Historical Context
New York City, Comedy, and the Jewish American Experience
The first Jewish settlers in North America arrived in New York City, then known as the Dutch port of New Amsterdam, in 1654. By the close of the century, they had established synagogues, and by 1740, Jews were granted full citizenship. Jewish families spread throughout New York, founding hospitals, businesses, and cultural organizations. The influx of European Jews to New York continued throughout the nineteenth century, with a significant surge in the 1880s. Between 1880 and 1920, the Jewish population in New York City expanded from 60,000 to over 1.5 million. During the interwar period, the Jewish community in New York transitioned from an immigrant group divided by language, politics, and culture into an English-speaking, upwardly mobile segment of American society. Jews began to play an increasingly pivotal role in the broader cultural life of New York. Many of the city's leading entertainers, writers, artists, and art patrons were of Jewish descent, and American intellectualism became closely linked with the New York Jewish community.
As Jewish immigrants assimilated, their humor began to permeate mainstream American entertainment. Many Jews found success in Vaudeville, with future stars like The Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, George Burns, Milton Berle, and The Three Stooges starting their careers there. By the mid-1920s, a literary form of humor crafted by Jewish comics emerged from Vaudeville: stand-up comedy. When nightclubs replaced Vaudeville theaters in the 1930s and 40s, comedy shifted to focus more on language and observations about the absurdities and anxieties of life. Jewish comedy began to reflect its intellectual tradition of thorough reasoning and questioning. Before World War II, much of Jewish humor involved self-caricature, but after 1945, as Jews faced less discrimination and new opportunities arose, they began to enter radio and television. Television marked a return to physical comedy, and in the early 1950s, Jewish comic Sid Caesar created Your Show of Shows, which blended physical comedy, one-liners, and intellectual wit to provide social commentary and satirize highbrow culture. Among Caesar’s writers were Jewish comics Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Carl Reiner, and Allen. Although Your Show of Shows did not directly address Jewish issues and consciously avoided presenting itself as a Jewish creation due to fears of anti-Semitic sentiments, it included numerous Jewish references and inside jokes. The Jewish backgrounds of the writers contributed to humor rich in irony and caustic wit.
By the close of the 1960s, Jewish figures in New York's comedy scene had transitioned from vaudeville acts to leading voices in radical social change. Lenny Bruce's bold humor during this era signaled the arrival of a new age of intelligent, sophisticated comedy that addressed significant social issues and candidly discussed the Jewish experience with irreverence. In 1969, Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run introduced a Jewish protagonist who departed from the traditional Jewish vaudevillian clown, embodying instead a neurotic, analytical, intellectual New York Jew, characterized by urbanity and anxiety. This character, derived from Allen's stand-up routine, borrowed elements and archetypes from Jewish humor traditions, such as portraying the hero as a schlemiel —a bungling yet endearing failure worthy of pity. However, the humor was also more clever and self-aware, even as it remained self-deprecating and zany. Throughout the 1970s, as the nation's social climate evolved, Jewish comedy writers increasingly emphasized their Jewish identity. Allen's series of successful films during this period exemplifies the growing acceptance of Jewish culture and ideas in mainstream America. Like his story "The Kugelmass Episode," Allen's films humorously explored the Jewish American experience in a gentle manner, celebrating the Jewish knack for finding humor in unexpected...
(This entire section contains 743 words.)
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In 1975, the television comedy variety show Saturday Night Live premiered in New York and was broadcast nationwide, with a writing staff predominantly composed of Jewish individuals. The show frequently parodied Jewish customs, personalities, and culture, and encouraged performers to embrace their Jewish identities. Since then, American comedy has warmly welcomed Jewish comedians and humor. This blend of Jewish and mainstream comedy is evident in the work of Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld, and Larry David, whose sharp wit and neurotic self-reflections have popularized the essence of Jewish humor. However, contemporary Jewish comedians have, in some respects, diluted the distinctly Jewish nature of their comedy by making it "all-American." Thus, while New York Jewish humor defined comedy in twentieth-century America, Jewish American humor in the twenty-first century—with its unique mix of intellectual and lowbrow satire—has become so integrated that it is now considered a fundamental aspect of American humor.
Style and Technique
Exploring Farce and Satire
"The Kugelmass Episode" by Woody Allen employs humor to expose the folly of human aspirations and societal norms. By utilizing elements of satire, Allen ridicules various ideas, institutions, and individuals, transforming them into laughable figures. This technique, known as farce, is characterized by its broad satire and improbable situations, often serving as a moral critique against social injustices or wrongs. While Allen's story doesn't present heavy moral lessons, it effectively highlights human weaknesses, specifically the excessive pursuit of physical pleasure, wealth, and fame. The narrative becomes a parody, with characters that are exaggerated and stereotypical, like Kugelmass, the middle-aged Jewish man navigating a sexual crisis, and his wife Daphne, a materialistic figure of an unrefined, aging Jewish woman. Emma, another character in the story, is a satirical representation of a shallow, fame-seeking, talentless aspiring actress, while Persky embodies the quirky, stereotypical Jewish entertainer.
Allen’s satire extends beyond individual characters to critique broader themes like literature, high art, materialism, Jewish culture, and the entertainment industry. A key technique Allen employs is to juxtapose serious moments with absurdity, thereby stripping them of their gravitas. The concept of traveling into a fictional realm is presented in mundane and trivial terms. For instance, the magical cabinet used for these journeys is humorously described as "badly lacquered," with mechanical issues reminiscent of an old car. Allen delights in undercutting romantic moments with everyday language and incongruities, such as Emma's fascination with Kugelmass’s modern attire, which he dismisses as a bargain find, and his tales of New York that intriguingly mix in references to O. J. Simpson’s sports achievements. Through this narrative style, Allen mocks both people and situations, reducing their actions and words to sheer absurdity.
Colloquial Humor
The charm and humor of "The Kugelmass Episode" largely stem from the characters' speech, where colloquial expressions diminish the seriousness of their circumstances. The language reinforces the story’s New York setting and Jewish cultural context. Persky, in particular, adds color with his vibrant phrases that resonate with a Brooklyn Jewish accent. In an exchange filled with skepticism about the magical cabinet, Persky assures Kugelmass, "It’s the emess," while casually demanding a "double sawbuck" for his journey into the classic "Madame Bovary." Kugelmass, despite being a literature professor, frequently resorts to informal language, endearingly calling Emma "sugar" and "cupcake" as they grow closer.
Emma initially speaks with the refined elegance of the book’s English translation, but by the story’s conclusion, she has adopted a modern vernacular, claiming that "watching TV all day is the pits." This transformation underscores how serious and significant matters are rendered trivial through the characters' casual manner of speaking, firmly rooting them in the ordinary and everyday. Allen's strategic use of colloquial language not only elevates the comedic effect but also bridges the extraordinary with the mundane, inviting readers to laugh at the silliness of both the characters and their predicaments.
Compare and Contrast
1970s: Around 5.5 million Jews reside in the United States, with about 1.2 million living in New York City. Jews constitute roughly 15 percent of New York City's population.
Today: Approximately 6 million Jews live in the United States, with just under 1 million residing in New York City. Jews now represent 12 percent of New York City's population.
1970s: Although Jews make up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, they represent about 80 percent of the nation's comedians, most of whom are from New York City.
Today: Jews account for 2.5 percent of the U.S. population, and 70 percent of the nation's comedians are of Jewish heritage, with many hailing from New York City.
1970s: Lorne Michaels's comedy show Saturday Night Live debuts, featuring a writing team that is almost entirely Jewish. Today: Saturday Night Live remains on the air, but only one of its writers is Jewish.
Adaptations
The Audio CD Fierce Pajamas: Selections from an Anthology of Humor Writing from the New Yorker, edited by David Remnick and Henry Finder, features a reading of "The Kugelmass Episode."
The Kugelmass Affair is Jonathan Karp's stage adaptation of Allen's story.
The website http://www.woodyallen.com/ provides extensive information on Allen's life, movies, books, plays, and standup comedy routines. It also includes interviews with the author and links to other valuable resources.
Allen's film The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) employs a similar concept to "The Kugelmass Episode": a character from a movie steps off the screen, into the theater, and into the life of the moviegoer Cecilia.
Bibliography
Sources
Champion, Laurie, ‘‘Allen’s ‘The Kugelmass Episode,’’’ in Explicator, Vol. 51, No. 1, Fall 1992, pp. 61–63.
Harty, John, ‘‘Allen’s ‘The Kugelmass Episode,’’’ in Explicator, Vol. 46, No. 3, Spring 1988, pp. 50–51.
Further Reading
Abramovitch, Ilana, and Sean Galvin, eds., Jews of Brooklyn, University Press of New England, 2001. This is a kaleidoscopic look at the history, culture, and community of Brooklyn’s Jews, from the first documented settlement of Jews in the borough in the 1830s to the present day Jewish presence.
Bakalar, Nick, and Stephen Kock, eds., American Satire: An Anthology of Writings from Colonial Times to the Present, Plume Books, 1997. This collection brings together some of the best American satirical prose and poetry, from the 1800s to the late twentieth century.
Epstein, Lawrence, The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America, Public Affairs, 2002. This history of how Jewish comedians changed the face of American entertainment, from vaudeville to the movies to television, includes anecdotes, personal stories, samples from comedians’ stand-up material, immigrant sociology, and details tying the Yiddish language to Jewish American humor.
Lax, Eric, Woody Allen: A Biography, Da Capo Press, 2000. Allen’s friend Lax offers a lighthearted account that includes the filmmaker’s own opinions about this life.
