Wed 25 Jun 2008
“You Don’t Mess With The Zohan” was the number one movie in Israel this weekend, selling 37,529 tickets in it’s first three days of release, that’s almost as much as the opening numbers of “Indiana Jones” and “Sex and the City” a few weeks back. No Adam Sandler movie has ever sold more then 80,000 tickets in Israel, meaning that “Zohan” did in three days half of what the typical Sandler movie does in Israel in its entire run.
AP is reporting from inside Israeli movie theaters where the crowds are cracking up at the over-the-top representations of Israeli culture.
“Zohan”, reports AP, had it’s basis in a “Saturday Night Live” sketch written by Robert Smigel in 1992, called “Sabra Price is Right”, starring Tom Hanks. Hanks’ name in the sketch is Oori Sholemson, the name of the character eventually played by Israeli actor Ido Mosseri in “Zohan”. Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider and Chris Rock - all of them now in “Zohan” - are featured in the sketch. Some of the phrases used in the bit appear verbatim in the movie, most prominently the catch phrase in the headline. Smigel - credited as co-writer on “Zohan” - plays Yossi in the movie, the would-be hand-model turned salesmen.
Here is the sketch from 1992:
Read my previous reporting on “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan”:
The “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” glossary
Meet the Groove-combo featured on Adam Sandler’s “Zohan” trailer
Exclusive: Pages from Apatow and Sandler’s “Zohan” screenplay
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June 26th, 2008 at 2:27 am
The sketch can’t be from 1999, Farley is in here and he died in 97.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:59 am
way better than zohan.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Raveh to soto: you are right, my mistake. the correct year was posted in the paragraph above: 1992. I’ve corrected the typo. Thanks for the heads-up.
June 26th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
If I’m not mistaken I believe “Sabra Price is Right” was the second sketch with these characters. The first was “Sabra Shopping Network”, from an episode that Tom Hanks hosted a year or so earlier. It featured him, Sandler and Dana Carvey.
June 26th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I laughed more during this 6 minute sketch than in all of Zohan.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Austin Powers is rockin’ the sweet mullet! I had forgotten about how many huge stars were on SNL.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
It was great when Rock took the podium and was just stared at, priceless.
June 28th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Discovering this great SNL clip kind of compensates for having gone to the movie after reading the Zohan dictionary.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Adam Sandler is classic in his own way, though he tends to do his best work when he stays casual, not trying too hard to be funny or deep, etc.