When Homeland returns for a second season this Sunday night, it will be able to boast a bevy of Emmy’s and claim Barack Obama as a fanboy. But perhaps its most noted distinction is indirectly leading to the creation of America’s new catchphrase—“Mandy Patinkin, holla.” As I’m sure you know, Homeland is an adaptation of the Israeli TV series Hatufim, Prisoners of War, and is only one in a flood of programming coming out of the Israeli-Hollywood pipeline. Just last week Universal Television bought rights to The Gordin Cell, a series following former Russian intelligence agents reintegrating themselves in Israel.

There have been various hypotheses offered for the recent obsession with Israeli television: Israelis, they’re just like us! 9/11! And inevitably—Jews run Hollywood. Showtime and HBO as well as all the major networks have at least one Israeli television adaptation in the works.

But the Israeli TV shopping spree hasn’t been particularly discriminatory and results vary: The sitcom The Ex-List was canceled after only four episodes, and the reality show 3 got the axe after two. And while the success and failure of a show can be a crapshoot, there does seem to be a pattern in whether or not a series has crossover success.

America has a long history of adapting TV shows from other countries. Iconic American classics such as All in the Family and Three’s Company were modeled on British shows. More recently, the U.K. has given us the soon-to-be-put-out-of-its-misery series, The Office, as well as NBC’s Prime Suspect and MTV’s Skins—both failures. In the hunt for new ideas, producers have turned to other countries; AMC’s The Killing, for example, was based on a popular Danish program.

Sharon Shaif, who co-edited the book Global Television Formats: Understanding Television Across Borders and is currently writing a book on Israeli reality television, told me that traditionally, the rule of thumb when scouring for potential crossover hits is to find programs that are “culturally neutral” and adhere to established formulas. For Israel, though, the lesson has been almost the opposite. The Israeli shows that have succeeded in the United States have been steeped in Israeli cultural concerns, from war and terrorism to the specter of the Holocaust.

HBO’s In Treatment, the most successful Israeli crossover before Homeland, is a case in point. Adapted from the Israeli hit B’tipul, the show centers on a psychologist, with each episode depicting a therapy session. The patients in the Israeli version included a pilot, whose father is a Holocaust survivor, grappling with having bombed an Arab school; a couple deciding whether or not to have an abortion; and a childless woman in her 30s from a traditionally conservative Mizrachi family. The U.S. script follows the Israeli version almost word-for-word, only changing Israel-specific details, such as turning the pilot into an Iraqi war veteran.

Hatufim, which aired on Arutz 2 in 2010, is even more predicated on the Israeli context. The show revolves around the return of two Israel Defense Forces soldiers who were held in captivity in Lebanon for 17 years, and thus hits on one of Israel’s most sensitive nerves: the culture of the abducted soldier. While the series was successful, it had many detractors, who accused writer and director Gideon Raff of exploiting the issue at a time when Gilad Shalit was still in captivity.

Though Raff consulted on the U.S. version and serves as its executive producer, the series diverges sharply from its Israeli model, and with good reason: returning soldiers don’t have the same hold on the national mindset in America. So while Homeland takes as its premise a U.S. Marine returning home after being held captive by Al-Qaida since 2003, it adds an element of suspense to the mix with Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), a CIA operations officer who suspects he may have been turned.

While Hatufim and B’Tipul didn’t offer culturally neutral source material (far from it), they gave Hollywood something even more valuable: fresh ideas. The shows are unlike anything on American television, not only in theme, but in genre. For viewers used to network cop shows or cable series focused on tormented male anti-heroes, a show set entirely in a therapist’s office is nothing if not different. And Israeli television is a fertile ground for dramas that don’t conform to American models. “Israel is not wedded to the usual procedural formats—lawyer, cop, etc.,” says Shaif.

Not so with comedy. Israelis grew up on a steady diet of imported American sitcoms—the first Israeli sitcom, Krovim, Krovim, only premiered in 1983. Today many of Israel’s comedies mimic the classic sitcoms of the ’80s and ’90s. The familiar tropes are there—the plots are driven by misunderstandings; men are constantly screwing up and spend an episode working to hide it from their wives who will inevitably find out; children are a bit too precocious.

With contemporary popular American comedies trending toward meta-references and fast-paced jokes, it is not much of a surprise that American audiences would shy away from shows imitating Israeli shows that imitate American shows from 20 years ago. Take last year’s Traffic Light. The Fox show was based on Ramzor, a hit show in Israel. Now in its fourth season, the Israeli show follows three men at different stages in life: Itzko is married with a kid, Amir lives with his girlfriend, and Hefer is the perennial bachelor of the bunch. The show won an Israeli TV Academy Award for best comedy and became the first Israeli TV series to win an International Emmy Award for best comedy series.

Fox heavily promoted the show, which premiered in February 2011, but with dismal ratings it only lasted through May. Looking at the source material, one could guess why the show failed. In one episode, Itzko’s wife gives him two bags—one filled with old clothes to donate to African refuges and one with a Prada dress she needs dry cleaned. If you have ever watched an episode of Home Improvement you can easily guess that he gives away the wrong bag, his wife finds out, and hijinks ensue as he is forced to go down to the refugee shelter to get it back.

This doesn’t mean that all Israeli dramas are good, and Israeli comedies bad. Arab Labor, for example, the first Israeli sitcom to center around an Arab-Israeli family is both radical in its subject matter and riotously funny. But it may be a sign that the American audience is on the hunt for television that seems non-prepackaged, something that Israeli dramas are able to offer. And once Israeli sitcoms find their own voice, they may succeed here as well. And if anyone from Keshet is out there, I’m pretty sure a comedy centered on a multigenerational family that runs a Sabich stand in Tel Aviv is pure gold—remember to thank me at the Emmys.

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• He’s baaack: John Galliano has allegedly filed a 15 million euro employee/employer dispute claim in French labor court.

• Meet the actress married to Seth Rogen.

• Tom Bower has been cast as Dwight Schrute’s oft-referenced former Nazi uncle, Heinrich Manheim, on a spinoff of The Office.

• Take a walk down sartorial memory lane with Gwyneth Paltrow.

• British actor Jamie Bell has been added to the cast of Lars von Trier’s Shia LaBeouf-filled film, Nymphomaniac.

• Members of the Israeli band Monica Sex learned the hard way not to get undressed mid-concert, or else the police might get involved.

The post Daily Jewce: Dwight Schrute’s Nazi Uncle Cast on ‘The Office’ Spinoff appeared first on Jewcy.

Two weeks in, it appears that along with the departure of Steve Carell, the most exciting narrative of the NBC Thursday Spring season will be the epic battle each week between Parks & Recreation and Community for funniest show on television. Last night, P&R won by showing how hilarious it is to have Ron Swanson giddy as a school child, Andy run into a car, and many of the rest of the cast flu-ridden (leading Leslie to ask the night’s most resonate question, “Was I wearing a tiara when I came in here? Because if you happen upon it, will you have Lady Pennyface retrieve it and send it post hence?”).

Last night, the story might be that Perfect Couples was better than 30 Rock.  It feels as crazy to write as it probably does to read, but Perfect Couples was simply a more enjoyable 30 minutes of situationally comedic television.  We have undoubtedly loved 30 Rock for all of its six season but six seasons is still a long time and sometimes you have an episode that plainly is meh.

After two episodes, Perfect Couples is not as easily dismissed as it first appeared.  The premise – focusing each episode on a theme of marriage and having it play out differently over three different types of couples – has proven fertile for both necessary conflict and comedy.  In this way it is most reminiscent of Modern Family in that instead of avoiding clichés it embraces them in earnest and tries to put its own spin on it.  Perfect Couples stands as the one in show in this lineup that’s not trying to reinvent the wheel.

That is not to say Perfect Couples lacks ambition; it has shown itself to be packed with some bold flourishes.  With its quick cuts and frenzied score, it is easily the most frantically paced show of the night, which has successfully heightened the show’s farcical underpinning.  What has been really fun is that the stories are not told completely linearly; they use 30 Rockian cutaways not for absurdist diversions but to offer glimpses at where these couples started out and foreshadow future plot developments (like a not at all depressing Blue Valentine).  In last night’s episode, for example, this device was used to great effect to tell the surprising and ridiculous story of how Rex proposed to Leigh.

Not that the show is without kinks. Fundamentally, the writing and acting is grotesquely uneven.  There are three couples – the normal one, the crazy one (as Vance put it, “I’m big, she drinks from a jar, I really think this can work”), and the one that for some reason features Olivia Munn – yet they all do not contribute equally to the laugh creation.  The crazy one brings a lion’s share of the funny, the normal one operates as the necessary straight men, and the last one mostly exists as graveyard of failed punch lines.  As is often the case with young shows, the scripts were likely written before the cast was set, so one would hope that with time the characters will really start reflecting the actor’s voices.  If it gets enough episodes for this happen, Perfect Couples will grow into a decidedly good TV show.

Will it ever be one of the greats?  Probably not, but if <s>Kabletown’s</s> Comcast’s NBC decides to stick with this three-hour comedy racket, it might come to offer a nice relief from the high-wire cleverness of its line-up mates.  Meaning that Perfect Couples might be one of the best shows of any given night, but likely not operate at Parks and Recreation and Community’s current level.

So as the night’s winner, here is a clip from last nights Parks & Recreation

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In the world of television there are Jews as far the eye cans see, and the Jews grow as high as an elephant’s eye: writers, directors, producers and actors — there are Jewish names all over the small screen, with the one exception tending to be when it comes to Jewish characters.  Ask anybody to name a Jew centric show barring Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and we wouldn’t suggest holding your breath.

With that said, Jews are represented on television; it may be mostly when the credits roll, but these are our ten favorite Jews –fictional characters or important behind the scenes people–on television.

1.  Mathew Weiner (Producer/Mad Men)

We began Jews Watching Mad Men in the first place because there were Jews were watching Mad Men, in droves!  During JWMM this season, conversation often flared about the unique and interesting portrayal of Jewish women on the show.  Thus far, Mad Men has produced two of the most dynamic Jewish female characters on TV.   Doc Faye Miller (played by Cara Buono) and Rachel Menken (played by Sons of Anarchy’s Maggie Siff) were two women that came into Don Draper’s life and made their presence known, each leaving their own special mark on Don’s already bruised psyche before their grand exit. Matthew Weiner, a former writer for The Soprano’s originally pitched Mad Men to HBO and when they turned him down, Weiner set out to make Mad Men that much better, thereby turning the network that acquired it into HBO’s biggest competition.  Slowly but surely, AMC is shaping up to be just that, forcing HBO to compete for their much-coveted high brow audience.

2.  Katey Sagal (Actor/Character/Sons of Anarchy)

As far as Jewish TV characters go, Gemma Teller is one of the most fleshed out, as well as one of the most unexpected when it comes to going against the grain of Jewish stereotypes.  Son’s Of Anarchy is a show about an outlaw motorcycle club that draws from Shakespearean drama archetypes in a way that no show has since The Wire.  Gemma Teller is the queen bee or “Head Old Lady” of the Redwood Original Chapter of The Sons Of Anarchy, perhaps not what you would expect to see at the number 2 slot on this list.  One might not have even known that she was Jewish had it not been for a scene during the second season where she faces off against the leader of the local Aryan Motorcycle gang, warning him to watch his step with the anti-Semitic remarks.  Gemma is a survivor, who proves herself capable of overcoming the most trying situations.  Though, her number one priority, is always to protect her family.  Of course, Katy Sagal is best known for her role as Peggy Bundy, perhaps the least Jewish TV character in history.  She recently married Sons of Anarchy Creator, Kurt Sutter and continues to contribute her voice to Futurama.

3. Michael Stuhlbarg (Actor/Character/Boardwallk Empire)

For all the young Jewish boys who used to like to play pretend, “Mobster” was always exceptionally fun, because there were so many Jewish mobsters to choose from: tough guy maniac Bugsy Seigel to stoic and ruthless puppeteer Meyer Lansky to, of course, Arnold Rothstein, or “The Brain.”  Rothstein was known for mentoring up and coming gangsters and teaching them how to dress.  However, he’s best remembered for paying the Chicago Black Sox to throw the 1919 World Series (and a few great fictional representations).

On the show, Rothstein is one of the most confident calculated criminals portrayed on television since Omar from The Wire.  Stuhlbarg, who studied at Julliard, was nominated for a Tony for his role in the outstandingly dark play, The Pillowman and also appeared in the infinitely Jewish film, A Serious Man.  His portrayal of Rothstein, with his velvety, laid back voice, illustrious taste and urbane facade is the perfect model for the Jewish gangster of yore.

4.     Allison Brie (Actress/Character/Community)

Allison Brie got her start acting at her local Jewish community center.  She did a little TV work before auditioning and being chosen for the role of Trudy Campbell on Mad Men.  However, it wasn’t until she began playing the role of Annie Edison, the recovered pill-popping perfectionist with doe eyes and innocent crush on everyone, that she really began to shine as a force in the TV world.  She also became the new fantasy girlfriend for every Jewish boy who’s ever added his surname to Mila or Winona to see how it sounds.

5. Paul Lieberstein (Writer/Actor/The Office)

If Paul Lieberstein had his way, he’d have almost no screen time on The Office.  Lieberstein, who spent years on the writing team for King Of The Hill, is not only one of the main writers on The Office but his portrayal of Toby makes for one of the most beloved small, but important roles on the show.

6.  Puck From Glee (Character/Glee)

Puck from Glee, played by Mark Salling must be one of the most visible Jewish characters on television right now, and fortunately, in writing him, Glee scribes don’t bow to the pressure of writing him as “a Jew in a box.”   The character of Noah Puckerman is a tough rebel without a cause, who plays football and constantly has epiphanies that he needs to be a better Jew or only date other Jews.  Hell, he’s probably the most believable Jew on TV in that respect.

7.  Fred Savage (Director/It’s Always Sunny In Philiadelphia/Party Down)

Any child of the 80’s who aspired to be an actor, worshiped Fred Savage.  Not only did he star in The Wizard, the first and only awesome video game movie, but he starred in the best coming of age TV show of all time, The Wonder Years, and lets not forget Little Monsters with Howie Mandell.  Now, Savage’s efforts go towards directing some of the best comedies on TV.  Savage has come to hone a very unique and identifiable style through his work in Party Down and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia; juxtaposing off beat comedy and biography style drama in a way that nobody else can.  Early episodes of Party Down perfectly illustrate what has become, “the Savage Style,” or “Savage verite.”

8.  Andy Botwin (Character/Weeds)

Without Andy Botwin, Weeds would hardly be worth watching.  Andy’s non-stop neurosis and constant confidence completes the show and makes for a character we can all relate to, managing to stay charming even when your want ring his neck.  Watching him go from a hardcore pothead slacker to studying to become a rabbi to living off the grid has made for reliable TV fun. The question is, will he and Nancy ever get it on?

9.  Ginnifer Goodwin (Actress/Big Love)

Ginnifer Goodwin is a Tennessee born Jew who’s first big role came in the movie Walk the Line playing Johnny Cash’s first wife, but it’s her role as Margene Heffman on Big Love, that has made her a standout.  Margene is not only one of the most dynamic characters on the tube, but she has one of the most prominent arcs of any character on TV.  Starting as a naïve babysitter turned third wife, she’s become much more assertive in her role as lowest wife of the totem pole, able to identify where her power in the relationship lies and how far her charm can take her.  However, her little tryst with her husband’s son this past season has put her in a precarious situation. Big Love may be the most well acted show on television right now and Goodwin’s skills are a major part of that.

10.  Howard Wolowitz/Simon Hellberg (Actor/Character/The Big Bang Theory)

The Character, Howard Wolowitz (played by Simon Hellberg), reinforces every possible Jewish stereotype.  He is a sex-obsessed nerdy momma’s boy, who often finds himself helping his mother in and out of the bathtub.  He’s willing to do just about anything to get laid, even if it means wrecking a multi million dollar government robot and his sleaziness towards women is damn near cartoony..  Luckily, the actor and writers have the tact to make these flaws funny, without being a offensive, dishing it out to everyone equally, and giving Howard enough self-awareness to be realistic and charming.  Besides, who could possibly deny I that if there are two things Jewish men like, it’s sex and brisket, what else is new?

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