Television
From Gilda Radner to Adam Sandler to Will Ferrell, these sketches feature the best of the best.
NBC/Kveller collage
This year we got “Saturday Night,” a movie about the origins of “Saturday Night Live” that paid tribute to the Jewish roots of the show. The film put the spotlight on Canadian Jewish showrunner Lorne Michaels (born Lorne Lipowitz) and the Jewish comedy writers who changed TV history forever. So to keep up with that theme, this feels like a good year to celebrate all the ways the show made Hanukkah funny in America throughout the years.
These are our favorite “Saturday Night Live” Hanukkah sketches. Get ready to laugh along with us!
No song has redefined the way Hanukkah is perceived in America more than Adam Sandler’s 1994 “Hanukkah Song.” The tune, inspired by Sandler’s melancholy as the only Jewish kid around not celebrating Christmas and only having that one “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel” holiday song, not only channels that very really Jewish struggle, but also leans into one of our favorite pastimes as a people: Pointing out famous Jews, from Henry Winkler, to Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. The song did include some Jewish misinformation, though: Hall of Famer Rod Carew is not Jewish! His first wife and children are, but he hit Sandler up to let him know that while he was a fan of the tune, he hadn’t converted. He was omitted from later versions of the iconic song.
In this Hanukkah sketch, Gilda Radner plays a Jewish housewife inviting her husband’s non-Jewish boss and his wife over for Hanukkah, and she and the cast retell and reenact the story of Hanukkah for their benefit. Once the story is told, Radner — in a tall wig — lights the menorah and recites the Hebrew prayer over the candles. Amid all the laughter, Radner, who is Jewish, is clearly moved by reciting those words for what may have been the first time on live television and you can see the paths of tears on her face as she finishes saying the blessings. It’s definitely the most moving Hanukkah sketch to have ever aired on SNL.
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If Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song” was inspired by the dearth of Hanukkah songs around, then this hilarious sketch tries to reinvent the genre by giving us melodramatic Hanukkah hymns that are so wonderfully funny, my kids have spent the past few days bellowing them through the house. I love Alec Baldwin’s commitment to pronouncing the chet in Hanukkah, I love Anna Gasteyer’s singing about the menorah: “Burning, burning, burning, what a cheerful holiday.” I love Will Ferrell’s somber face as he sings “happy, happy Hanukkah,” though my favorite song may be “Do They Know It’s Hanukkah?” which laments “do they understand that it’s a different time each year??” (It’s on the same Jewish date each year, but on a different date in the Georgian calendar, just to clarify.) Maybe my favorite part is that out of everyone in this sketch, Chris Kattan is the only one with a Jewish parent.
We first meet Hanukkah Harry, the Haredi Santa Klaus played by Jewish SNL cast member Jon Lovitz, in “The Night Hanukkah Harry Saved Christmas,” a sketch jokingly “presented” by Hallmark and the ADL. He takes Santa’s place delivering presents to kids after the jolly Christmas icon gets a debilitating stomach virus. His sleigh is pulled by donkeys, instead of reindeer — Moische, Herschel and Schlomo. Is he one big Orthodox Jewish stereotype? Sure, but has he become part of Jewish American Hanukkah lore? Absolutely! That big greying beard, that fluffy blue hat, that Jewish New York accent? That fun jingle about his donkeys? They’re just as endearing as Santa. It’s no wonder he came back two years later to save Easter too, and even reminded the Easter Bunny that Jesus was Jewish.
The recurring Vanessa Bayer character, Jacob the Bar Mitzvah boy, the teenage son of Seth Meyers’ podiatrist, who is played in one skit by Billy Krystal, truly channels the nervousness of the most awkward of 13-year-olds trying to make it through a bar mitzvah speech. Jacob gives us a pretty thorough explanation of Hanukkah traditions, though none of them compare to an Xbox 360. Seth’s attempts to engage him in any conversation that starts from the printed text are fruitless, but Jacob does get weepy when he realizes that he has to say goodbye to Seth who is leaving SNL. The way Bayer surreptitiously wipes tears young stoic teen style gets me every time.
I love this third SNL reprise of the “Hanukkah Song.” It features an excellent audiovisual presentation of the Jewish stars mentioned in the song, like “Friends” stars Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer, an actual fellow famous Jew Rob Schneider on stage and a choir of Jewish kids who sing along with this new list of exciting famous Jews — what’s not to love?
Jeff Bridges plays a rabbi in this SNL Jewish parody of “It’s a Wonderful Life” that takes place on Hanukkah instead of Christmas. It’s introduced by Ben Mankiewicz (played by Bill Hader) on Turner Classic Movies, as an imagined early version of the Christmas classic. Andy Samberg plays Moishe, a kvetchy neighbor who starts an argument about the best Jewish deli which is meant to last for 43 minutes of this original version. Kristen Wiig brings two type of rugelach and a chocolate babka and then complains about the lack coffee. Jeff Bridges reminds George Bailey, “the nicest goy in town,” that miracles do happen. It’s full of Jewish stereotypes but somehow, it still really works. Maybe it’s because Samberg’s Jewish accent is hilarious, or maybe hearing Jason Sudeikis as George Bailey yelling “Happy Hanukkah, Greenberg’s Delicatessen” just makes the whole sketch worth it .
Before Fred Armisen played an Orthodox Jew in the show “Difficult People,” and Kristen Wiig married a nice Jewish boy, the two sat with Michael Che at Weekend Update as songwriting pair Garth and Kat to ad-lib a Hanukkah album with the improvisational title “Hanukkah Is One of the Only Things That Sure to Know and Don’t We All.”
Every Hanukkah since it first came to be, the Cameo video of Smokey Robinson wishing someone “happy Chanukah” pronouncing the “ch” like you would in “cha-cha-cha” goes viral. It’s so wholesome and wonderful and perhaps a little surprising that the iconic Motown singer doesn’t know how to pronounce the Jewish holiday, and Chris Redd does a real fun job at poking fun at Robinson, talking about his plans to eat potato latchkeys and monster ball soup and telling Che that his mother can’t wait to see him on Chrimans AV.
My favorite SNL Hanukkah sketch isn’t actually a Hanukkah sketch at all, it’s the excellent “Christmas time by the Jews,” co-created by hilarious Jewish comedian Rob Smigel and sung by the legendary Darlene Love. I think it’s just because while it’s funny and out there (the circumcising squirrels part always gets me!), it’s such a fond portrait of what Jews actually do on Christmas in NYC.
Lior Zaltzman is the deputy managing editor of Kveller.
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