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October 28, 2009
Uninhibited author Jonathan Ames — creator of HBO’s quirky detective comedy, “Bored to Death” — once followed a pursuit he describes as “religious cross-dressing”: primping his blond hair and donning blazers to “infiltrate WASP society” in his 20s. While at Princeton University, Ames had become smitten by what he calls “the aesthetics of the WASPy young gentleman” as depicted in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and W. Somerset Maugham. When this charade put him in hearing distance of an anti-Semitic remark, he often said nothing, hoping to “pass” and to be liked.
“You’re not a get together guy. You hate to get together!” Jerry Seinfeld tells former partner Larry David in the third episode of this season’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” “I’m being sold something. I don’t know what yet.”
In its last two seasons, Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” pushed politically correct notions of Jewish identity and race to cringe-worthy and hilarious extremes. David, playing an exaggerated version of his misanthropic self, briefly made nice when he mistakenly believed he had been adopted and was not born Jewish, then he returned to his callous self when his wife — now estranged — took in an African American family that had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. “So your last name is Black,” he says to the family upon their first meeting, arriving late to pick them up at the airport. “That’d be like if my last name were Jew: Larry Jew.”
Suzanne Tracht, executive chef and owner of Los Angeles chophouse, Jar, will feed hungry locals (although not necessarily her creations, to their misfortune) after winning both the Quickfire Challenge and elimination challenge of the second episode of “Top Chef Masters,” a new spin-off of Bravo’s popular cooking competition, “Top Chef.” The new show is designed for chefs who have already achieved their fame the old-fashioned way.
On a recent morning on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Mark Feuerstein received an unexpected phone call from the production office of his new USA Network series, “Royal Pains,” in which he plays an emergency room doctor turned private physician to the jet set in the Hamptons.
The opening moment of the “American Idol” finale was dripping with irony. Considering that this was the most culturally polarized competition in the show’s history, it was amusing that finalists Adam Lambert and Kris Allen were both dressed regally in white.
Unlike most Hollywood writers, Jenji Kohan got her creative education at the family dinner table, where there was a subtle, but largely predetermined, genetic imperative to write.
The premiere last Sunday of the second season of “In Treatment” on HBO marked a milestone in television history in both Israel and the United States. The acclaimed series is closely based on the Israeli hit, “Be’Tipul” (“In Treatment” in Hebrew), in which a conflicted psychologist treats a different patient in each of four episodes each week and visits his own therapist in the fifth.
In the March 19 episode of SOAPnet’s time-travel fantasy, “Being Erica,” 30-something Erica Strange (Erin Karpluk) is zapped back to the day of her bat mitzvah, shocked to find her grownup brain inside her 13-year-old body as she recites her haftarah portion, which she barely remembers.
" . . . Don is still exploring and seeing if Judaism is right for him. I don't think he's said 'I'm super-Jew, and everyone's going to daven now at the FBI.' . . . "
How to be a Jewish Son -- or -- My Son the Success! The David Susskind Show with Mel Brooks, David Steinberg, George Segal, Stan Herman, Dan Greenburg and Larry Goldberg.
Episode of the classic 50's TV program "The Goldbergs", taken from then final season. 'Member of the Jury'
The Jewish character has become the American Jewish character, disassociated from an ethnic history and assimilated into American culture. And the assimilation hasn't only been for Jews.
" . . . This camp, this organization [Hollywood Heart] gives me true happiness.I get back so much more in ways that are impossible to quantify, in ways I couldn'tget from anything material or anything else I've ever done . . . "
The prosecutor reads the charges against God: murder, collaboration with the enemy, breach of contract with His chosen people. Setting: A barrack in Auschwitz, with some 20 Jewish prisoners, half of whom will be gassed in the morning.
A Belgian television show set to prepare Adolf Hitler's favorite meal on the air has been canceled
I've decided to offer help to others who feel as lost as I once did ... with my VideoGuide to Los Angeles, launching online today.
Rosie O'Donnell was impressed enough by Medalia and her venture that she joined the project as executive producer.
While taking violin lessons at The Juilliard School, Wise became interested in musical theater. He has since followed two paths in that field -- as a creative producer, responsible for some projects from conception to staging, and as an international presenter of successful Broadway shows.
After a summer filled with Olympics, political conventions and bizarre reality shows ("I Survived a Japanese Game Show" anyone?) TV viewers are aching for something different.
" . . . Bob is particularly funny because he has this dual, schizophrenic reputation from the G-rated family shows to the X-rated stand-up show . . ."
". . . Bob is particularly funny because he has this dual, schizophrenic reputation from the G-rated family shows to the X-rated stand-up show . . ."
The Jewish Channel (TJC), an ambitious enterprise that, depending on who's talking, is either the new Jewish HBO or the latest tawdry entry in a long series of failed attempts to create one
" . . .We had a visit from a high-ranking West Point officer, who said that his cadets were not only great fans of our show but were actually taking their cues from Jack Bauer. That was very disconcerting . . ."
Among the candidates for the $100,000 Teen Choice prize is Adam Sterling, a UCLA graduate raised in Oak Park who is now director of the Sudan Divestment Task Force
Michael Ross, the former producer of and writer for iconic American sitcoms "All in the Family," "The Jeffersons" and "Three's Company," has given some $14 million to create Jewish studies programs at UCLA and City College of New York in recent months.
Official Comedy Central Video: The Mind of Mencia -- cultural explorer Carlos goes to visit the Jews