This season’s jokes were shot in a historic soundstage in Hollywood. Yes, that Hollywood. Tinsletown. The Dream Factory. Shooting there felt like we had come a mighty long way from our humble beginnings in an empty storefront in Highland Park, New Jersey. (In actuality it was 2768 miles, if you take 1-40, the Southern route, which you might want to do with the weather we’ve been having up North.) In fact, it wasn’t as far as it seemed. The first shoot, in New Jersey, was organized and cast primarily by my dad. The third shoot, in Hollywood, was organized and cast in large part by my cohort Eric Spiegelman’s dad. I found this mirrored paternal joke-gathering activity, from East coast to West, immensely satisfying. It felt like an apt summary of what we are trying to do. After all, in Hollywood or New Jersey, old Jews are old Jews. Maybe the chais on gold chains are a little easier to see in LA, nestled as they are in thatches of thick gray hair over tan chests and half buttoned Prada shirts. But, Hollywood or not, these men and women are still your aunts and uncles, your wise-cracking attorneys and your periodontists. Their jokes, some new, some not-so-new, were all reassuringly familiar. And why shouldn’t they be? These jokes are the oral history of a culture. As such, in our book, which will be released this fall by (shameless plug) Random House’s Villard Press, we have organized the jokes into chapters that represent important categories of American Jewish life. We have: Jewish Mothers, Food, Success, Rabbis, Husbands & Wives, Sex, Illness, Death and Oral Sex. You’ll want to read it for the insightful social criticism, the intellectual rigor and for the blowjob jokes. This season, in order to address complaints of depression caused by OJTJ withdrawal on Monday and Wednesday, we have new jokes on the first four days of the week. And, in honor of Passover, we’ll have bitter-herb Friday, with jokes presented by my disgruntled and somewhat angry second cousin Herbert. (Just kidding, every Friday we have a greatest hits compilation of the past week’s jokes. Anyway, cousin Herbert is much less bitter since he agreed to take the Zoloft.) Enjoy, and remember, laugh loud. We don’t hear so good.Tumblr (3.0; @oldjewstellingjokes)http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgcjjDQI%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Michael Miller, “Jokes in Prison”</h2> <p>Michael Miller is a television and documentary writer/producer and practical joker. He’s been an Angeleno, a New Yorker and a Buffalonian. A lifetime appreciator of Jewish humor, since long before his Bar Mitzvah, he learned about sex from Belle Barth and life from Lenny Bruce. Or maybe it was vice versa.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/439016846http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/439016846Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0500season3<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgcjifQI%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Charlotte Bornstein, “Food Issues”</h2> <p>When Charlotte Bornstein began the Charlotte-James Skincare company in Los Angeles thirty years ago, she achieved a life-long ambition to “be in the skin business.”</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/436859762http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/436859762Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0500season3<p>When I was a kid, the first part of the newspaper I looked at was the funny pages. Garfield was my favorite comic strip, followed by Marmaduke. When I was older, Doonesbury. Nowadays, I get most of my news from the Internet, and the websites I read don’t have funny pages. We at Old Jews Telling Jokes would like to change this. We want to syndicate our show to your website, the way comics are syndicated to newspapers around the country. Except, instead of you paying us, we want to share our advertising revenue with you.</p> <p>Would you like to partner with us? We’re looking for online publications (blogs included) who want to give this a try.  If your website qualifies, we will give you 20% of the advertising revenue that you help us generate. To be considered for this program, please send an email to <a href="mailto:ojtjpartners@gmail.com">OJTJpartners@gmail.com</a>. Please include the name and URL of your website, as well as the number of unique viewers and pageviews it receives per month.</p> <p>Let us provide your readers with a daily laugh, and you can make a little money in the process. Now who can argue with that?</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/434821301http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/434821301Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:57:00 -0500<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgcjiYQI%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Archie Barkan, “Mrs. Nafkewitz”</h2> <p>From 1957-1977, Archie Barkan performed in various hotels in the Catskill Mountains in New York, Miami Beach, Fla., Lakewood, N.J., Atlantic City, N.J., and the Pocono Mountains. His shtick includes playing the piano, singing, and doing vocal impersonations.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/434677563http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/434677563Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0500season3<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/hPcQjMMmkegl" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="243" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>The Jokes of Week One</h2> <p>What a fantastic first week back for Old Jews Telling Jokes! We heard the tale of an amazing Jew, we remembered the name of that restaurant, we learned the different kinds of underwear, and we got ourselves a discount.</p> <p>In case you missed any, just click play above and all four of this week’s jokes will play, in order. Thank you for watching!</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/428699864http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/428699864Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:26:03 -0500season3playlist<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgcjiQAI%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Annie Korzen, “Good Value”</h2> <p>Annie Korzen is a writer and actress in Los Angeles. She has performed her solo show, “Yenta Unplugged,” on three continents. She also played the recurring character of Doris Klompus on “Seinfeld,” and John Turturro’s mother in “Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen.”</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/426249889http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/426249889Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0500season3<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgcjiOgI%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Dennis Spiegelman, “Bra Shopping”</h2> <p>Dennis Spiegelman grew up in Buffalo, New York, and has fond memories of spending summers at Crystal Beach on Lake Erie. Whenever he goes back to visit, he brings home dozens of bottles of Loganberry Juice, which was invented at the Crystal Beach Amusement Park in the late 19th century and unavailable elsewhere.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/424176412http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/424176412Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:01:56 -0500season3<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgcjiJAI%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Max Rosenthal, “The Restaurant”</h2> <p>Max Rosenthal was born in Berlin and was forced to leave shortly after Krystalnacht. He and his family immigrated to the United States in 1939 and lived for many years in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. Once he finished school and ended a stint in the army, he studied pattern making and worked in the children’s clothing business for his entire career.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/421669779http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/421669779Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:00:00 -0500season3<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgcjiBQI%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Lou Charloff, “Herschel the Magnificent Jew”</h2> <p>Lou Charloff was born in Romania and moved to New York (specifically, the Bronx) when he was two years old. He speaks five languages and served as an interpreter for the military government of occupied Germany after World War II. Four years ago, he decided to try his hand at stand-up comedy in Los Angeles, making him, simultaneously, one of the oldest and one of the newest comics in the business.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/419500122http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/419500122Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:01:41 -0500season3<p>(psst! we started a twitter feed! we’re <a href="http://twitter.com/oldjews">@oldjews</a>. new jokes coming Monday, see you then!)</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/416295435http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/416295435Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:41:05 -0500<p>We filmed over 100 jokes in Los Angeles last October. So much new content, that we’re increasing our output. Starting March 1st, there will a new joke four days a week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, we will post a playlist of the week’s jokes, just so you don’t miss anything.</p> <p>Get ready.  There are going to be some gems.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/395449499http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/395449499Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:18:50 -0500<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JjKdlkegl%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="243" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>10 Jokes About Sex</h2> <p>Here are ten jokes about sex. Make sure the kids are in the other room!</p> <p>The new season of Old Jews Telling Jokes will begin on March 1st.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/395167400http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/395167400Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:21:00 -0500<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0Jgb%2B2ewI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>A special message from the producers of OJTJ</h2> <h5><img src="http://a.images.blip.tv/Oldjewstellingjokes-ASpecialMessageFromTheProducers701-533.jpg"/></h5> <p>Okay, we know there have been more ads lately. Yeah, ads are annoying. But look at it this way: ads are the only way we can pay for more Old Jews Telling Jokes. Without them, this site would disappear! Now who wants that?</p> <p>We sincerely thank you for enduring the commercials so that we may continue to make you laugh.</p> <p>New episodes of Old Jews Telling Jokes coming soon!  Very soon!  How soon?  Soon soon!</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/346602533http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/346602533Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:47:00 -0500<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/hPcQjKBakegl" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="243" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>The 10 Best Jokes of 2009</h2> <p>These are our ten favorite jokes from the past year, in no particular order.  They’ll run one after the other, so click play, sit back, and relax!  Thank you for making Old Jews Telling Jokes such a success.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/295568608http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/295568608Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:04:00 -0500<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgbXjJwI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Richard Levine, “Murray the Waiter”</h2> <p>Happy eighth night of Hanukkah!</p> <p>Richard Levine carries a list of punch lines from his favorite jokes in his wallet. He updates it periodically.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/289421482http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/289421482Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:41:03 -0500season2<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgbXjFgI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Paul Eisenman, “Israeli Rowing Team”</h2> <p>Happy seventh night of Hanukkah!</p> <p>Check out the website of the organization that Paul Eisenman chairs: <a href="http://www.bergengrassroots.org/">Bergen Grass Roots</a>.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/288079646http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/288079646Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:45:00 -0500season2<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgbXjAwI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Larry Zicklin, “Hotel Room”</h2> <p>Happy sixth night of Hanukkah!</p> <p>Larry Zicklin endowed the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College. He also endowed the Wharton School of Business at Penn with the Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics research.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/286674611http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/286674611Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:45:00 -0500season2<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgbXifgI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Harold Zapolsky, “Clock Shop”</h2> <p>Happy fifth night of Hanukkah!</p> <p>I’ve heard Harold Zapolsky’s joke a number of times and, although the details change, one thing is consistent. The mohel or mohels always keep clocks in their window. Why? My first instinct was the similarity between the word “clocks” and the actual subject of a circumcision.</p> <p>Here is Harold’s theory:</p> <blockquote> <p>I don’t really think there is a connection. The businessman needs to have some item repaired to set up the joke — and what is more obvious than a watch — and that, of course, leads naturally to a shop with watches and clocks in the window.</p> <p>This joke was first told to me by the wife of one of my grad school professors, at a student party sometime in the late 50’s. At the time, it was considered to be highly risque! “O tempore, o mores” (translation: “The times, they are a-changing.”)</p> </blockquote>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/285259443http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/285259443Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:45:00 -0500season2<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgbXidQI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Harry Macklowe, “New Guy at the Pool”</h2> <p>Happy fourth night of Hanukkah!</p> <p>Harry Macklowe is a devoted sailor. In 2005, his yacht, “Unfurled,” won the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup in Porto Cervo, Italy. He defeated “Arne Glimcher’s Ghost” by six minutes.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/283786956http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/283786956Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:45:00 -0500season2<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gp0JgbXiYwI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br/><br/><h2>Alan Kessler, “Real Estate”</h2> <p>Happy third night of Hanukkah!</p> <p>Alan Kessler plays jazz piano and, according to credible sources, sounds like Bill Evans.</p>http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/282328248http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/282328248Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:45:00 -0500season2