Andy Samberg never stops never stopping, so he’s ready to hit us with another mockumentary in which he is both starring and producing— Tour de Pharmacy.

The short HBO comedy (less than an hour) will take the viewer into the cutthroat world of professional bike racing, as older “cyclists” reminisce about their glory days (the competition in question is back in 1982), which seem to have shades of Pumping Iron mixed with Talladega Nights. A major theme, if the title didn’t tip you off, is performance-enhancement drug jokes, but Lance Armstrong has a cameo, so no hard feelings.

“This is what happens when you train super hard. On the bicycle!” Announces an incredibly ripped gentleman played by John Cena.

The bonkers trailer also has the cyclists straight up stop the race and start fighting one another with their bare hands.

Of course, in typical Lonely Island friends-in-high-places fashion, this film also has every celebrity ever, from J.J. Abrams to Orlando Bloom. Come on; you obviously want to see any movie that has Nathan Fielder, Jeff Goldblum, and Daveed Diggs. (In one trailer, Goldblum wears his best outfit since his appearance in the trailer for the new Thor movies, and Diggs for some reason is milking a cow. K.)

As Goldblum announces in the trailer about the “hundreds of dollars” and “dozens of fans” on the line, “Stakes are medium!”

The film premieres July 8, but in the meantime, watch the trailers over and over again, below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVpRr1-PGgM&feature=youtu.be

Image from Tour de Pharmacy.

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After three rounds with some really close competitions, Round 4 was almost entirely landslides! Andy Samberg, Gal Gadot, and Steven Spielberg all did really well up to this point, but you wouldn’t know it from how hard they fell.

The only person who came even close to their opponent and lost this round was Daveed Diggs. Let’s raise a glass to the rising star.

And so, our remaining Top 4 are now all the heaviest of hitters: Mel “The Man” Brooks, Natalie “Natch” Portman, Bette “Beat You” Midler, and the Notorious RBG (OK, that last nickname is real).

Who will win? Who will lose? Who’s the best at singing the blues (OK, probably Midler, but still)? We need your help to decide.

(For your consideration, after polls we’ve added some relevant clips of the nominees being great.)

New subscribers to our email list will know who’s going to the finals before we announce the results:

You know the drill by now. Vote, and you have until Sunday, April 2nd, at 10 p.m. And the next day, THE FINALS BEGIN.

YOUR FINAL PICK FROM THE “ACTORS” SIDE:

YOUR FINAL PICK FROM THE “OTHERS” SIDE:

Image via Wikimedia.

The post Jewish Celeb Madness: YOUR TOP 4 appeared first on Jewcy.

Round 3 of this bizarre tourney was harsh and unforgiving, like a 19th century schoolmaster before some Anne Shirley-type waltzes in and gently points out that you don’t need to strike children for them to learn in a classroom environment.

Anyway, what we mean to say is, Scarlett Johansson is gone. As is Daniel Radcliffe, Mayim Bialk, Lenny Kravitz, Rachel Bloom, Aly Raisman, Rachel Platten, and Mark Zuckerberg. A moment of respect for our fallen heroes…

OK, time to regroup. We’re voting to turn out remaining 8 into a Fab Four. That’s right; this is the quarterfinals. The competition is getting tighter. Choose wisely.

New subscribers to our email list will get the results of this round before we post Round 5:

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS!

Voting ends this Thursday night, March 30th, at 8 p.m. And you can still tweet us with why you think your fave deserves to go all the way to number 1!  For example here are a couple of reader arguments for (and against) two of our top competitors:

RBG is 84 but could beat up anyone else on that list. Also, she is basically standing between us and the apocalypse. She should win this award and also every other award.— Ayelet Parness

Mel Brooks will win. As great and awesome and Jewish as Ruth BG is, Mel Brooks’s career has done more for the culture, people, heritage, and world than any judge could hope to accomplish in a lifetime. — Dov Alpert

So how are you voting?

THE ACTORS:

THE MUSICIANS (For the last time!):

THE OTHERS:

The post Jewish Celeb Mishegas: ROUND 4, OR THE TOP 8! appeared first on Jewcy.

We need to talk about sexy Jewish punks.  Why don’t we talk about them more?

After all, this year marks the fortieth anniversary of the Ramones releasing their debut, eponymous, groundbreaking album. But of persisting American-Jewish stereotypes, one of the least-prevalent is that of the grimy, ragamuffin kid causing trouble around town.

Well, let’s call it an archetype; there are others based on fact; we remember the Bugsy Siegels, so-called “Tough Jews,” bad men who did bad things, like, ya know, murder. But too-often we forget the, well, punks, teenage boys in leather jackets who smoked cigarettes that you would never take home to mom but fooled around with under the bleachers whilst skipping class.

(I never experienced anything remotely like this, but with the Ramones it was fun, and easy, to pretend.)

But for Pete’s Sake, who do you think was hitching a ride to Rockaway Beach? It’s fairly common knowledge that two of the original Ramones were Jewish (Tommy was even the son of Holocaust survivors), but their grungy rock personas weren’t created out of thin air. They were an ethnic minority, kids or grand-kids of immigrants, living in New York City and causing trouble.

Jews didn’t stream out of the tenements and onto manicured lawns; there was often in-between. The Ramones’ Forest Hills neighborhood of their youth, for example, was heterogeneous, and even for their more well-to-do peers, it was still somewhat urban.

In “Only the Good Die Young,” Billy Joel is the scruffy Jewish kid from the wrong side of the tracks seducing the nice Catholic girl. But he’s really convinced people that he’s Italian (I hear it all-too-often), because of his time hanging with blue-collar crowds growing up on Long Island. (Remember, the Ramones had the Italian persona, too, with that stage name.)

While this reality isn’t extinct today (blue-collar or lower-class Jews are a thing, people), maybe we started to drift away from it as one wave after another rose socioeconomically. After the Ramones, we got the Beastie Boys, and while they were scruffy and petulant, too, they were a bit more winking, and they tended to hail from more privileged families than the Ramones.

Pouring through Jewcy‘s old “Jews Who Rock Wiki,” it’s really amazing how many punk or rock bands we’ve helped forge.  So why are these groups seen as anomalies, as “Hey, did you know at least one Jew participated in rock and roll?”

“Punk is Jewish,” Steven Lee Beeber says in The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk, “Not Judaic. Jewish, the reflection of a culture that’s three millennia old now. It reeks of humor and irony and preoccupations with Nazism. It’s all about outsiders who are ‘one of us’ in the shtetl of New York.”

So why does Jewish sex appeal today have to be of the quiet, nerdy variety, or the goofy, dorky sort? Andy Samberg’s musical career comes from the humorous juxtaposition of an awkward weirdo-persona making the music associated with being suave or tough. Lou Reed was suave enough on his own, thank you very much.

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with loving a Motel Kamzoil, but don’t forget that Perchik is there, too, and he’s bringing the revolution.

So it’s forty years since the Ramones. And for someone born only five years before they broke up, they’re undeniably retro. But my crush on these old-timey (to me) hooligans is part of my New York Jewish identity. I barely went out to anywhere but school, synagogue, and USY when I was a teenager. But it’s fun to pretend that the bad boys next door (a mixed group of Jewish and not) would sneak me out of the house for a different, equally authentic Jewish experience.

(Except for Johnny. Forget that Nazi-obsessed weirdo.)

Image via Wikimedia

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Brooklyn Nine-Nine stars Chelsea Peretti and Andy Samberg talk one-on-one in Peretti’s new Elle interview series which features the comedian’s Q&A’s with her comedy icons.

Samberg recently took home a Golden Globe for best actor in a comedy, where he plays detective, Jake Peralta. Apparently Peretti and Samberg go way back–all the way back to elementary school. They were car pool buddies! Thats early suburb comedy chic for ya!

The two chatted about their mutual friend from middle school and Mr. Wong’s math class.

What do you think our mutual friend Ilan from middle school is doing right now? 

I bet he’s tending to his baby because that’s what he’s doing in all of his Facebook pics?

Do you think Ilan’s baby is cute?

When I saw the 9,000th Facebook pic, I turned a corner and decided yes!

If Ilan got busted for drugs or something in Mexico, would you fly there to bail him out, no questions asked? I would, but don’t let that influence your answer.

I’m not sure I’m as close to Ilan as you are, frankly.

Chelsea was also recently interviewed for Elle and talked Samberg, her comedy idols, and slut shaming.

So the childhood photo of you and your Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-star Andy Samberg wenta  bit viral after your brother (BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti) tweeted it out. What was high school like for you?

Oh yeah, Jonah started a scandal. We went to a very small high school. It was like in a wooded house, it was a weird school. I hung out with a lot of guys in high school and I did theater with a few of my close girlfriends.

So this event celebrates women in TV – who are the women on TV you’ve looked up to?

So many people: Lucille Ball is the earliest incarnation of a woman I thought was funny, Joan Rivers, Roseanne, Carol Burnett, Gilda Radnor, down to current times, where you have Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Kristen Wiig. There are so many hilarious women which is why I think that whole thing where every year there’s an article like, “Can Women Be Funny?” and it’s like, ‘Wait a minute, it’s been proven!’ I just hold onto that chronology in my head and think, ‘This is ridiculous.’

Being a feminist seems pretty fraught these days.

I think it’s getting really convoluted to be a feminist now. Someone got mad at me for slut shaming when I was talking about Halloween costumes.

What did you do?

I was saying I don’t like slutty costumes. And this person was like ‘Women feel good and they like it and and you shouldn’t make them feel bad about it.’ Believe me, I want everyone to have sex and be happy, but I think, you know, guys aren’t objectifying themselves the same way… I just think women should have more variety of costumes and it shouldn’t be all about the male gaze.

(Photo by Getty)

The post Chelsea Peretti Interviews Andy Samberg for New ‘Elle’ Column appeared first on Jewcy.

“I was like what am I gonna get out of that guy? He isn’t fucked up!” Marc Maron says at the 20 minute mark during his new WTF podcast with funny guy/Jewish heartthrob Andy Samberg.

I find the best part about this interview is how bent of out shape Marc Maron gets from the fact that 35-year-old Samberg is so genuinely well adjusted to life. Through nervous “yeah’s” (where you feel Marc’s head spinning from Andy’s normalcy), he learns that Andy isn’t from Great Neck, Long Island, as Manon assumed from his prototypical “Jewness,” but actually born to a pair of hippies who fled Jewcity, NY for San Francisco in 1970. To Maron’s shock, Andy has a pre-school teaching mom whose fluent in sign language, and a photographer dad (with a studio and EVERYTHING).

Samberg said at the 20.45 minute mark:

“Bill Hader always talks about how we’re a well adjusted generation of comedy. It started with Jack Black and Ferrell, then trickled down into the Poehlers and the Seth Myers’.”

Marc goes on to ask Andy about what it was like being a Bay area Jew at the 21.40 minute mark, and learned that Samberg grew up identifying as a Jew but didn’t get a bar mitzvah. Nowadays he assures Maron that his family is much more observant. This I take, has a great deal to do with the fact that his sister made aliyah and married an Israeli. Now Samberg says, “my family does Shabbat every week and observes the High Holidays. I fast on Yom Kippur.” Earlier in the interview Samberg cracks a joke on how he feels about Israel:

“A friend of mine, Simon Rich, a writer on SNL said a quote I love, “I’m so relaxed in my life, and I can just take any interest I want, and care about whatever I want, because I know as a Jewish man, that as soon as I turn 50, all I’m going to care about is Israel.”

Thankfully, the older Samberg gets, the more Jewish he’s becoming. The two also go into great detail about Andy and Lonely Island (his comedy band with fellow mates Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone), loving hip-hop, and using black humor in his comedy. Samberg gets the nods and handshakes from fellow rappers, and feels he’s done whatever he’s doing, right.

“We went to high school together (Lonely Island) so we’ve known each other a long time. One of things we generally all agree on, is that doing rap’s for comedy if you’re a white person is a very slippery slope, because its not really your place. And also because most people who try it aren’t good at it; they just don’t sound good. In our opinion, we have to a make it sound legit, and have a genuine knowledge and respect for that world. We’re not from that culture, we’re fans of that culture.”

Best highlight came at the 15 minute mark:

Maron says, “When you first came on the scene, not unlike many peers in my age group, the consensus was, who the fuck is that Jewish kid? How often is there a good looking Jewish kid? When does that happen? Maybe that was just me.”

Andy replies, “I hope that it was more than just you, because it makes me feel really good about myself. You want to be the good looking Jewish kid!”

For the full interview which includes more on Lonely Island, how he got into comedy, and Andy’s fascination with the pro-wrestling, see here.

(Photo by Getty)

The post Andy Samberg Chats With Marc Maron About Being a Good Looking Jew appeared first on Jewcy.

How can you tell if a television show is good? Well, you can just ask yourself, did I like that? But sometimes that feels wrong because sometimes you enjoy things that you consider trashy, and sometimes you don’t enjoy things that are, on some level, considered “good”. So, I’ve created a metric for how to judge a show by breaking it down to its components. After our lesson, we’ll judge the new Fox show starring Andy Samberg, Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Aesthetic judgments are a composite of three things: the intelligence of the object in question, its emotional quality, and what I like to call the sensibilities the object in question promotes—its core values as they are exposed by certain plot lines and aesthetic choices. These three aspects of any work of art can be broken down in order to get at some of the ways the work affects us, or fails to. It’s a helpful metric for analyzing one’s own ambivalent feelings about encounters of the third (in the Kantian sense) kind.

Let’s start with intelligence. There are three essential levels of intelligence that television shows are aimed at. A show pitched at the first level is that show that comes on in the mornings while you’re in the waiting room at your doctor’s office. The host stands in front of the participant who is for some reason dressed as a pirate and bellows at his or her face: “Here is a FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL! Do you want this five hundred dollar bill, or WHATEVER SECRET THING IS HIDDEN IN THAT BLACK BOX?” The participant presumably makes the choice and either satisfaction or dissatisfaction ensues. While the emotions of the show are quite compelling—that stupefaction that comes with high stakes choices absent the information necessary to make them—the show insults our intelligence, for it has no constraints associated with the task demanded of the participant.

The second level of intelligence can be found at shows aiming to intrigue their viewers, yet failing because once intrigued, they overplay their hand. In this category we have the show that is excellent with set up, but insults us by telling us what we have already learned via hints and clues that the show has assiduously planted. These shows always cause a spectator to say, “Wait. You mean he must have killed his victim before 6 p.m., because the clock with the gunshot is stuck at 6 p.m.?” In this category you have your Law and Order, your Aaron Sorkin, and any show with a laugh track except for Will and Grace. Sorkin’s mistake is that he thinks he has one up on the viewer. He doesn’t. It’s embarrassing.

The third level of intelligence occurs in shows whose producers are not only intelligent but who believe in the intellectual capacity of their viewers. They treat their audience as if they can be trusted with basic functions of inference. For example, in these shows, sometimes the producers will purposely withhold information from their audience, and they trust that the audience can read it is as such. In this category, you have your Good Wife, your Breaking Bad.

But these shows can fail in other ways. Take Breaking Bad. Intellectually, I am not insulted. The creators and actors clearly expect me to keep up, which I appreciate. But I am insulted emotionally by the show, which expects me to be carried along by the paltry emotional palette of a man who wants power. Furthermore, the show’s sensibilities offend: it has a serious race problem. It is essentially a show about the family as a corporation, the corporation as a family. The whole concept of the perfect product winning the day when applied to drugs—to meth—well, it offends the sensibilities, more than the intellect, insofar as it betrays a dishonorable bias the show has toward conservative values.

Some shows succeed intellectually, but fail emotionally, like 30 Rock. “But it’s not supposed to do anything emotionally!” you might argue. Untrue. It’s full of emotions—they just don’t reach me. And some shows can succeed with their sensibilities, but fail in the other departments. Shonda Rhimes has sensibilities I can really get behind, like, women who are really good at their jobs! Who put men in their place! Who own bad-assery! But when that amazing woman shouts for the nth time, “I need you to do your job because I do my job and I’m really good at it! Because everything can be fixed!” I then become a little intellectually insulted because I remember that speech from the first thirteen episodes; I don’t need a reminder.

And some shows are perfect. Friday Night Lights. Top of the Lake. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Veep. Green Wing. Sigh.

Now that we’ve mastered our metric— intelligence, emotions, sensibilities— lets take a closer look at Andy Samberg’s new show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Do you know if you like this show? Allow me to assist you in breaking it down. Brooklyn Nine-Nine features Samberg as Detective Jake Peralta. Samberg is the brilliant detective who gets away with all his antics because he is so good at detecting. Samberg has the funniest lines. Samberg is often surrounded by gorgeous women, who gaze up at him, waiting for his next funny line. Samberg wins every match, everyone’s good will. It’s like a fantasy of the man-child life, but it’s portrayed as a reality. Peralta gets away with being irresponsible and idiotic, and he’s loved regardless. And for this reason, it’s insulting. It asks us to accept this fantasy as an objective. To think that we wouldn’t notice—this is second tier intellectual stuff. To idealize the man-child—this insults our sensibilities. The way it plays with the beta-males in Peralta’s vicinity—-this insults us emotionally. The verdict? This show is bad.

The post A Metric System To Evaluate Television Shows appeared first on Jewcy.

We’ve got some good news and some bad news for you this afternoon. The good news is that NBC is adapting BBC Three’s Cuckoo, which starred the great Andy Samberg in his first post-Saturday Night Live endeavor, Deadline reports.

Cuckoo is the story of a middle-class family whose daughter comes back from a summer abroad married to a charming but infuriating hippie moron — a guy called Cuckoo. UK writers Robin French and Kieron Quirke, who created the BBC series, will write the adaptation, with The Simpsons veteran Tim Long on board as showrunner. French, Quirke and Long executive produce with the original series’ exec producers Ash Atalla and Dan Hine.

The bad news is that Samberg is already on Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine and it’s highly unlikely he’ll play Cuckoo again. So, I guess it’s time to watch the British version.

The post NBC To Adapt ‘Cuckoo’ But Not With Andy Samberg appeared first on Jewcy.

So, Andy Samberg is officially off the market, taken by the wonderfully talented Joanna Newsom. For those of us who had creepily seen ourselves getting married to Samberg in what would surely be a long, laughter-filled fantasy marriage, this is quite the blow. But to lift our spirits (we’re all in this together) we have a great clip of Samberg impersonating one of his wedding guests, the great Adam Sandler, who came dressed up as Donny from That’s My Boy, which was probably way funnier in person than it was on screen.

Mazel tov, you guys!

(Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty)

The post Adam Sandler Got Into Character For Andy Samberg’s Wedding appeared first on Jewcy.

Guess what, you guys? Andy Samberg was added to the list of Comedy Central’s Roast of James Franco this Labor Day. Roasts are usually done on Hollywood’s easiest targets—Franco’s basically halfway there—like Pamela Anderson, and Charlie Sheen. The roasters are typically made up of the same crowd—Whitney Cummings, Jeff Ross, Lisa Lampanelli— but Franco’s appointment has garnered an impressive comedic roster, Entertainment Weekly reports:

Comedy Central is turning up the celebrity heat on its roast of James Franco: Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari and SNL vet/Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Andy Samberg have been added to the roster of comedians and actors who will take their best shots at the thespian/director/writer/producer/Oscar host. The network previously announced that Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Nick Kroll, Natasha Leggero, Jeff Ross, and Sarah Silverman will serve as roasters, while Franco’s This is the End/Pineapple Express/Freaks & Geeks co-star Seth Rogen emcees the festivities as Roast Master.

This is going to be fun.

(Photo by Jason LaVeris/Getty)

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