Since the Festival of Lights is only two weeks away, it got me thinking about Hanukkah’s place in popular culture. Outside of “The Chanukah Song”, I’m struggling to think of pop songs/films/TV shows/books where Hanukkah is more than a passing reference. Anyone got any?
All I can think of is an old original-cast SNL skit.
The Rugrats Hanukkah special
Adam Sandler had the mostly terrible animated “Eight Crazy Nights,” which I suppose was probably spun from his “Chanukah Song.”
Oh! Futurama has the Chanukah Zombie, who is completely awesome.
Sydney Taylor’s All of A Kind Family books.
There’s the episode of FRIENDS where Chandler dresses up as Santa but Ross makes damn sure to rent a costume as – let’s say The Holiday Armadillo, who can teach young Ben about Hanukkah, even when Joey shows up decked out as Superman for no particular reason.
There’s Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, although that’s admittedly 250 years old.
Wow, How obscure is that. I had no idea Handel was so…progressive…
Years later, they had Jon Lovitz as Hanukkah Harry filling in for Phil Hartman’s ailing Santa Claus – by giving out socks and you’ll-grow-into-em slacks plus a dreidel and some chocolate coins – thereby prompting a realization: “Y’know how we’re always jealous of Rachel and Josh down the block, 'cause they always get Hanukkah presents for eight nights? Well, maybe these are the kind of presents they get, so we shouldn’t be jealous!”
SNL also did a Hanukkah version of It’s a Wonderful Life.
Adam Sandler’s animated movie Eight Crazy Nights.
Llewellyn Sinclair’s play “Hats off to Hanukkah!”
Marvel and DC Comics will usually have a token Hanukkah scene/story in an annual “Holiday Special” anthology comic. It seldom displays any knowledge about Hanukkah other than the fact that it involves Jews and candles, and never contains any sort of Hanukkah-specific message in the manner that Christmas stories deliver with some sort of heartwarming “peace and love for everybody” type ending.
There’s really nothing substantial out there, except in actual Jewish religious music, and I don’t know that you’d call that “out there”. The Rugrats special mentioned earlier in this thread might be the only one.
Well, to be fair, the message of Hanukkah isn’t about peace and love for everybody, it’s about beating up on a nasty insane dictator, which isn’t nearly as Hallmark-card and kiddie-friendly. 
Would make for an awesome action-movie, though. As a villian, you can’t really go much better than Antiochus Epiphanes - the ancient world’s answer to Hitler.
Candlelight for Rebecca, about an American Girl Doll character.
Time again for my holiday tradition of plugging Carols for a Cure, a series of holiday CDS that feature several new Hanukkah songs.
I don’t know how popular it ever was, but Tom Lehrer’s “(I’m Spending) Hanukkah in Santa Monica” deserves a listen if only for the weird rhymes he managed to come up with.
PBS may rerun Peter, Paul & Mary’s holiday special, which had at least two Hanukkah-themed songs.
It’s the best Chrismakkuh ever!
As I remember the Rabbi Small mystery Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry deals with murder (of course) and Hanukkah. My wife found it one of the best explanations of Hanukkah around. My wife is a big mystery fan and becoming involved with a not very devout Jew, she needed all the help she could get.