Jackie Mason, the comedian who bills himself “The Ultimate Jew,” was an equal-opportunity offender when he performed in Richardson Sunday for Congregation Nishmat Am. Jump for the great man’s jokes.
On the Catholic Church: “Did you hear, the Pope exonerated the Jews (for killing Christ)? Know what we did in return? Burned the mortgage on the Vatican.”
On Jewish “traits”: “I can tell if somebody’s Jewish in a minute. You ask ‘em, ‘Do you know your cholesterol number?’ Gentiles know the football scores, but there’s not a Jew in the world who doesn’t know their cholesterol number.”
On Jewish names: “Irving, Saul … Jews aren’t taking Jewish names anymore. Today it’s: Tiffany Schwartz. Ashlie Lipshitz. They’re trying to out-gentile the gentiles. Crucifix Finkelstein. The only people left with Jewish names are black people: Whoopi Goldberg.”
On Israel’s military defense: “Israel has had the hydrogen bomb for 20 years. You know how much one costs? One hundred and eighty-seven million dollars. You think we’re gonna waste that on an Arab?”
On overrated artists: “Shakespeare was a schmuck. I mean, ‘Wherefore art thou?’ Just say, ‘Where are you? I’m looking for you!’ And Picasso! I’ve got a brother-in-law with a Picasso. He had it hanging upside down in his house for 9 and a half years, he doesn’t know the difference.”
On Dallas: “There’s not much here but shrubbery. High shrubbery, low shrubbery, more shrubbery. But there’s a lot of fine people in Dallas. They all came from New York.”
9 comments
How old do you have to be to think any of this is funny?
Oh, and Jackie, “wherefore” doesn’t mean “where.”
IJS
I thought it was funny, and I’m 36.
WATG: you are loser.
correction:
WATG: you are LOSER!
It’s called real humor, kids. You know, where you actually have to be thinking to understand it?
Now run back to your little Dane Cook cd’s.
I wish Bill Hicks and Bernard Manning were here right now to slap you in the mouth.
Are you kidding, Biff?
A while back, I saw the poster for this performance and I thought it was grisly: a corpse painted unnaturally bright colors by a hamfisted coroner. Then I saw the prominently displayed logo of Sparkman-Hillcrest Funeral Home, and thought it even odder; kind of like when a greasy spoon has photos on the menu that make the food look worse than it already is. Why would a reputable funeral parlor advertise their services on the cheap like that? And what kind of “placement” is the plate-glass front of Pogo’s Liquors?
Then I saw that the “corpse” was Jackie Mason, and ever since, I’ve seen the world in a new light. It was like when the Wizard of Oz goes color, or like the first time you hear Sgt. Pepper’s. Peeps, it was way cleaner than acid!
An old Mason favorite:
Golfer, watching a buddy struggle into a girdle: “Since when have you been wearing a girdle?” Buddy, with a sigh: “Since my wife found it in the glove compartment”.