Once upon a time in the early 1970s in Israel, there was a legendary sketch-comedy and music television show, Lool (Chicken Coop), featuring Arik Einstein, Uri Zohar, Tzvi Shissel, Josie Katz, Shalom Hanoch and many other Israeli entertainment icons. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the show’s debut and of the release of the cult film featuring the Lool gang, Shablul (Snail).
Einstein, one of the most beloved singers of all time and a fine comedian and actor, passed away nearly seven years ago, and it’s been more than 40 years since Zohar, a brilliant comedian and director, dropped out of the entertainment world to become an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, but you can still enjoy their Lool and Shablul songs and skits on YouTube. There are plans to re-release Shablul when the coronavirus pandemic is over, but there is nothing definite yet.
There was a film of the best of Lool released in 1988 and it features some of the best-loved skits, including the one in which Zohar and Einstein play immigrants from different countries and cultures turning up on the beach.
Shablul was conceived as a behind-the-scenes documentary about the recording of the Shablul album, on which Einstein and Hanoch collaborated, but it mostly plays like the television show, with songs following skits. There is also a scene where Einstein gets divorced, with a rare peek inside Israel’s divorce court system, which lampoons the absurdity of the process. Shablul features one of the funniest skits ever put on film in Israel, where Zohar plays a predatory gay Yiddish-speaking karate instructor who harasses his mild-mannered student, played by Shissel.
Channel 12 revealed last week that the first music clip with the Lool gang, from 51 years ago, was apparently found in a flea market in Haifa. The clip was screened for Shissel and it shows Einstein singing a song to and about other members of the Lool gang, including Zohar, Shissel and director Boaz Davidson, set to the tune of the Beatles’ “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da,” and predates the show.
For the news broadcast, Shissel visited some of the group’s haunts along the Tel Aviv beach and answered some tough questions about sexist attitudes of the Lool gang. In spite of these difficult questions, the screening of this clip was a sweet sign of a bygone era.