Parody for politics and charity

Once a year, American families gather to eat a massive meal and say what they’re grateful for. This year, everyone should be thankful that they didn’t eat with Larry David’s family – though the jokes in his Funny or Die animated clip are probably familiar to many of us. I mean, whose mom actually gets to sit down and eat at a big family meal, anyway? And if turkey is so delicious, why do we eat chicken all year? Now, war isn’t funny, so The Schmooze will not address the events of last week in Israel. However, sex scandals are interesting. For the last two weeks, America has been focused on CIA director David Petraeus’s affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell and consequent drama involving socialites and the FBI. After lots of news shows took quotes from Broadwell’s innuendofilled interview to promote her book titled All In (no, that’s not a joke) on The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart announced: “I am the worst journalist in the world.”

Another week, another “Gangnam Style parody.” This time, three of the Fierce Five (a.k.a. the USA women’s Olympic gymnastics team) – Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas and Jordan Wieber – made a clip for the Levine Cancer Institute in North Carolina together with some young cheerleaders.

Also this week, coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin adopted the Korean pop hit for his Likud primary campaign, sending up Arab and left-wing MKs to present his achievements in the 18th Knesset in his Hebrew video.

Back in America, Mayim Bialik made the unfortunate announcement that she is getting divorced from her husband of nine years, Mike Stone.

Days earlier, Bialik made a fun “Call Me Maybe” flash mob video with the cast of The Big Bang Theory.

If we’re already on the topic of nerds, Bill Nye the Science Guy made news this week when he met actor Shia LaBeouf, who got so excited that he kissed the TV scientist. “I grew up with you. This is crazy!” LaBeouf said. The two were attending the Science, Engineering and Technology Awards in Beverly Hills, where LaBeouf was presenting an award to Transformers director Michael Bay.