In one of those random internet moments, I found myself reading a big list of FAQs on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (link). One thing that surprised me was this:
It’s been a long time since I watched TMTMS regularly (darn you Nick at Nite! stop showing reruns of Home Improvement and get back to your mission statement of airing CLASSIC TV!!), but the above assertions were very surprising. For one thing, I wasn’t even aware that Ed Asner was Jewish, but, more to the point, I certainly never sensed any “Jewish sensibility” from Lou Grant’s character. If anything, I’d have thought that Lou Grant’s old-school, establishment views would have made him mildly anti-Semitic, in the way he could be mildly sexist and racist.
Am I misremembering things? Have I been whooshed all these years by Lou Grant’s unspoken Yiddishkeit? And for those who were around when the show originally aired, was this actually controversial?
I don’t remember any such controversary at the time, unless it was wholly within the industry. And no, I never got any “Jewish vibes” from Lou Grant. I don’t even get Jewish vibes from Seinfeld, except for Jerry’s parents. And so what if there were such vibes? Is that a bad thing? Do people complain about “black vibes” every time there’s a black character/actor?
I’ve never understood the “too Jewish” complaints about Seinfeld. Jerry’s Jewishness was brought up like once a season (again, usually when his parent’s visited) and even then it was never the focal point of an episode.
I especially don’t get this about the first season episodes (the ones the complaint is usually made about), I don’t even think we find he’s Jewish until late in season 2/early in season 3.
Many, MANY sitcoms have been created and/or written by Jews, and MANY sitcoms have had a Jewish “vibe,” even when the characters and actors weren’t Jewish.
I mean, Dick Van Dyke was as WASPish a comedian as you’ll ever find, but his entire show gave off major Jewish “vibes” because the creator was Jewish, and so were all the real people that all the characters were based on.
A huge percentage of comedy writers are Jewish, and that’s not a recent development. That means a Jewish comic sensibility often pervades sitcoms that are supposed to be about Italians, Mexicans, or Middle American Protestants. Characters who are not urban or Jewish regularly use phrases that only an Urban Jew would be likely to use.
For a show set in Minneapolis, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” sure had a lot of Jewish characters and humor. That never HURT the show, which was usually excellent. But the JEwish influence was obvious.
Yeah, I don’t get a ‘Jewish vibe’ from Lou at all, or from the writing in general. However, Murray did ping my yidometer. Which was fun since both he and Rhoda were the coolest characters, IMO.
I’d say the ‘Tim Watley converts to Judaism for the jokes’ episode revolved around Jerry’s Judaism (and whether he objected as a Jew or as a comedian). Also the Schindler’s List episode, to a lesser degree. There’s a definite ‘Jewish vibe’ on Seinfeld, which is understandable for a show about a comedian in NYC. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Did people really complain about this? Why would they? What’s objectionable about a show starring a Jewish actor playing a Jewish character?
What, his last name doesn’t give it away? If these alleged complaints (who is making these complaints, btw?) are focused on the first season, maybe it’s because of Jason Alexander’s performance as George was more of a sustained Woody Allen impression back then.
There were many dozens of references to Jewish culture or Judaism in general on Seinfeld, which gave the show a more realistic New York flavor than Friends, despite the latter’s having two Jewish characters (possibly three, depending on which side you fall in the Rachel Controversy). At least it better resembled the New York I live in, though both shows fall woefully flat when it comes to the ethnic mix of the real NYC.
So much so that, even producers and writers who are not Jewish have learned to write in the Jewish comic idiom. Gary Marshall, for instance, is Italian, but he cut his teeth writing jokes for Jewish Catskills comedians like Phil Foster, so the humor in his shows often has a MORE Jewish vibe than shows produced by actual JEws.
No, I understand that Jews have been very influential in the history of American television comedy. (The writers on the Dick van Dyke show apparently had to remind themselves to “think Yiddish, but speak British”). I wouldn’t have expected The Mary Tyler Moore Show to be any different (and I knew off the top of my head that co-creator James L. Brooks was Jewish). What I DIDN’T understand was the idea that this Jewishness was somehow particularly visible – and controversial – in the Lou Grant character.
And frankly, I didn’t get much of an overt “Jewish” sensibility from the show, period, (less even than from the Dick van Dyke Show!) with the obvious exception of Rhoda (played, ironically, by non-Jewish Valerie Harper).
Murray pinged my gaydar more than my “yidometer”! I didn’t notice it when I first watched the show as a teenager, but seeing some episodes recently, wow, it seemed pretty blatant.
For a really minor example, there’s Toby Keith using “Not so much” on the Stephen Colbert Christmas special last week. I’d be curious to hear some other instances, though.
I can’t comment on Lou Grant because I’m too young to have seen it. Seinfeld’s different- the style of humor on that show is strongly New York Jewish in every episode I’ve seen.
This might be an only tangentially-related answer, but this trend could even extend to Latin American humor! I recently read that Don Francisco, creator of Univision’s long-running hit “Sabado Gigante”, is Jewish, and was born Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld! I was actually thinking of starting a “People you were surprised were Jewish” thread, along the lines of the “People you were surprised were gay” thread. (Would that be offensive? I don’t think it SHOULD be, but you never know how people might react.)
What, bubbele, they didn’t have Nick@Nite in your nursery?
The very first example that comes to mind when thinking of non-Jewish characters who have Jewish sensibilities is Hawkeye on MASH*. This 1950s guy from tiny Crabapple Cove, ME (as played by Italian-American Alda), peppered his dialogue with a surprising number of Yiddish words,* and his syntax was pretty Yiddishe too. I like to think his late mom was Jewish. Of course, Hawkeye was clearly a big fan of many movie and radio comedians, including the Marx Brothers, so the media may have influenced his speech.
though alas, he couldn’t remember the Yiddish word for bedbug when he needed it.
Absolutely. Jewish comedians and writers have had a tremendous influence on American humor.
For what it’s worth, I remember the complaint being that the show was basically built on Jewish humor but ran away from its Jewishness - Elaine was a gentile, and Jerry Stiller played a Sicilian!
ETA: I think it was a silly complaint, but not as silly as complaining that “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” was too Jewish. I’ve never heard or read that before today. What is supposed to have been the problem with that anyway? Was it the fact that Jews were on the TV, or that TV was mocking the Jews?
If these alleged complaints (who is making these complaints, btw?) are focused on the first season, maybe it’s because of Jason Alexander’s performance as George was more of a sustained Woody Allen impression back then.