Mostly Musical Notes

On Nov. 17, ADAM SANDLER, 49, performed a new version of “The Chanukah Song” (#4) at a New York charity benefit. Videos of the performance went viral, but within two days Warner Music had all of them removed from the internet. No word yet if an official performance video will be released before Chanukah, 2015. The full lyrics can be found just below this column and below that, some help identifying the Jewish celebs in Sandler's song.

Almost all the celebs in the song are “first timers”, including soccer star David Beckham, just named People’s 2015 “Sexiest Man Alive” (Sandler correctly notes that Beckham is “'one quarter’---he had a Jewish grandfather).

On Friday, Dec. 4, Nextflix will release “A Very Murray Christmas,” a comedy/musical special starring Bill Murray. Set in a fancy New York hotel, the special opens with Murray preparing to host a live, international holiday broadcast. After a blizzard shuts down the production, he makes the best of the situation by singing and celebrating with friends, hotel employees and anyone else who drops by. Those dropping by include RASHIDA JONES, 39, PAUL SHAFFER, 65, JASON SCHWARTZMAN, 35 and MAYA RUDOLPH, 43. The special’s trailer looks funny and maybe they will have a little Chanukah bit.

On Monday, Dec. 7, at 8PM, Fox will air a special entitled, “TV’s Funniest Animated Stars: A Paley Center Special”. There will be clips and interviews with (living) creators of animated shows and performers who do the voices of prominent cartoon characters, including PAMELA ADLON, 49 (Bobby Hill on “King of the Hill”); H. JON BENJAMIN, 49 (scores of characters, including Bob and Sterling Archer, on “The Archers”); ALEX BORSTEIN, 42 (Lois Griffin on “The Family Guy”); and SETH GREEN, 41 (Chris Griffin on “The Family Guy”). I expect that they will have to include the late MEL BLANC, who created the voice of, and voiced, virtually every Warner Brothers character, including Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig. He was and remains the king of cartoon voice actors and, on top of that, he was an extraordinarily kind and generous man. The very interesting and really entertaining 2008 “American Masters” documentary, “Mel Blanc: Man of a Thousand Voices,” can be viewed on Youtube.

On Sunday, Dec. 6, at 9PM, CBS will broadcast a special, "Sinatra 100 — An All-Star GRAMMY Concert," in honor of Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday. The concert will be taped a few days before broadcast and only a handful of the scheduled performers’ names, all of whom are Grammy winners, have been announced. They include Tony Bennett, Alicia Keyes, and ADAM LEVINE, 36. Sinatra had many good sides and many personal flaws, and in the former category, there is his fierce opposition to racism and anti-Semitism and his strong support for Israel. He visited the country three times and his many monetary donations in support of Israel included $1 million to build an International Student Center at Hebrew University.

Here’s the short version of a Sinatra story with an Israel twist: in 1967, just before the start of the Six-Day War, Sinatra provoked the hulking CARL COHEN, the tough manager of the Las Vegas Sands Hotel, into a fight and Cohen quickly ended it with one punch to Sinatra’s mouth. The story goes Cohen became a hero to every Vegas hotel employee who had seen Sinatra’s nasty side. Sinatra obliquely referred to Cohen, and their fight, and Israel’s stunning war victory in his next performance. He said, “You got to be careful about getting into fights with those desert people.”

Quotes of the Week

“I had three strikes against me. First, I was Jewish, and the Wall St. firms were just beginning to accept Jews. Then I was a woman. But the killer was my daughter, Jane, who was 4 by then.”----Justice RUTH BADER GINSBURG, 82, speaking to the NY Times about looking for a job in 1959 after finishing 1st in her Columbia Law School class.

“BOB DYLAN was right when he sang ‘there’s no success like failure,” but wrong that ‘failure is no success at all.’”—Science historian Michel Janssen explaining to the NY Times that ALBERT EINSTEIN’s General Theory of Relativity, which is now 100 years old, does not resolve all relativity issues—but Einstein’s quest to prove it did resulted in him solving some other important problems. I like that a lyric written by one highly influential ‘tribe member’ helps explains another Jew's work.

“If your GPS weren’t adjusted according to [Einstein’s] calculations, it would track within several miles instead of just a few feet.” –Historian David Scalia.

------------------------------------------

Chanukah Song, #4, lyrics:

Put on your yarmulke, here comes Chanukah It's so much fun-akkah to celebrate Chanukah Chanukah is the Festival of Lights, Instead of one day of presents, we have eight crazy nights. When you feel like the only kid in town without a Christmas tree, Here's the fourth list of people who are Jewish, just like Jesus, Olaf, Punky Brewster, Judd Apatow, Scott Rudin, and me!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt enjoys eating kugel So does Stan Lee, Jake Gyllenhaal, and the two guys who founded Google Adam Levine wears a Jewish star So does Drake and Seth Rogen Goldberg has a gold yarmulke to match the belt he won from Hulk Hogan We got Scarlett Johansson, talk about a cultured crush And if you need a hotter voice to turn you on, how about getting it from 'Lost?'

We may not have a cartoon of a reindeer that can talk But we also don't have polio, thanks to Dr. Jonas Salk Put on your yarmulke, it's time for Chanukah Harry Potter and his magic wandi-kah, celebrate Chanukah Jared from Subway: F---, a Jew But guess who's Jewish and can fix him? 'Loveline's' Dr. Drew Princess Leia cuts the halva with Elsa from 'Frozen'

David Beckham is the king of soccer studs and also a quarter chosen Ron Jeremy is fully Jewish and so is his foot-long buddy Shia LaBeouf is half a Jew but 100 percent nutty It's who but Santa Claus who makes Christmas so merry But we get two jolly fat guys: Ice cream's Ben & Jerry's Come on all to Chanukah, get up and celebrate Chanukah Don't mess with us, oh Chanukah, let's all get along for Chanukah So drink your Jaegerbomb-ikkah and smoke your medical-marijuan-ikkah If you really, really wanna-kah, have a happy, happy, happy, happy Chanukah

--------------------------

NATE BLOOM HERE-- HERE ARE SOME IDENTIFICATIONS THAT MAY ELUDE YOU

"Olaf", third line down, refers to actor Josh Gad, who voiced Olaf the Snowman in "Frozen"

Punky Brewster, mentioned after Olaf, was a TV character played by actress Soleil Moon Frye, whose mother is Jewish--she firmly identifies as Jewish; The two guys who founded Google are Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Page's mother is Jewish and Brin's parents are both Jewish.

Likewise, Harry Potter is a reference to Daniel Radcliffe, whose mother is Jewish, and identifies as Jewish.

Princess Leia is Carrie Fisher, whose father was Jewish. She identifies as Jewish.

Elsa from Frozen refers to actress/singer Idina Menzel.