Lamb Chop's Special Chanukah

If Jews are so prevalent in the entertainment business, why does their Chanukah season always get buried under all the emphasis put on Christmas? Simple: it's easy to make Christmas secular. We have Frosty the Snowman to remind us that sometimes it snows in a few places in December, and there are now about 97 different versions of the story of how Santa Claus got his super powers. Even Baby Jesus takes a back manger to his own fake birthday, so of course so will any other holiday that happens to fall in the same month.

Is this the fate of the Festival of Lights? It shouldn't have to be. There's no reason to throw a fit because some rabbi wants a menorah next to the Christmas trees at the airport. He's just doing his job. You can't even go to a Christian church in December without being told to stop saying "Happy holidays," and we shouldn't expect the Chanukah Celebrators of the World to move to the back of the airwave bus so the top vote-getting holiday can sit in the front.

Most of my knowledge about Chanukah that wasn't also grandfathered into Catholicism, which sometimes makes me feel that it's is really not too far from being Alternate Universe Judaism as celebrated on Earth-3, comes from Adam Sandler, so in attempt to not be that guy, I've decided to cross cultures and tap a Jewish friend of mine to send me something Semitic to write commentary on instead of the usual Christmas festivities. Here's what she ended up sending me:

Haha wait is that the same font used in the "Futurama" credits?

Great. The scary ventriloquist lady my sister used to watch before Sesame Street came on. I was skeptical when my friend first mentioned that she had a Chanukah special starring Lamb Chop, so I made her confirm that it was more than just an hour's worth of jokes about I LIKE LATKES and LATKES ARE DELICIOUS before she let me borrow it. There are still a lot of those, but she promised a surprise that made up for it, so I agreed to a review.

The special is from 1995, and starts out in what I can only assume to be a typical Chanukan fashion.

With an Asian and a black man shopping for produce. I'm starting to feel festive already.

The camera pans out to reveal that we're in some sort of marketplace or bazaar, or bizarre marketplace. The weather appears to back me up on that last one, as it looks like a much warmer, sunnier December day than I'm used to seeing. This really is the Show Without a Santa Claus.

Hi, I'm late ventriloquist Shari Lewis. You might remember me from the cover of Nellie McKay's "Get Away From Me" (Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics).

While Shari sings about "Hah-noooo-kah is here," which makes Chanukah sound like the festival of Mario in raccoon footy pajamas that can turn to stone, that guy behind her stares at her with a creepy smile on his face for like ten seconds. Which seems hilariously longer as the cameraman tries to keep up with Shari's interpretive grocery-shoppin' shuffle.

In the midst of all this, it doesn't take long for the surprise I was promised to show up in the form of someone calling Shari's name. Special guests! Before I reveal them, think of all the special guests you'd expect to own that voice. Make a list of every celebrity you can think of in order from "Most likely to have Chanukah Dinner with a talking sock" to "Mel Gibson's dad." I can almost guarantee that the three people Shari runs into at the marketplace are not on your list.

 

Unless you scrolled down a little too much and already saw Pat Morita's face WHAT

Pat Morita is in the Lamb Chop Chanukah special. As himself. Or at least a version of himself that owns the sort of primary blue shirt I have only ever seen in children's entertainment. He asks Shari, who is carrying three large bags of groceries, if he can give her a hand. "Yes, please," she replies with a hint of urgency in her voice.

/claps

Shari rolls her eyes and explains that she's going home to cook for Chanukah. "Do I know her?" asks Pat, establishing that he is both (a) a connoisseur of corny jokes, and (b) not a Jew. This leads right into the first of many variations of DID YOU KNOW THAT LATKES

For the uninitiated in Jewish cuisine, latkes (or imopanko in Japanese, as Pat informs us) are potato pancakes. They are quite tasty, but not nearly enough to warrant being reminded of their tastiness every five minutes.

"Are you free?" Shari asks, to which Pat immediately asks in return, "Is it free?" If this were a Christmas special, that would have been Shari's line.

After Pat commits to attending Chanukah dinner, Shari finishes her shopping. And dancing. She picks up some candles from this woman, who appears to have taken Halloween costume advice from Adam Sandler.

gimme some candllllle

Special Guest Number Two is Alan Thicke, the dad from "Growing Pains." Shari finds Alan trying to wipe his snot off of some flowers he sneezed on while trying to smell them, because smelling things and then sneezing on them is hilarious when you're four years old. Like, bing and plong hilarious.

Alan, who apparently has just discovered that he has a sense of smell, takes a sniff of Shari's bag of candles, and asks if Chanukah is like a birthday party. She explains that it's more like a "rebirth of freedom party," and for just a split second, sounds like a leftist rebel. Alan tries and fails to get out of it by saying he's not Jewish, but Shari insists, giving Alan her address: "Number 6, 5th Street and 4th Avenue." That's funny; that's the same place this hot girl I met at a bar one time told me she lives. Must be an apartment complex of some sort.

And, just in case we forgot, Alan turns to the camera and says, "I hope she makes latkes!" Shut up, Alan Thicke; forty seconds ago, you thought Chanukah was a birthday party.

Shari's third and final special guest is the less familiar but actually Jewish Lloyd Bochner. So many Jews are in show biz, and the only one they can get to hang out with Lamb Chop is a secondary cast member from "Dynasty"? I have a feeling the writers picked the special guests using an Actors From The 1980s special edition dart board. That's the only explanation I can think of as to why Lloyd Bochner would ever be in the same place at the same time as Pat Morita.

So the dinner is set. Three guests will be joining Shari and her family of puppets. She checks to make sure she bought enough groceries to accomodate everybody, when

i'm in ur groceriez, eatin ur f00dz

The creepy part about this isn't so much that Lamb Chop was in the bag the whole time, but that a minute later, she's at home playing dreidl with Hush Puppy, while Shari still has yet to return.

HOWARD'S SUPER SECRET POWER TIP:
Next time you need to go shopping for a wormhole, be sure to check your local outdoor flea market.

Uh-oh, looks like Charlie Horse got a little too impatient and opened his Chanukah present early. Looks like it's a CD called "Comic Creator III," which Charlie explains is a "superhero computer game."

Then Shari comes home and has Charlie arrested. THE END. Thank you for reading my article about the Lamb Chop Chanukah Special!

Seriously, read that link. You have 17 more years of experience raising children than I do if you count my negative-five-year-old, and I'm STILL a better parent than you.

Shari actually just briefly yells at Charlie Horse and does nothing to stop him from playing his new game, which he says allows him to create his own superhero. When asked why it's so important that he starts making superheroes RIGHT NOW while everybody else prepares dinner, he says he "can't tell," and begs for Shari's trust. Nice work, writers. I'm sure I could've guessed exactly what was going to happen at the end of the show when I was in your target audience's age bracket. The Star Wars prequels had subtler foreshadowing.

After settling a brief argument between Charlie and Lamb Chop over one of Chanukah's greatest mysteries—its spelling (Charlie Horse prefers the initial C and the accompanying hacking inflection; Lamb Chop cites Wikipedia in disagreement; Shari insists neither are incorrect)—the Sharinatorrrr heads into the kitchen to start makin' latkeeees.

Under Jewish law, this requires a urine sample.

Other requirements include ingredients such as potatoes, flour, oil ("so they won't squeak"), like 27 jokes from Lamb Chop about this one time when Shari burnt the latkes, and onions, which make Lamb Chop start to cry.

No, for real.

And not like cute little eye drop tears, either. Like Lamb Chop's face broke and some water membrane is squirting a constant, outward stream for a good ten seconds. I don't blame Shari for the terrified look on her face.

dear charlie horse,
how do you type with hooves on you're hands

crapfully yours,
crapface mccrappington
asbury park, nj

After Hush Puppy insists that he can keep a secret by barking like a seal (above) and saying that's what his lips are, Charlie Horse lets him in on the urgency behind his superhero-inventing on his "superhero computer program," which I put in quotes because he says words like "computer" and "program" in the same way that my mother can't differentiate between e-mail, Word and the desktop. Plus he pronounces the second half of "program" like the second half of the word "pilgrim," which I think is cute, for some reason. Probably the same unknown reason why I enjoy the crap out of when Zoidberg calls Bender "robut." Or when someone with a southern draw pronounces it "dina-sour."

The big secret is that Charlie Horse wants to enter a superhero of his own design in a contest that ends at 6:00 that night. The winner will receive $100, which doesn't sound like a lot of money now, but you have to remember that this was 1995, and those were different times back then. In 1995, a hundred dollars could buy you a brand new car or a mighty fine piece o' land.

Before Hush Puppy has a chance to beg Charlie Horse to tell him what he's going to do with the money, the phone rings, and Hush Puppy answers in one of those polite, grown-up ways certain people's parents always made their children learn in a stupid attempt to teach them manners instead of phone logic.

"Shari Lewis' residence: home of Hush Puppy, Charlie Horse and that adoooorable little Lamb Chop!"

It always kind of freaked me out that Hush Puppy always talked about Lamb Chop like he wanted to eat her. He says adorable with the sort of inflexion I'd expect from Sylvester talking about Tweety. As for who's on the other end of the phone

It's Alan, in a completely different outfit than what he was wearing fifteen minutes ago. He tells Hush Puppy that it's Alan Thicke, to which Hush offers his condolences and hangs up the phone.

wait for it

Then he tells Shari that some fella with a lisp called to tell her that Alan isn't feeling well.

Hi and welcome back to smacking your forehead and staring at the floor while you hung your head after reading that joke.

Meanwhile, Charlie Horse seems to be putting the finishing touches on

Oh, looks like he can't type with hooves on his hands after all.

Charlie Horse puts the finishing touches on his superhero by shouting names of keys on the keyboard that he's heard of before: "Control, F1! Alt, F6! Shift, F9 ... and ENTER!"

Holy CRAP what kind of graphics card is on that dinky thing?

The next two to three minutes are the most awesome two to three minutes in Lamb Chop history. Using that unlikely combination of key strokes actually makes Charlie Horse's creations fly out of the monitor and materalize in his living room in cloud of the same special effects smoke your middle school used for plays. His first creation is SUPER NINJA, which looks nothing like a ninja and everything like Pat Morita in a karate gi and a cape. Since two of those three things come from Japan, the writers went with it, I guess.

It's a good thing Super Ninja is in the living room now instead of that tiny, crammed little computer monitor. Now he's got plenty of room to show Charlie Horse what he can do.

He can KARATE KICK ALL YOUR FURNITURE is what! At this point it's clear that my friend left out the precious detail about the Lamb Chop Chanukah Special, and thus so did I until now, that PAT MORITA GOES BAT SHIT INSANE in the middle of it. Look at that second photo. He's shouting at the wall and a coat hanger falls over. Charlie Horse has created a karate man who can YELL YOU TO DEATH. He would've taken a whole plate full of latkes from Lamb Chop and destroyed the rest of the house by breathing thumbtacks if Charlie Horse hadn't hit the Delete key on his computer and sent Super Ninja swirling back into the monitor, all while classily telling him "Saionara."

Left with array of distaster so big it also includes things NOT in Super Ninja's bodily cause-you-harm secretions, Charlie Horse and Hush Puppy are given the task of tidying up the place again. Which, if she's anything like my mother, means making it look like nobody lives there. Hush Puppy immediately gets out a feather duster and cleans the window furthest from the mess, while Charlie Horse goes right back to ticking away on his keyboard to try and create a better superhero, one that wasn't all muscles and no brains. "That's like Arnold Schwarzenegger without Maria Shriver!" he exclaims. Thus reveals the true glue that holds that marriage together. She keeps Arnold under control and allows him to govern without any fear of him yelling anyone to death.

Back in the kitchen with Lamb Chop, Shari points to a familiar, yet interestingly new-looking object and asks the camera, "Does anybody know what THIS is?"

AAH LOOK OUT SHARI THERE'S A TENTACLE MONSTER LIKE THIS CLOSE TO YOUR FACE

Oh wait, it's just her menorah? Come on, Shari. It's a Chanukah special assumedly targeted mostly to Jewish children. Of course they know what a menorah is already. They don't make Christmas specials and ask me what a manger is. I already know. It's something I learned early on, because the general populatiry of manger births has gone notably down in the last two millenia.

After Lamb Chop raises her head like an overly eager schoolgirl just to give us the doyyyy answer, Shari goes into the symbolism involving the reclaiming of the Hebrew temple and the eight-day Miracle of the Oil, which Lamb Chop prefaces by explaining that the "Serious People" captured the Jewish temple and REALLY ruined it! I'm sure most good little Jewish boys and girls knew that just as well as they know what a menorah is, but she told a short version of the whole thing, anyway. Just in case you thought the Miracle of the Oil happened during the 1985 Stanley Cup playoffs or something, I guess.

Alan Thicke calls (and Hush Puppy doesn't pick up) from the road, telling Shari that he's stuck in some heavy traffic on the way home and

Man, they really enforce those cell phone laws. What's wrong with needing to make a phone call in a stand-still traffic jam? Why, being the first car in the jam, of course. Traffic cleared up in the ten minutes it apparently takes Alan Thicke to remember what numbers are and dial a cell phone. Alan doesn't own breasts, so he tries to get out of the ticket using his star power, but since both "Growing Pains" and the "Not Quite Human" trilogy ended three years ago, all the cop does in response to the name "Alan Thicke" is hopes he feels better. I hate it when cops are good at ice burns.

Charlie Horse's second attempt at the ultimate superhero, Super Brain, bears a striking resemblance to Lloyd Bochner's head. Learning his mistake after creating a brainless fighting machine, Charlie's all-brains hero is so literal to the term, that he's no more than a floating head who gets impatient with the fact that "How do you do?" is, at its letter, a nonsensical question, and who fears getting SLAM DUNKED. Charlie Horse quickly realizes how crappy his second draft is, so he "outvents" his invention, and in a state of panic when he realizes there are only 45 minutes left to submit an entry to the contest, types up the specs to the bravest hero he can think of.

The bravest hero he can think of is Alan Thicke in Superman underoos and swimming goggles, draped in nerf arrows and Super Soakers and talking in a familiar Austrian accent. It's Weapons Man! The most daring superhero in Charlie Horse's imagination! So daring, that he's more interested in hitting on Shari in her oh, so sexy kitchen apron than do anything macho like blow up the living room.

So Charlie makes him blow up the living room.

The only thing that seems to be destroyed when the dust clears, however, is Weapons Man's outfit. Out of ammo and in his long underwear, he's nothing but a coward, so Charlie terminates (lol) him.

There's little time left to go in Charlie's persuit of a cool Benjamin, so he racks his brain to try and figure out what he's doing wrong.

Unfortunately, he's a puppet, so any brain-racking he does is required by puppetry law to be done in song. His three unsuccessful ideas help him out by singing about why they're still the best choice, but now that Charlie knows all their weaknesses, none of them will do.

Alan calls again to say he's in transit from what I can only assume to be he house. Wherever the building is, the outdoor scenery looks a little too much like the scene outside Shari's house. OH GOD THE CALL CAME FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE

Wait, Alan told her he's "in transit?" Son of a bitch, Thicke. What's your problem? I know it's just a crazy old woman's tea party with her stuffed animals, but if you really had to politely lie your way out of it, you could've just said you already had a Christmas party to go to at the beginning of the special.

Pat is the first guest to arrive, and he somewhat quietly lets himself in. Or maybe it just seems quietly to me, because I'm comparing it to his digital doppelganger's karate yell of death. I also think it's partially because Shari's door is gigantic and makes him look about the same height as Hush Puppy. That'd certainly intimidate me, only because I know whose house it is.

Shari and her socks don't answer the door right away, because they're getting ready to perform their annual Chanukah pageant. She is there, however, in full costume, to get the door when Lloyd arrives about 30 seconds later and after the shortest sunset ever.

By full costume I mean an old man's beard. The old "I can't pay the rent!" folded paper fan doesn't really work well for beards, so a real one will do nicely in creating the illusion that is Mattathias. What's a Mattathias? It's where Rocky and Bullwinkle went to college.

It's also the name of the Jewish priest who started the rebellion against the Greek King Antiochus (played by Charlie Horse, whom Lamb Chop calls "Uncle Ochus," because Charlie Horse is a boy and Lamb Chop is too young and innocent to accept transvestism), who took over the Temple in Jerusalem, outlawed Judaism, and blew up Alderaan.

THIS IS THE OIL THAT DOESN'T END
YES IT GOES ON AND ON MY

OH SHI

So Judah Maccabee launches the evil, Jew-hating king into the stratosphere (the couch on which Pat and Lloyd are sitting), the Temple is saved, and Judah's father can finally become a little blue ghost with Yoda and Obi-Wan. And that's the entire story of Chanukah!

With the pageant over and Lloyd and Pat quite impressed, Charlie Horse asks to be excused, so he can go back to playing his game. Asked by a frustrated Shari if the story even left with anything, he responds, "Yeah. Less than five minutes to win the contest." This time, however, Charlie is not excused. Listen, horse. We're 43 minutes into the show and we finally got around to actually mentioning God.* So you have to stick around until we finish our prayer.

* See? Chanukah and Christmas aren't all that different after all.

Shari begins the actual Chanukah blessing by putting on her ceremonial party hat—a term I'm sticking with because I didn't even know women wore any sort of yarmulke counterpart—only to have it completely disappear from view as soon as she turns her giant curly head around to light the candles. The blessing, itself, gives praise to "Lord our God, King of the Universe," and is one of the main reasons why I don't think I could ever become a Jew. Not because of disbelief, but because I keep thinking of the theme song to "Highlander" and laughing. Or at least making that noise where my nose is trying to hold my laugh back from a fight.

Clearly Pat is the one character who gets the most out of the entire special. Not only is he enlightened by the Maccabees' underdog struggle for freedom and justice, but seemingly quite impressed with Judah's inner strength, bravery and in- ... telligence...

BING!

(Somewhere in Europe, a baby is laughing hysterically.)

Charlie Horse has like a minute left. What idea could he possibly have that he could make in time to enter into the

Good God almighty (King of the Universe) what kind of Internet do they have?!

He then prints out a document that looks like one of those certificates of appreciation like I used to make in Print Shop when I was in fifth grade, this one apparently reads, "Pay to the order of Charlie Horse." Charlie Horse's computer just printed out an actually negotiable check?! Screw you, Twilight Princess. Comic Creator III is the new greatest game of all time.

Shari has had quite enough of Charlie Horse's behavior that she does nothing to stop him from getting the crap out of the house. They go ahead and start dinner without him in the only suitable manner in which to show an extensively filmed meal: Benny Hill-style fast-forward with fire engine sounds playing in the background.

Since Lloyd is currently the man at the table and is taller than Pat, he gets to carve the turkey, because women and short people should not be trusted with dead birds. They even clap for him when he does a good job. What coordinated slicing the tall, wrinkly one possesses!

Hey, Mr. Latke-head Man! Who's tryin' to kill you?

I don't know, but they better not!

REEE REEE REEE REEE

Oh that's nice alcohol on a children's show. I learned it from Miyagi-san, mommy.

The doorbell rings just as everyone finishes dinner. Must be Alan and that brand new spine he picked up at the dollar store.

Or Charlie Horse with a shopping cart full of presents for everybody. That was totally going to be my second guess.

Just as blatantly foreshadowed, Charlie Horse's plan the entire time was to win the $100 to give back to Shari and his family, who have always given the world to him. "It's another miracle!" exclaims Hush Puppy.

Wait, a hundred dollars bought all that? Did you make a stop at Kinko's first to make a few dozen copies of that Swear-to-God-Negotiable Certificate of Appreciation?

Then, for absolutely no reason or conviction, Pat Morita steps into view and says, "You got any more LATKES?" Thank you for your contribution to this camera shot, Pat!

FUN WITH ANALOGIES!
Latkes : Chanukah Specials :: Golf : Hi & Lois

With his spirit of goodwill toward men, women and cotton finally able to shine through, Charlie Horse reveals his winning entry of the super contOH DEAR GOD KILL IT

Hush Puppy: "That's your superhero?! But that's dumb lookin'!"

Yes, despite being an actual historical and biblical figure, or at least a giant dog puppet version of an actual historical and biblical figure, Judah Maccabee was the grand prize-winning superhero out of what I can only imagine to be thousands of entries. Maybe tens of thousands or maybe even more than that, but I don't really feel comfortable in giving too much credit to the popularity of Comic Creator III. Not even in Shari Lewis' magical fantasy world where she's friends with Pat Morita and dinky IBMs older than my Nintendo 64 can make things come to life.

On that note, Charlie Horse bids farewell to Judah until next year. Or I guess tomorrow night, since they only had one other candle lit. Shari then starts singing a song about the Eight Days of Chanukah, in a similar vein to the Twelve Days of Christmas. Aw nuts, and they were doing so well in not even mentioning Christmas. I counted 52 and a half minutes.

Shari even managed to get Pat and Lloyd tipsy enough to sing. They sing the fourth day of Chanukah's line, in which they "Listen to the sto-ries!" This is right before what we do on the fifth day of Chanukah, which is

"Eeeeeat chocolate geeeeelt." That's the money in the gold foil. I ... wait wtf credits?! What about Alan?

"AND A PAR-TRIIIDGE IN A PEEEAR TREEEEEEE"

"OY VEY!"

That's how it ends. Right there. In a freeze frame. Not even kidding. See, that's what you get when you give Alan Thicke the same fake address as that girl I met at the bar. He comes in and ruins your special so badly that you have no choice but to end it. And in some eerie display of reverse karma, Alan Thicke is the only person in this special who is STILL ALIVE. Well, all right. Maybe the candle lady is, too.

Still, were it I, I'd probably have ended things in a more traditional, non-abrupt way...