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Jewish song bar mitzvah2/20/2023 Now if someone could hunt down a copy of An Evening With Tracy Jordan, I’d be eternally grateful. But “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” never lets me down. My costume always sucks, and I don’t have kids, so I don’t get to enjoy the holiday vicariously through them. Truth is, “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” is my favorite part of Halloween. “If boys become men on this special night, then perhaps, what’s to keep men from becoming wolves?” Maybe, but on another, better level, it makes absolutely no sense, which is why it’s so funny. “On some level, it makes sense,” Carlock told LAist. “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” taps into that joyousness by marrying that feeling to one of the most important rituals in a young Jewish boy’s life - because, hey, why not? It’s a night where you eat a lot of candy, watch horror movies, wear sexy/scary costumes and just enjoy yourself. It’s not solemn like Christmas or filled with tradition like Thanksgiving. Deep down, we’re suckers for their giddy good cheer - especially when it comes to ones celebrating Halloween, which is the most unbridled and carefree of the holidays. We all recognize that it’s a sarcastic takeoff of a lame novelty song… but, y’know, there’s a reason why novelty songs are successful. Ultimately, what probably makes “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” such a beloved annual tradition is that it’s the best of both worlds. (At some point, inexplicably, zombies show up - as well as “Draculas and Frankensteins.”) “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” is stupid and catchy, an unstoppable combination. Especially in the longer version, I can’t get over Glover’s growing frustration that “Tracy” keeps adding new verses to his tale. (The knowingly hokey “Let me tell you a story” concept is straight out of the “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” playbook, and like “Monster Mash” the tune sounds like it’s trying to start a dance craze.) So it’s kinda perfect that “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” has become a popular novelty song in its own right - you know it’s meant to be ironic, but it’s so fun that you want to keep listening to it anyway. Like any good parody, “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” secretly loves the musical targets it’s satirizing. Sorry to anyone trying to speak to me from now until halloween bc i will not be processing anyone’s words, i will only be singing werewolf bar mitzvah in my head- riverBOO! □ October 25, 2021 But for those who don’t know, an actual full-length version of “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” exists. The small snippet was almost better because it gave us a tantalizing taste of the sheer awfulness of Tracy’s concoction - hardly a surprise coming from a man whose Thomas Jefferson biopic was an amateurish disaster. With a video that looked like a bargain-basement “Thriller,” and a melody that recalled the dopiness of “Monster Mash,” “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” was so great because you didn’t need the whole song (or video). So I think part of the fun was, ‘Can we mash up - almost werewolf-like - these different kinds of music, in an effort to exploit all of them?’” I think it was in About a Boy where Hugh Grant is living off the money made from his father’s terrible, terrible Christmas song. In a 2018 LAist oral history, Carlock referenced novelty tunes like “Zombie Jamboree” and “those terrible novelty Halloween songs that get radio time every Halloween. What always made the bit funny was the preciseness of the thing it’s parodying. NxtgpyNLyY- Otto Von Biz Markie October 26, 2021 Might fuck around and play "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" 17 times in a row because it is the season, spooky, scary.
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