Christmastime For The Jews!

If you happened to catch SNL this past weekend, (I didn't,) you got to see another truly great Robert Smigel cartoon: "Christmastime For The Jews."

They got Darlene Love to do a song firmly in the Spector tradition. It was a funny and wise Claymation bit celebrating what happens when we goyim cede the town for one night to our Jewish brothers and sisters.

But what's really funny is what happened behind-the-scenes... If you check out this blog, you'll see the framegrab I've got posted here that appeared in the closed captioning. (credit to the Comedian blogger for the framegrab.) It would seem to indicate that there was a last-minute change in the script to make something ... um... a little less offensive.

Now, if you know anything about closed captioning, you'll know that there are always some serious mistakes. Also, a show like SNL being, um, live..is captioned live, too...which is why the captioning always lags behind.

If you've ever tried to transcribe a tape with someone talking (which is what a lot of us TV types do to make some dosh in the beginning of our careers) you'll know how hard it is to keep up, and how easy it is to make mistakes. Hopefully the imbroglio won't overshadow the sublime humor of the cartoon itself (Although dedicated conspirians should ask themselves this: why does the picture sequence match the real lyrics (about beating up Quakers and playing for the Lakers) if the line was "dropped at the last minute?")

And why isn't the line about "beating up Quakers" offensive?

Wait, I can answer that one: because it's funny. (Cause they're not into violence, get it? So it's somebody a Jew could beat u....you know what? I'm Catholic. I'm just gonna shutup.)

What's funnier, of course, is that that line is what the captioner thought they heard. Ooh, Nelly. Who knew that a simple live-captioning job could be so character revealing?

Or, you know, it could just be a mistake.

My fave captioning mistake was when one time, I had to call the station I was working at and gently suggest that the Shania Twain special they had just finished might need to be re-captioned. I'd been watching it in a bar whilst enjoying a pint and was surprised to read how Shania had always appreciated growing up "a Jew boy." She said it four or five times.

Say it with me kids:

O-jib-way.

Last time I checked, the "Christmastime For The Jews" video was still up at this site.

(UPDATE: that link above went down... I think it's still possible to find the video if you search for it at youtube.com.)