02/17/2025
Saturday Night Live just celebrated their 50th anniversary with a 3 hour special on NBC. The list of Jews associated with the show over the years is substantial, starting with producer and creator of the show Lorne Michaels, and including Gilda Radner and Laraine Newman in the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players cast. Other Jewish cast members have included Paul Shaffer, Al Franken, Billy Crystal, Ben Stiller, Rachel Dratz, Adam Sandler, Sarah Silverman, Andy Samberg, and Sarah Sherman. And many Jews can be found among the writers, musicians, and other staffers of SNL. There have been many sketches with Jewish themes and Jewish characters. Among these are Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song, Vanessa Bayer’s character Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy, Sarah Sherman as Jewish Elvis, Gilda Radner selling Jewess Jeans, and writer Robert Smigel’s video Christmastime For The Jews, featuring Darlene Love. Among the lyrics she sang were the lines, They can finally see King Kong without waiting in line/They can eat in Chinatown and drink their sweet-ass wine/They can crank Barbra Streisand on the streets they cruise/Christmastime for the Jews. Which of the following was a less memorable Jewish-themed Saturday Night Live sketch?
Saturday Night Live main stage by Steven Dahlman is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
A. Sabra Price Is Right in 1992, with Tom Hanks playing an Israeli gameshow host, Uri Shurinson, broadcasting from 47th Street in New York City. Hanks asks contestants to guess the price of items such as a clock radio, but after he goads them to a higher number, they learn they have in fact bid on the items and now must pay for them.
B. In his 2019 hosting appearance, John Mulaney appeared as Josh Kleinberg in a sketch called Summer in the Catskills, along with Chloe Fineman as his wife Sarah, and their children Beth and Davey, played by Melissa Villaseñor and Mikey Day. The sketch featured the Kleinberg family visiting an amusement park in the Catskills, where they played Whac-a-Bagel, a game based on Whac-a-Mole. In this case, the characters had mallets which they used to smash bagel sandwiches which popped up before them, leading to everyone hysterically breaking character as they were covered by bagel bits, pieces of lox, schmears of cream cheese, and other bagel sandwich detritus.
C. In 1988, Dana Carvey, playing his recurring character Enid Strict, known as Church Lady, sat down with her Jewish neighbor Theodore Goldstein, known as Temple Teddy. In their conversation, Church Lady asks Temple Teddy if he wants to go get dinner. When he says “No, I don’t date non-Jewish ladies, and anyway I have a girl friend, our neighbor Sadie,” Church Lady responds, “Well, isn’t that special?”.
D. The sketch My Son the Doctor featured Rachel Dratch as the receptionist and mother of Dr. David Sheinblum, played by Chris Parnell, in the 2004 season. Patients would come in to be seen, and Rachel would check them in saying, “Don’t you worry, my bubbeleh is going to take good care of you.” She would then walk in on the examinations bringing a tray of rugelach to her son and the patient, saying, “Eat. It's good for you.”
E. An episode in 2001 of the recurring sketch NPR’s Delicious Dish, featuring Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer as NPR hosts. In this sketch, the hosts interview Alec Baldwin as baker Pete Schweddy and Jon Lovitz as Mel the Mohel in a sketch called Schweddy Balls meet Mel the Mohel.
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