For the first time in a few weeks, US President Donald Trump did not put in an appearance on Eretz Nehederet, the Israeli comedy show on Keshet 12, which has been chronicling the ups and downs of this war, but another famous American stepped in to take his place: Quentin Tarantino (Ori Laizerouvitch).
Tarantino, the Oscar-winning director of Pulp Fiction, who has been living in Israel with his wife, actress/singer Daniella Pick, and their two children, for the past few years, stepped into the opening skit that showed everyone’s special style as they head for the shelters.
These included a guy who waits for the last minute to go in; a woman who brings her glass of wine at night, because everything is fine, but who has taken to drinking all day, because maybe it’s not so fine; a guy and his therapist who were interrupted during a therapy session; and a woman pretending to be glad she managed to board a rescue flight home after a ski vacation in Europe.
Into this mix came Tarantino, saying, “I’m a famous Hollywood director. You may know me from Inglorious Bastards, Pulp Fiction, and the playground at Bavli [a Tel Aviv neighborhood].” He complained that 10 years ago, someone told him there was a cute Israeli girl he had to meet.
Host Eyal Kitzis said the war inspired Tarantino to make a new version of Pulp Fiction
He went on: “Cut to: I’m sitting in a bomb shelter, f***ing Iran is shooting missiles at me while I’m playing quartets [an Israeli card game] with wild animal cards.” A kid comes up and asks him if he has a certain card, to which he replies, “No, but I do have two Oscars, man!” and then they run into the shelter.
But he returned later, or at least, his work did, as host Eyal Kitzis said that the war had inspired Tarantino to make a new version of Pulp Fiction, and showed what he claimed was a preview.
It featured the famous “Misirlou” song and showed a doctored clip of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in a car from the film, with Jackson saying, “Oh, no, missile siren,” as the two stars jumped out and took shelter on the ground.
The clip went on to show other scenes from the film, altered to fit today’s Israeli reality, with the Uma Thurman character saying the refrigerator was her protected space, and in the famous dance contest scene with her and Travolta, the Chuck Berry tune in the original was replaced by a Hebrew song.
While Trump stayed at the White House this week, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (Eran Zarahovitch) showed up at the Oscars, done up like Rambo, and chased presenters Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman offstage with gunshots as they announced that One Battle After Another had won Best Picture. “Stop, guys. One Battle After Another is a cool name for my life’s work, but the Oscar goes to me, Pete Hegseth.
If you don’t know who I am, ask your wife.” Holding the Oscar aloft, he said, “The Best Picture of the year is – Epic Fury,” referring to the US name for the current war with Iran. “Like One Battle After Another, it’s longer than it should be,” and went on to brag about what a great job America has been doing.
Much of the show, though, was spent taking aim at targets closer to home, mainly Israel’s politicians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Mariano Edelman) joined Kitzis.
In a nod to the clip Bibi made showing he was alive and well earlier in the week that went viral because of a pretty blond barista serving him coffee, his wife, Sara (Alma Zack), who is rumored to be jealous of other women getting too close to her husband, came to work the coffee machine. But she had no idea what she was doing and made a mess.
Eretz Nehederet mocks remote learning, Yoav Kisch in Zoom skit
As the war drags on and children are still home from school, so-called long-distance learning came in for criticism, with Education Minister Yoav Kisch not knowing how to operate Zoom and pressing a button that made his head look like a pineapple.
Several skits showed how badly the people in the north are suffering from the missile barrages, and how Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Gaya Beer Gurevich) are ignoring northern residents’ pleas for help and are simply handing ultra-Orthodox leaders suitcases filled with cash.
MK Simcha Rothman, a key figure in the judicial overhaul movement, came in saying he was only working on essential matters. Compensation for those whose homes were destroyed in the war he deemed an insignificant issue, but said he had plenty of time to work to curtail press freedom.
Sometimes, you see something on the news during the week, and you just know it will end up on the show, and that was the case when two famous camera hogs who always get themselves photographed at one particular bomb shelter in Tel Aviv have developed a rivalry, which was caught on camera together, seeming to be fighting for press coverage.
One sports a grey shirt and one wears stylish white glasses. Since their refuge of choice is the bomb shelter underneath the Habima parking garage, they were joined by the first lady of Israeli theater, Gila Almagor (Eran Zarahovitch), who said she was used to people sleeping upstairs at her shows and seemed jealous.
Another highlight came with Asher (Yuval Semo), the friendly cab driver, who drove children around the city and asked how they were doing. It was heartbreaking and funny to see them laughing over the situation.
A brother and sister, who had to leave their home because it was destroyed, joked about not wanting to get fat from the three huge meals a day they were receiving in their hotel, where they were staying till they could return to their home.
An alarm sounded when Asher was with another boy, and they had to lie down in the road. A third very sweet little boy turned out to be Asher’s son, and he gave his father a kiss. It was lovely and touching to see these children’s sweetness and high spirits.
Certainly, some will be traumatized by the war, but their capacity to joke and have some perspective on the attacks was enough to convince me that, to quote Kitzis’s signoff, “We have a wonderful country.” Kitzis said that by next week, he hoped the war would be over soon, and “this will all be behind us.”