Jewish Humor

[on:]

There seems to be a lot of Jewish humor in Futurama.  I probably notice it more than other viewers because I'm Jewish and I spent some time studying Jewish lore.  Here are a few scenes I saw and wrote down:

1) In "The Cryonic Woman" the little girl does the count-down for the "Death Rowing" race in Hebrew.  She says, "ehad... shetayim... shalosh!"  This is techincally poor grammar because there are two sets of counting numbers in Hebrew, masculine and feminine, and she mixes them up.  It should have been, "ahat... shetayim... shalosh!"  Also, her accent is atrocious.  Oh well, I guess that's why those kids were in Hebrew school.

2) In "Futurestock" Fry and Bender attend the "Bot Mitzvah" banquet of the Goldborg family.  This is a play on words for "Bat Mitzvah," which is pronounced the same and is a Jewish coming-of-age ceremony for adolescent girls.  Above the banquet table is a sign written in Hebrew that says, "hayom atah robot" (today you are a robot).  This is a play on "hayom atah ish" (today you are a man), which would be said at a Bar Mitzvah (for boys).  Again, they technically got it wrong.  The word "robot" would be considered a foreign loanword in Hebrew and therefore should have been spelled according to the rules for using foreign loanwords.  In short, it should have been spelled with a letter "Tet" instead of a letter "Tav."  Like in English, there is sometimes more than one letter that can produce the same sound.  

3) In "Raging Bender" the movie theater the Planet Express crew attends is called the "Loews Aleph-Null-Plex."  Aleph-Null is a transifinite number.  I don't quite understand its mathematical properties.  It is named, however, after the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is Aleph.  In fact, when they write the name on the marquis, they use the Hebrew letter.  Aleph-Null was discovered by Jewish theoretician Georg Cantor (1845-1918).  

4) In "Episode Two: The Series Has Landed" Bender exclaims, "Next Year In Jerusalem!"  This is the concluding phrase to the annual Passover "seder" (Paschal supper), which is often said in English as well as Hebrew.  

5) In "Fry and the Slurm Factory" Dr. Zoidberg is seen wearing a t-shirt that says "Slurm" on it written in Hebrew letters.  Here, yet again, they got it slightly wrong.  They used a letter "Sin" to represent the letter "s" instead of the "Samekh" they should have used.  *sigh*  The joke seems to be that whenever tourists visit Israel, they love to get souvenir t-shirts with their favorite soft drink logo written in Hebrew.  I'm not sure what the big attraction is, but I've seen it happen hundreds of times.  

6) In "Fear of a Bot Planet" Bender celebrates "Robanukah."  This is obviously a goof on Chanukah.  Even though he made up this holiday himself just to get out of work, his friends don't seem to mind.  The funny thing is, at the party they play Klezmer music, which is a traditional Jewish folk music.  Incidentally, most religious Jews do not take off from work during the eight days of Chanukah.  

7) In "Hell Is Other Robots," Bender gets religion and his new attitude makes Fry suspicious.  Fry asks him whether this is "another scam to get free yarmulkas?"  That's the traditional Jewish headcovering or skullcap, also called a "kipah."  It makes me wonder, how many scams did Bender invent just to get free yarmulkas?  

8) In "A Tale of Two Santas" the Chanukah Zombie is mentioned (more than once) but not shown.  According to Kwanzaabot, the Chanukah Zombie hosts a luau, presumably for all the holiday monsters.  I wonder if they do the hula or the hora or both?  

9) In "Mars University" Bender helps Robot House to throw better parties because, as they put it, "even Hillel has better parties than we do!"  Hillel is sort of like the Jewish college fraternity.  The joke is: Hillel is run by Orthodox rabbis, therefore any parties they throw are bound to be tame by comparison to most others on a college campus.  

10) In "A Lesser of Two Evils" the Planet Express crew visits Past-O-Rama, an amusement park whose theme is nostalgia from the Stupid Ages.  The cinema there is playing "Star Wars 9: Yoda's Bar Mitzvah."  Not many people caught that one.  By the way, there are a bunch of folk who think Yoda is one of several characters in Star Wars that were somehow written with themes of Jewishness in mind.

11) This one is bizarre and requires a lot of explanation.  In "Bendless Love" the Planet Express crew tries to figure out who did all the unauthorized bending around the place.  Obviously, it doesn't take long for them to get to the bottom of it.  At the moment of discovery, Dr. Zoidberg exclaims in French (by then an extinct language), "J'accuse...!"  

This is a book written by Émile Zola.  It is an exposé of the Dreyfus Affair.  The Dreyfus Affair, in a nutshell, went like this: Captain Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the French military in the 1890s.  He was framed for espionage by a court-martial, convicted of high treason, stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on the penal colony of Devil's Island.  Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart was Chief of Army Intelligence at the time and discovered that the real criminal was a man named Walsin Esterhazy but Picquart was reassigned to Tunisia by his superiors before he could embarass them by revealing his findings of a faulty verdict.
 
Émile Zola wrote "J'accuse...!" to inform the public of the miscarriage of justice and he was charged with libel as a result and had to flee the country for England.  Eventually, he succeeded in convincing the public that Dreyfus was framed as part of a larger conspiracy to destabilize the Republic.  In 1899 the president of France pardoned Dreyfus.  In 1906 Dreyfus was exonerated of all charges, reinstated to the army, promoted to the rank of Major and inducted into the Legion of Honor.  In 1905 the French Republic achieved full Separation of Church and State largely because of this case.  Dreyfus was originally chosen by the conspirators to serve as the scapegoat mainly because he was Jewish.  Incidentally, the country for which he was alleged to spy was Germany, who had invaded and annexed his native Alsace in 1871.  Ironically, he and his family had fled to Paris when that happened so as not to be under German rule.  

This little joke in Futurama took about one half of a second to say but it packed quite a wallop for those who picked up on it.  

12) In "A Big Piece of Garbage" the '66 Thunderschewitz is at least partially a play on Manischewitz, a cloyingly sweet kosher wine that thankfully has declined in popularity over the past few years.  This is probably because it tastes like cough syrup.

13) In "War is the H-Word," Brannigan says, "They've gotta lotta brains and a lot of... chutzpah" (A Yiddish expression meaning "daring," which he said instead of "balls" ).

I can't think of any others right now but I'm sure I missed a few.  Can anyone else add some?  Also, please forgive me if I made any mistakes along the way.  Enjoy.  

[Reply #1 on:]

Whoops... saw a mistake already... thread should have been titled "Jewish Humor"... Oh well...

[Reply #2 on:]

You forgot to mention Zoidberg and his race.

"Yes, I know it's a schlepp, just do it!"

Welcome to PEEL, Chanukah Zombie. Enjoy it here.

[Reply #3 on:]

Welcome Comrade. Nice observation by the way.

[Reply #4 on:]

Welcome to PEEL 

[Reply #5 on:]

Yeah, nice observations Chanukah.

Are you jewish? I was wondering if juves were offended by some of the references in the show.

[Reply #6 on:]

Fromage, I think he said he was Jewish in the first paragraph.

I also noticed some Jewish stereotype behaviour in Futurama, mainly in Zoidberg's uncle (or nephew?) in episode 3ACV08 - That 's Lobstertainment.


Edit:
Oh and it 's nice to meet my judaic counterpart.   

[Reply #7 on:]

Hey, that was very fun to read. Keep 'em coming.

[Reply #8 on:]

That was indeed informative!  If there's anymore, report back to us immediately.    Very interesting and keep up the good work Chanukah Zombie.

[Reply #9 on:]

Wow details details you seem to look closely at everything.

[Reply #10 on:]

Think about Harold Zoid - leaving off the 'berg' so as not to sound "too Jewish" - a common thing to have done during Hollywood's "Golden Age"

[Reply #11 on:]

Well, I dedicated my first post to Jewish humor found in one-off jokes.  I thought if it did well I could post another about Jewish humor in the personalities of characters.  So... GOOD NEWS, EVERYBODY!!!! 

Interestingly, in searching for Jewish-inspired characters, I found not so much individuals but groups.  Five of them.  The Decapodians, the Conrads, the Turangas, the Shrimpkins and the Beastie Boys' Heads. 


The Decapodians: I believe the Decapodians are a satire not so much of the Jews but of Jewish anxieties.  As such, I do not find them offensive.  I feel this way because of something Matt Groening once said about the Simpsons in an interview.  He said, "The Simpsons is a catalog of the biggest anxieties of mostly male writers. There are jokes about getting fat, going bald and eating way too many doughnuts."  A big factor in the comedy of Futurama seems to be confronting the viewership with their own anxieties.  For example, consider the painful remark Nibbler made about Leela's prom dress, made from old carpet remnants, in "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid."  That would be enough to make many girls cringe when they hear about it.  The Decapodians perhaps represent the way Jews would least like to be -- but not the way they actually are.  To be sure, there must be at least a few Jewish individuals somewhere who do behave like the Decapodians -- but they would be the exception rather than the rule and probably not watching the show anyway.  The Decapodians parody not so much the Jews -- but the unwarranted poor self-image of some Jews under certain circumstances.  An anxiety, in this context, I think would be defined as an irrational fear with little to no basis in reality.  Nonetheless, it is something that can really hold a person back.  To some extent or another, nearly everyone suffers from anxiety about their nationality or ethnicity, whatever it is.  The Decapodians are portrayed as a bunch of sorry and unenviable losers, but in "A Taste of Freedom" they conquer the planet Earth without much difficulty and enslave humankind.  In "Why Must I Be A Crustacean in Love" Zoidberg kicks just about everyone's asses simply because he got a little dose of testosterone or whatever is his species' equivalent.  In "Anthology of Interest I," Zoidberg is enlarged to the same size as a giant Bender, fights him and kills him.  All of this indicates that while the Decapodians may have very low self-esteem, it is an unjustified and unrealistic attitude for them to have, since they are clearly very capable beings.  At most, they might represent a certain stratum of Jewish society that has problems dealing with its Jewish identity.  I'm pretty sure Groening's ex-wife and children are Jewish.  Likewise, I'm pretty sure that David X. Cohen is also Jewish.  I suspect they probably wished to address the unfortunate phenomenon I described above by airing the dirty laundry in public, so to speak, sort of like what Spike Lee set out to do for African-Americans in "Do the Right Thing" and other films.  I suppose this would explain a lot of the insider humor involved.  The mere fact alone that Zoidberg is "Jewish" yet not "kosher" (as he is a lobster) tells me that he is supposed to represent Jews who (wrongly and tragically) fail to take pride in themselves.  Mind you, I cannot claim to speak on behalf of any other Jews who watch the show.  This is just my take on things. 


The Conrads:  I'll bet you weren't expecting this one.  Hermes and his family are probably the only characters on the show that would actually identify themselves outright as Jews.  Hermes is a Rastafarian accountant.  Rasta is something like the national religion of Jamaica.  It is a fairly young religion.  It is basically a form of Christianity but with at least one important difference: its practitioners believe that they are actually descended from ancient Israelites.  This is why you can sometimes hear Hermes make Jewish references like, "sweet Lion of Zion!"  In real life you will often see Rastamen displaying such Judaic emblems as the Shield of David and the Candelabrum.  I once worked with a Rastafarian gravedigger who always spoke of me and him as "we Jews."  Go figure. 


The Turangas: For some strange reason, Leela's parents are caricatures of Jews no less so than Zoidberg's race.  Listen to their accents and their attitudes.  This would make Leela representative of an assimilated Jew estranged from her cultural heritage.  Her parents abandoning her to an orphanage on the surface is comparable to the actions of some first-generation Jewish immigrants to America.  They were so scarred by Antisemitism in Europe that when they became parents they deliberately shielded their children from Jewishness so that they would grow up to fit into American society better.  More often than not, it ended up having the opposite effect and many of these children grew up bitter that they had been deprived of their cultural inheritance.  In this context, the sewers would then represent the ghettoes, the shtetl and the Pale of Settlement.  Incidentally, I think her name is partially derived from "Lillith," a figure in the Midrashic literature that in our generation has been adopted as a symbol of female self-empowerment by younger elements of the Feminist movement.  Actually, I can think of better mascots since Lillith is not intended as a praiseworthy personage, but she does fit very well the character of Leela, who is something like a paradigm of female self-empowerment.  Apparently, however, the rest of the Sewer Mutants are not meant to represent Jews.  Just Leela's family.  Weird. 


The Shrimpkins:  They are the civilization of tiny humanoids who lived on Bender's body when he drifted through deep space in "Godfellas."  They thought Bender was God and Malachi his prophet.  They were closely modelled on the ancient Israelites of the Bible.  Specifically, their history parallels much of  the "Old Testament" (in Christian nomenclature), and even more specifically the Pentateuch. 


The Beastie Boys' Heads: I'm not going to list the names of every Jewish celebrity whose head appeared on Futurama.  Just these guys.  I have a few reasons I do this.  Mostly it's because the entire group of three is Jewish rather than an individual or two here and there as is the case in the crew of Star Trek, who graced us in "Where No Fan Has Gone Before."  Also, I have some personal connections to them.  The Beasties are alumni of my alma mater and their portrait for "Licensed to Ill" was taken just a few blocks from my house.  I was one of the lucky few who caught their infamous concert at Jaffa Harbour.  It wasn't very different from the one shown in "Hell is Other Robots." 

[Reply #12 on:]

Are you a major in psychology, history or antropology?

[Reply #13 on:]

Wow, I'll need days to assimilate this infomation...

[Reply #14 on:]

Is there some chance that the kind moderators could correct the spelling mistake I made in the topic title.  It's embarassing.  Please? 

[Reply #15 on:]

Nope.  Thread names are set in stone once they're entered.

[Reply #16 on:]

Whoops!  Guess I'm not supposed to curse in here.  Should've read the rules more carefully.  Sorry about that.  Thanks anyway. 

[Reply #17 on:]

It wasn't the profanity, it was the one-word-post, the likes of which are heavily frowned upon.

[Reply #18 on:]

Hey- very informative posts, thanks.  BTW a slight correction.  Hillel is not run by Orthodox rabbis, even though Fry may think it is; at least not in the US.  However, I'm told that it is in the UK.  To clarify, Hillel is also not a fraternity even though it often caters to Jewish fraternity members and affiliates with Jewish fraternities and sororities.

Re: Chanukah Zombie, there is a Hebrew version of the song "Zombie Jamboree" if anyone is familiar or even remotely interested 

Sorry if this post goes too far off-topic. 
Anyone know where to get Futurama VHS tapes so I can watch them on my poor-reception tv?

Cheers.

[Reply #19 on:]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Moosetta... and I'm not just saying that because you're my ex-girlfriend.     Anyhow, Fry was not even present when that dialogue took place between Bender and the guys at Robot House.  My point was that Hillel parties probably resemble a meeting of Shakers to most college students.  I'll try to hook you up with some episodes next chance I get.  Perfect choice of avatar, by the way.  I have some extra beads, you know...

WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!!  Good night.

[Reply #20 on:]

 

Originally posted by FilthyCrab:
Think about Harold Zoid - leaving off the 'berg' so as not to sound "too Jewish" - a common thing to have done during Hollywood's "Golden Age"

Actually, I wonder if it's not the other way around?  I wonder if Dr. Z didn't add the -berg suffix to his name so as to sound more Earthican?  I noticed too in "Xmas Story" that he had a cousin Zoidfarb, which is another name with a Jewish-sounding suffix. 

[Reply #21 on:]

I'll wager that in the Futurama "universe" Zoidy did in fact ADD the berg to his name, but from a creative standpoint I think that the "leaving off berg so as not to sound too Jewish" is exactly what the writers were thinking about.

[Reply #22 on:]

In reply to Chanukah Zombie's #5 (first post):

In the DVD Commentary for the episode,

Show spoiler

it is stated that part of the funniness of the joke is that it looks so much like the Hebrew word "Shalom." It seems that most of the Jewish jokes originate from the Jewish David X. Cohen (note the Cohen, meaning he's probably a Cohen), since he explains this one, as well as a few others, I think.

And yes, I am also Jewish.

I think they may have "mis-picked" letters because more people are familiar with Tav instead of Tet, and Sin instead of Samekh. And because it looks more like the word they are trying to imitate.

Also in the Bot Mitzvah scene, the Robot Rabbi has paises (spelling?), which is another Orthodox Jewish stereotype thingee.

The fact that there are Jewish jokes just makes the show more appealing to me!

[Reply #23 on:]

I'm begining to see what killed this show....

It's too intelligent.  If you don't have the snap to pick up on the inferred humor (or the savy to get on the net and get some help, Thanks CZ) you miss the good stuff and it becomes, well, silly.

Take for instance the big thing that I noticed in The Series Has Landed tonight.  (I know most everyone is going say, yeah, duh!)

Bender pops out a beer and a park worker, dressed as Mr. Crater Face (a big full moon face with eyes and mouth I.E. Man in the Moon) says "I'll have to confiscate that" so Bender takes the bottle and jams it neck first into Crater Face's right eye. 

End result? He looks exactly like the Man in the Moon caracture from the first Sci-Fi movie.  A French film adaptation of Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon"  In which the Capsule lands in the Man in the Moon's right eye.

Now, I'd guess that most everyone here got that, but joe average wouldn't.

[Reply #24 on:]

 

Originally posted by Yorokobi:
 End result? He looks exactly like the Man in the Moon caracture from the first Sci-Fi movie.  A French film adaptation of Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon"  In which the Capsule lands in the Man in the Moon's right eye.

Somehow that moon man thing seemed familiar.

I didn't see the original, but I did see the Smashing Pumpkins video based on the same film.

[Reply #25 on:]

Originally posted by SQFreak:
In reply to Chanukah Zombie's #5 (first post):

In the DVD Commentary for the episode,
it is stated that part of the funniness of the joke is that it looks so much like the Hebrew word "Shalom."

You know, I never thought of that.  You're probably right.  It's only one letter off the way they spelled it, "shalurm."  Cute. 

I just saw TMLH so I can now add "Fiddler Way Below the Roof" to my list.  Hhhmmm...  I wonder how that fits into the little paradigm I set up. 

BTW, I think that Yorokobi is totally right.  It was the intellectualism that did our favorite show in.  Yisgadal...

[Reply #26 on:]

Incidentally, I think her name is partially derived from "Lillith,"

I'm sorry to dissapoint you, but the origin of Leela's name is not quite Midrashic, but Sanskrit. The Turangalila Symphony (Phonetically: Toorangaleela) is an orchestral piece by Oliver Messiaen, premiered in 1949. Althrough Leonard Bernstein conducted the premiere, the Jewishness of this piece was not the way to get it into Futurama, but the retro-futuristic quality the sound of the Ondes Martenot, an old electronic instrument used in the score.

!בהצלחה

[Reply #27 on:]

Sorry to disappoint you, deprieto, but you're responding to a seven-year-old post from a user who hasn't posted for more than six years.  I seriously doubt that Chanukah Zombie will ever see your response.

Welcome to PEEL, anyway. 

Incidentally, thread titles can be edited now, so if any of the moderators would care to grant a seven-year-old wish from a former peeler, now's your chance.

[Reply #28 on:]

Thanks, David, but what if we read some ones and zeros engraved on someone's butt and re-post some years ago?

Hag Sameaj!

[Reply #29 on:]

Zoidberg is definately Jewish!  His last name is a dead giveaway.   Leela's parents, especially her mother has that Sheila Broslovski-esque accent.  So, maybe Leela is Jewish herself.   I noticed that Jewish refereneses myself that Chanuka Zombie mentioned. 

[Reply #30 on:]

Zoidberg isn't Jewish.  He's just from a planet that has a remarkably similar culture.

Leela's parents might be, but that's no argument for Leela being Jewish, since they didn't raise her.

Thanks, David, but what if we read some ones and zeros engraved on someone's butt and re-post some years ago?

Hey, whatever makes you happy, buddy.  No one here is going to judge you.

[Reply #31 on:]

Leela's parents can't be Jewish because they're mutants and all the mutants worship that unexploded nuclear bomb.

[Reply #32 on:]

Zoidberg isn't Jewish. DXC said so himself at the animation supercon thingy.

[Reply #33 on:]

Zoidberg isn't Jewish.  He's just from a planet that has a remarkably similar culture.

Leela's parents might be, but that's no argument for Leela being Jewish, since they didn't raise her.

Thanks, David, but what if we read some ones and zeros engraved on someone's butt and re-post some years ago?

Hey, whatever makes you happy, buddy.  Everyone here is going to judge you.

Fixed.

[Reply #34 on:]

Right, I meant to say everyone.  Thanks, SpaceMaN.

Leela's parents can't be Jewish because they're mutants and all the mutants worship that unexploded nuclear bomb.

Yeah, but nobody's that observant.

[Reply #35 on:]

You mean everybody's that observant?

[Reply #36 on:]

If anything, this topic certainly is very interesting, and the kind of antiques that have been unfortunately been lost over time.  If anything; more information for the Infosphere.

[Reply #37 on:]

Incidentally, thread titles can be edited now, so if any of the moderators would care to grant a seven-year-old wish from a former peeler, now's your chance.

Done

[Reply #38 on:]

Incidentally, thread titles can be edited now, so if any of the moderators would care to grant a seven-year-old wish from a former peeler, now's your chance.

Done

I thought you were British.  Tsk tsk.

[Reply #39 on:]

Happy Chanukah! I just got some Phillies slippers!