as we were when Caesar was in charge.

01:09:48Jews were sarcastic.

01:09:50I have no doubt about it.

01:09:53Because we're the arguing people.

01:09:55It's built into our culture for sure.

01:09:57I mean, you know, you call an idiot Chachem.

01:10:00You know?

01:10:01Right.

01:10:02If somebody says he's a real Chachem, even though it literally translates as smart person, it means idiot.

01:10:07That's how we live, right?

01:10:09Good thinking, Einstein.

01:10:11That never means you're smart like Einstein.

01:10:13That means you're stupid, unlike Einstein.

01:10:16Oh.

01:10:17So you noticed, huh, Sherlock?

01:10:19That doesn't mean you're the great detective.

01:10:22It means you're a moron.

01:10:23Everybody can see that.

01:10:25It's just the way we're trained.

01:10:27I mean...

01:10:28And was that...

01:10:29What does that have to do with that they always wanted to kill us?

01:10:34I don't...

01:10:35Like, what...

01:10:36I'm just...

01:10:37You know what?

01:10:38Basically, I'm just asking you to explain the Jewish soul.

01:10:41Where would smart ass come out of being victimized?

01:10:45Yeah.

01:10:46Because that's all you can do.

01:10:48Because the only power you have is to be a smart ass.

01:10:51I mean, it makes perfect sense that, you know, you're downtrodden and in real terms of power and life and death, you have nothing.

01:11:00But on a personal, interpersonal level, you can still be somebody because, you know, you're a smart ass.

01:11:08How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

01:11:10I hope you don't mind if I'm not too hilarious right now.

01:11:12I'm in bad shape.

01:11:13Do you know that I was almost drafted?

01:11:15I wanted a fight.

01:11:16It would be my pleasure to fight.

01:11:17But you know what they called me?

01:11:18In the middle of a war.

01:11:20Not that I'm a pacifist or a conscientious objector.

01:11:23I don't believe in that.

01:11:24But I'm afraid.

01:11:25Not guns.

01:11:27Guns don't disturb me.

01:11:28Bullets.

01:11:29I want my country to have the best.

01:11:32Not guys like me.

01:11:33I told them there's a war going on.

01:11:35Is this a time to learn a trade?

01:11:36I gave them a good idea how they could win this whole war without me.

01:11:41The prisons in this country are full of murderers.

01:11:43People who love to kill.

01:11:44That's all they got to do is kill people.

01:11:45They sit in the prisons.

01:11:46They're doing nothing.

01:11:47They could be out killing people.

01:11:49But don't take them.

01:11:50You got professionals.

01:11:51What do you need me?

01:11:52I'm not even an amateur.

01:11:53First of all, the government could save a fortune of money with them.

01:11:56They got their own guns.

01:11:58They got their own bullets.

01:12:00They know how to march.

01:12:01They're already numb, but just open the doors.

01:12:03They sent a guy like me to the army to join me in.

01:12:07The Germans see me.

01:12:08Are they going to shoot at anybody else?

01:12:10Thank God they don't know where I am.

01:12:12I'm going to go looking for them.

01:12:14Can I tell you my favorite Jewish show?

01:12:17I was just going to ask you.

01:12:18Go ahead.

01:12:19My single all-time favorite Jewish show.

01:12:22This captures the total spirit of sense of absurdity.

01:12:28And all of it is Jewish.

01:12:31And you know it as soon as I'm going to tell it.

01:12:33It's the one where he's sitting there going,

01:12:35Oy, am I toast?

01:12:37You know it, right?

01:12:38Okay.

01:12:39So that's my favorite joke.

01:12:40Okay.

01:12:41Well, it's only because somebody already told that in the film.

01:12:43Do you have enough?

01:12:44Oh, did they?

01:12:45Yeah.

01:12:46Well, I like the jokes.

01:12:47I just like to tell the punchlines because everybody knows all the jokes.

01:12:51Okay.

01:12:52So why is?

01:12:53I like the kind of jokes like look who thinks he's nothing, you know.

01:12:57Okay.

01:12:58I like that he was wearing a hat.

01:13:00Tell the look who thinks he's nothing.

01:13:03The day before Kol Nidre, the synagogue is empty except for the rabbi and the cantor

01:13:11and the gabbi who is essentially, you know, an administrator, a janitor, you know, whatever,

01:13:16a guy who's a junior person who works in the synagogue.

01:13:20And in the emptiness and in the quiet of the synagogue before the congregation arrives,

01:13:26the rabbi goes up to the bimah.

01:13:28What's the English word for the bimah?

01:13:30The front.

01:13:31What?

01:13:32Yeah, the pulpit.

01:13:33And he prostrates himself in front of, you know, the ark in front of the Torahs.

01:13:38And he pounds his chest and he goes, oh, Lord, oh, God, you know, compared to your greatness,

01:13:43I am nothing.

01:13:44I am nothing.

01:13:45I am nothing.

01:13:46I am nothing.

01:13:47Compared to your might and to your wonder, I am nothing.

01:13:49I am nothing.

01:13:50I am nothing.

01:13:51I am nothing.

01:13:52I am nothing.

01:13:53I am nothing.

01:13:54I am nothing.

01:13:55And the gabbi is so inspired by this that up he goes to where, you know, it's not his place.

01:14:02He does the same thing.

01:14:03Oh, Lord, compared to your greatness, your mighty, your wonder, your power, I am nothing.

01:14:07I am nothing.

01:14:08I am nothing.

01:14:09And the rabbi turns to the cantor and says, look who thinks he's nothing.

01:14:15I am nothing.

01:14:16I'll tell you the funniest thing in the world.

01:14:18And it's timing.

01:14:19It's timing.

01:14:20And Jews have this type of time.

01:14:22This is like, I'm at a Shabbat dinner in Brooklyn.

01:14:29And they sit me next to this guy who is a survivor of the Holocaust.

01:14:32Old man.

01:14:33He's wearing a short-sleeved shirt.

01:14:35You see the numbers and everything.

01:14:39And a conversation began at the table about the synagogue.

01:14:43And somebody in the synagogue who moved the chair and didn't put it back or borrowed a book.

01:14:49And it was nonsense.

01:14:50Nonsense.

01:14:51This old man out of nowhere picks his head out of the soup and in Yiddish says,

01:14:58I remember him from the lager.

01:15:02Which means, I remember him from the lager, from the death camps.

01:15:07From the death camps.

01:15:08Now you have to understand now, the whole room is like, he's got our attention.

01:15:13Like, the floor is yours, right?

01:15:15And he says this in Yiddish.

01:15:17It was the funniest thing.

01:15:18You're talking about, they're talking about a guy in this synagogue who must be a hundred years old also.

01:15:23Who took a book and didn't bring it back.

01:15:25Nonsense, right?

01:15:26So the guy goes,

01:15:31I remember him from the Auschwitz or whatever death camp they were at together.

01:15:35And he begins to tell the story.

01:15:38He goes,

01:15:39There was a night.

01:15:40There was a night.

01:15:41I had a potato.

01:15:43I had a potato.

01:15:44He didn't have a potato.

01:15:46I gave him my potato.

01:15:49Right?

01:15:50And we're all listening to this.

01:15:52And he takes the perfect pause and says,

01:15:55If I'd have known back then he'd be doing the things he's doing today, I wouldn't have given him the potato.

01:16:02These people were from the old country.

01:16:03That's the thing that we forget.

01:16:04They were from a different country.

01:16:06When they came and then all of a sudden there was some success.

01:16:11And then there was the annexation where they moved from the cities to the suburbs.

01:16:15That was the beginning of the end.

01:16:17That was the beginning of the end of the culture, of the community.

01:16:20The community.

01:16:21Right.

01:16:22So in a way I can never recapture that because those people are gone.

01:16:28You can recapture it by telling stories about those people.

01:16:31To people that didn't know those people.

01:16:33I think that there are a lot of funny Jews.

01:16:36And I think that Jews are funny.

01:16:38I think that the culture is funny.

01:16:40I think that it's based on humor.

01:16:42It's based on turning things upside down and looking inward.

01:16:45Which is always funny.

01:16:46This is Jewish.

01:16:47This is very Jewish.

01:16:48What we're doing here is extremely...

01:16:50This is about a 99 on the Jew scale.

01:16:54There's a Jew-mometer.

01:16:56And this is like a 99 degrees.

01:16:58If I was interrupting you more, it would go to 100.

01:17:01You should be interrupting me a lot more.

01:17:02You should be flailing.

01:17:04You should be...

01:17:05And hold on.

01:17:07That's not what I'm talking about.

01:17:09What I'm talking about is yesterday.

01:17:11Not today.

01:17:12Because I'm not present.

01:17:13That's the other thing.

01:17:14Don't be present.

01:17:15If you're going to be a Jew, you had better live in the past.

01:17:19If you're present, you're not a Jew.

01:17:22If you're in the future, you're a Jew.

01:17:25If you're in the past, you're a Jew.

01:17:26If you're in the present, you are not a Jew.

01:17:28And that's how you evaluate it.

01:17:30So is your wife Jewish?

01:17:32No comment.

01:17:33Yeah, no, she is.

01:17:34She is.

01:17:35So your kid is Jewish?

01:17:36My child is Jewish.

01:17:37So you have no...

01:17:38So do you think your child is going to grow up and have phlegm?

01:17:44Have phlegm.

01:17:46My child already has phlegm.

01:17:48My child is an 85-year-old man.

01:17:50And she's a girl.

01:17:51Which is ironic.

01:17:52And she has a beard.

01:17:53No, she's eight.

01:17:55But she's amazing.

01:17:56But I'll tell you how Jewish she is already.

01:17:58She doesn't remotely realize it.

01:18:00And she hasn't been indoctrinated into a lot of Hebrew school or temple or...

01:18:04A little bit, but not a lot.

01:18:06She...

01:18:07I tell her stories about my life.

01:18:08I told her since she was a baby.

01:18:10And I'll be eating dinner.

01:18:11We'll be sitting at the table.

01:18:12And she will walk across the table.

01:18:14And come down.

01:18:15And look in my eye.

01:18:16And she'll say,

01:18:17Tell them the story about the time you stole the salami.

01:18:21You were three.

01:18:22And then she'll go back over there.

01:18:23And she'll say,

01:18:24Make it funny.

01:18:25Funny story.

01:18:27I mean, she's eight.

01:18:31So is she Jewish?

01:18:33Yeah, probably.

01:18:34I was seriously worried that my mother-in-law was going to secretly baptize.

01:18:41My daughter.

01:18:42Okay.

01:18:43Well, that says everything.

01:18:44If you were worried that your mother-in-law was going to secretly baptize.

01:18:47That says everything I need to say.

01:18:49I don't know if I'm ever going to have that problem.

01:18:51What, my mother-in-law is going to secretly circumcise my kid?

01:18:54And we did it.

01:18:55We did it in front of the 80 people with whitefish.

01:18:57It was fine.

01:18:58It was easy.

01:18:59Yeah.

01:19:00See, I mean, to me, when people ask me, how will your daughter be Jewish?

01:19:06I think maybe she'll be Jewish because she'll be sarcastic.

01:19:10That's about all I can think.

01:19:12Do you like fried onions?

01:19:13Well, she's not even two.

01:19:15Oh, she's not even two.

01:19:16Oh, you still have time.

01:19:18To make her more Jewish?

01:19:20No, but you still have time.

01:19:21You still have a lot of time to sort of what you want to show her.

01:19:25Yeah, I don't know what I want to show her.

01:19:27That's the thing.

01:19:28I don't know, in the absence of Israel and synagogue, how can I make her Jewish?

01:19:34So go light.

01:19:35Do a JCC preschool.

01:19:36Do a summer camp where they, you know, on Friday they have challah.

01:19:40That's it.

01:19:41Give her a little something.

01:19:43Do you know Camper Ma?

01:19:44You don't have to go that far.

01:19:46Why does it always have to be black and white?

01:19:49I mean, again, that's what's great about, you know, that's what's great about being Jewish.

01:19:53You can decide how little or how much.

01:19:57I think true Judaism means that you are always free to question.

01:20:04And you, oh, the learning never ends.

01:20:07I mean, that's the tenant of being a Jew.

01:20:09And the great thing about being a comedian is the learning never ends.

01:20:12The questions are always there.

01:20:13That's all we do is we ask questions, you know.

01:20:15What's up with that?

01:20:16You know, have you ever noticed this?

01:20:18Why are we doing this?

01:20:19Who would do that?

01:20:20When you see a Hasidim on the street, you know, on a street corner on Saturday standing

01:20:25there because they've got to walk everywhere, having a conversation, all you assume is like,

01:20:28that must be important.

01:20:29No, it's not.

01:20:30They could be talking about where they're going to eat lunch.

01:20:32But it seems like there's a tradition of discourse, of debate, of like, what?

01:20:38That's not right.

01:20:39Why are you telling me it's not right?

01:20:40It doesn't seem right to me.

01:20:42What would God think?

01:20:43That's a good question.

01:20:44Let's figure out what would God think?

01:20:45How is that not going to end up funny eventually?

01:20:47You know, I find familiarity, you know, and I find comforting a lot of times.

01:20:51But I'm also horrendously annoyed when Jews are too Jew-y.

01:20:57But, you know.

01:20:59And what is it?

01:21:00Okay, so.

01:21:01It's just annoying in the Jew-y way.

01:21:03You know, and I imagine I see part of myself in it.

01:21:05You know, but I've talked to people that almost it's like they're playing a Jewish character.

01:21:10Right.

01:21:11You know, like, you know, they're like, I don't know.

01:21:13Maybe I should.

01:21:14I'm like, are you really like that?

01:21:16I think after a while they get like that, don't you think?

01:21:18Well, that's how we opened this thing.

01:21:20Is that going to happen to you?

01:21:21I don't know.

01:21:22I don't know.

01:21:23I mean, I grunt.

01:21:26I have a two-year-old daughter who grunts.

01:21:28You have a two-year-old?

01:21:29How old are you?

01:21:3061.

01:21:31How's that going?

01:21:33I love it.

01:21:35First kid?

01:21:36Yeah.

01:21:37How do you like that?

01:21:39I don't have any kids.

01:21:40I ask you for personal reasons.

01:21:41Yeah.

01:21:42Not judging you.

01:21:43I've always wanted them.

01:21:44My girlfriend wants one and I don't have any and I'm 49.

01:21:46But, you know, you provide me hope, I guess.

01:21:48You know, where are you going to go at 50 or 60?

01:21:51And you're like, you know, what the fuck do my life mean really?

01:21:53You know, how do I figure out what that meaning is?

01:21:56So are you going to have a kid?

01:21:57Are you going to get reconnected with some sort of faith?

01:21:59If you walk into a synagogue or you go into a deli where you call that Jew that you knew from high school,

01:22:04are you going to feel comforted?

01:22:06Hell yes, you are.

01:22:07Are you going to resent it?

01:22:08Yeah.

01:22:09Is that resentment going to diminish a little as you get older?

01:22:11Probably.

01:22:12Look, if you're going to, you know, hang your faith on something with the kind of mindset you have or that I have,

01:22:17it's not going to be, you know, conventional.

01:22:21Right.

01:22:22You know, look, if you don't believe in God, you don't believe in God.

01:22:24But you clearly believe in Jews.

01:22:27So this is what it is.

01:22:30This is the conversation that you want me to have with you.

01:22:33Any conversation.

01:22:34In my Jewishness.

01:22:35And the fact that I do Jewish comedy.

01:22:37No, not Jewish comedy.

01:22:38All right.

01:22:39The fact that I'm a Jew who does comedy.

01:22:41No, no.

01:22:42Just that you're a Jew.

01:22:44Yes, I'm a Jew.

01:22:47What?

01:22:48Well, okay, and...

01:22:50But I somehow wound up doing comedy.

01:22:57But I am proud of my background.

01:22:59And I will say that.

01:23:01But that's as far as I can go with it.

01:23:05I can't keep living it.

01:23:08Okay.

01:23:09Um...

01:23:10When I do meet someone who can speak mamalotion, when I can hear that, when I can hear just a few words, I know I can communicate with this individual.

01:23:26Something lovely is happening.

01:23:27Something lovely is happening.

01:23:29Because we're remembering stuff that meant so much to us in one time in our lives.

01:23:41If your bubby made you laugh, you would tell people that.

01:23:45If your Zadie made you laugh, that was very rare.

01:23:48Every time you say a word of Yiddish, it just sort of...

01:23:52Whatever.

01:23:53It, like, warms my heart.

01:23:55And I'm just...

01:23:57You know...

01:23:58I don't think there's an answer to this.

01:24:00I'm just coming to talk to people.

01:24:02I don't say...

01:24:03Nobody can bring my parents back.

01:24:05But I'm just saying...

01:24:08I'm a little surprised that...

01:24:13Like, I'm 60, right?

01:24:15I'm an old Jew now.

01:24:17But I'm not an old Jew like my...

01:24:20When my bubby was 60, she was...

01:24:23Much older.

01:24:24She was older and she was...

01:24:26You know...

01:24:27Everything was.

01:24:28It couldn't wait.

01:24:29Like, everything.

01:24:30She couldn't give you a straight answer.

01:24:32Everything was a complaint, even if things were good.

01:24:36I'm not...

01:24:37I'm a little Jewish, but I'm not like that.

01:24:40And my daughter is not going to even be this much Jewish.

01:24:45You know, that's all I'm wanting to talk about, you know.

01:24:49What about your kids?

01:24:51Are they...

01:24:52Are they going to be old Jews?

01:24:53Or are they just going to be older people who are Jewish?

01:24:59I have a daughter...

01:25:03Who is not going to be an old Jew.

01:25:06She's hardly a today's Jew.

01:25:10And, uh...

01:25:14I had a son...

01:25:16Which...

01:25:18Tragically, we lost...

01:25:20Before his 13th birthday.

01:25:23I'm sorry to hear that.

01:25:25Uh...

01:25:26Boy, that was a toughie.

01:25:29And, uh...

01:25:30But, uh...

01:25:31Still...

01:25:32But, uh...

01:25:33Still...

01:25:34What are they still?

01:25:40In all of the small people,

01:25:42we should have been to the first time.

01:25:46We should have been born,

01:25:49we should have been born.

01:25:51We should have been to the first time.

01:25:56Slutsk is slutsk,

01:25:58my students,

01:26:00I am a member of you.

01:26:04And as if you find a heart,

01:26:06Oh, you're doing a good job, honey.

01:26:32Keeley, you want some more soup?

01:26:36Oh, you're doing a good job.

01:27:06What does that song mean?

01:27:28The town that I grew up in, I'm missing.

01:27:33Schlitzk is the name of the town.

01:27:36Shtetale is the town.

01:27:38That should be the theme song of my film.

01:27:40Toronto is still there, but the town, in my heart, is gone.

01:27:45I just hope I get a call tomorrow.

01:27:51The sound wasn't working.

01:27:54The stinky, I mean, it's just, can we do it again?

01:27:57Can we come back and do it again?

01:27:58What would the answer be?

01:28:00Oh, how long have you been married?

01:28:03Uh, three years.

01:28:05No, really.

01:28:06Really?

01:28:07And you have kids?

01:28:08I have a one and a half year old, and I'm 60.

01:28:11What do you have to say about that?

01:28:14Is she Jewish?

01:28:15No.

01:28:16Croatian.

01:28:17Are you?

01:28:18Come on.

01:28:18That's the end of your whole movie.

01:28:21There it is.

01:28:23No.

01:28:24Mr. Macher, Mr. Jew, Mr. Marry's a 38-year-old Croatian,

01:28:30and as a year-and-a-half-old Croatian kid,

01:28:33and you're 60?

01:28:36Hmm, yeah.

01:28:37That could be the end.

01:28:38Oh.

When Jews Were Funny _ Full Documentary - Marc Maron, Bob Einstein

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