Adam Sandler -The Hanukkah Song (The Chanukah Song) (The Christmas Song)

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media. I'm Garrett Fisher and Adam Sandler was standing on fifty sixth Street and Broadway in Manhattan looking at a diner when he had the idea. It was fall nineteen ninety four. He was twenty eight years old, in his fourth year as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and the holidays were coming. Christmas music was starting to flood the airwaves, and Sandler, like he'd felt every year since childhood, was acutely aware that there were basically no Hanukkah songs. Well, there was one Dreidel, Dredel, Dredel, that was it. Meanwhile, Christmas had jingle bells, white Christmas deck the halls, Santa claus Is coming to town. The list went on forever. Radio stations would switch to all Christmas formats. Television specials dominated the airwaves. If you were a Jewish kid in America during December, it could feel like being uninvited to the biggest party of the year.

1:09 Sandler knew that feeling intimately, he'd grown up with it, and standing on that Manhattan street corner, he thought, what if I wrote a Hanukkah song, not a serious one. Sandler didn't do serious, a funny one, a silly one, one that would make Jewish kids feel less alone by pointing out all the famous Jewish people they could celebrate instead. He rushed to NBC Studios, where SNL taped at thirty Rockefeller Plaza, and started working with two of the show's writers, Ian Maxtone Graham and Lewis Morton. Both were comedy writers who understood Sandler's sensibility. Together, they crafted what would become the Honkkah Song. The concept was simple, but brilliant. Make a list of Jewish celebrities to remind Jewish kids that they weren't alone. Frame it as a response to Christmas song dominance light. Keep it silly, but underneath the humor, say something real. You belong your scene, Your holiday matters too.

2:08 By December nineteen ninety four, they had a song and SNL had a plan. The episode, airing on December third, would be hosted by Roseanne Barr, who was herself Jewish. Initially, there was discussion about having Roseanne sing the song during Weekend Update, but Barr, in what Sandler later described as an incredibly gracious move, said no, let Adam do that. She told the producers that's his he wrote it, that's his song. So on December third, nineteen ninety four, the seventh night of Hanukkah, Norm MacDonald welcomed Adam Sandler to the Weekend Update desk. Sandler sat down with his acoustic guitar, looking genuinely nervous. He stammered a bit introducing the song, explaining how he'd grown up feeling like the only kid in town without a Christmas tree. Then he started playing, and for four minutes in change, Adam Sandler, manchild, comedian, silly voice specialist, the guy who did Lunch, Ladyland and the Thanksgiving Song, created something that would outlive everything else he did on SNL. Let's talk about what makes this song work, because it's deceptively crafted. On the surface, it sounds like Sandler is making it up as he goes, just riffing on a guitar and throwing out names. But there's real craft here. The structure is verse chorus, versus chorus, bridge, verse chorus, standard pop song structure. The melody is simple, singable, infectious,

3:43 the kind of thing that gets stuck in your head immediately. The opening establishes the premise put on your Yarmocha. Here comes Honikah. Instead of one day of presence, we have eight crazy nights. It's inviting, celebratory, setting up the idea that Hankah is something to be excited about. Then come the celebrity lists, and this is where Sandler and his co writers get clever. They use a mix of real rhymes and fake rhymes, real rhyme. Guess who eats together at the Carnegie Deli Bowser from Shannanah and Arthur Fonzarelli. That works perfectly Delhi and Fonzarelli genuinely rhyme, and the cultural specificity the Carnegie Deli was a famous Jewish Delhi in Manhattan adds authenticity fake rhyme. David Lee Roth lights the Minora, so do James Kahn, Kirk Douglas and the Late Dinah Shora. That second line doesn't rhyme at all until Sandler adds ah to Shore, creating the illusion of a rhyme. It's cheating, but it's brilliant cheating because it's funny and it works rhythmically. The celebrity choices are smart too.

4:50 They're not just naming random Jewish people. They're choosing cultural icons across generations. David Lee Roth, the Van Halen front man who'd been everywhere in the eighties, Douglas Old Hollywood Royalty, Captain Kirk and Mister Spock. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, both Jewish, both from Star Trek, a show beloved across demographics. Paul Newman and Goldie Hahn, both half Jewish, who Sandler jokes could be put together to make a fine looking jew. There are strategic non Jews included too. Oj Simpson gets mentioned explicitly as not a Jew. This was just over a year after the murders and months after his acquittal, so that line had bite. Tom Cruise isn't Jewish, but I think his agent is a joke that simultaneously celebrates Jewish success in Hollywood and gently mocks the stereotype. The most famous error in the original version, Harrison Ford is a quarter Jewish, except he's not. Years later, when Sandler met Ford, the Star Wars icon corrected him. Half Sandler's excuse back then when I wrote it, I don't think Google wouldnd. I was going off something I thought I knew, which is hilariously accurate. In nineteen ninety four, you couldn't just quickly fact check celebrity genealogy. The performance itself is crucial to understanding why it worked. Sandler sits at the weekend Update desk, guitar in hand, looking slightly uncomfortable but

6:20 completely sincere. Norm MacDonald sits next to him, cracking up. Throughout the studio audience is losing it. You can hear them laughing, cheering, clearly delighted. Sandler does his signature thing, silly voices, goofy faces, that boyish enthusiasm that made him so likable. When he gets to certain lines, he emphasizes them with exaggerated pronunciation or dramatic pauses. He's performing it like he's genuinely excited to share this with people, like he's letting you in on something. The song ends with an invitation everyone Jewish or not can celebrate Hanukkah if they really really wanna. It's inclusive without being preachy, it's silly without being stupid. It's a novelty song that actually means something. The response was immediate and overwhelming. People loved it, Jewish kids especially, Finally something that acknowledged their holiday, that made it feel cool and fun rather than lesser than.

7:21 The song was released as a single in nineteen ninety five and hit number ten on the Billboard Hot one hundred. It charted again in nineteen ninety six, nineteen ninety seven, and nineteen ninety eight. For years it was a seasonal fixture. But more than the chart success, it became a cultural touchstone. Suddenly Hanukah had visibility. Radio stations would actually play a Hanukkah song. Jewish kids had something to point to and say, that's mine, that's us. Sandler recorded the song for his nineteen ninety six comedy album What the Hell Happened to Me, and it became one of his signature pieces. But he didn't stop there. As culture evolved, so did the song.

8:06 The Hanukkah Song, Part two was recorded live at Brandeis University, a historically Jewish school, for his nineteen ninety nine album Stan and Judy's Kid. This version added new celebrities, The Beastie Boys, Lenny Kravitz, Winona Ryder, Bob Dylan. It also included one of Sandler's best jokes, Bruce Springsteen isn't Jewish, but my mother thinks he is. That line perfectly captures a certain type of Jewish mother who desperately wants to claim every successful person as somehow Jewish. Part three appeared in two thousand and two on the soundtrack for Sandler's animated Hanukkah film Eight Crazy Nights. This version featured a children's choir called the dre Dell's, a pun on Dreidel, and included references to Ross and Phoebe from Friends, plus contemporary figures like Ben Stiller and Jack Black. Then came a thirteen year gap. In twenty fifteen, Sandler debuted Part four at a Judd Apatow and Friends event at the New York Comedy Festival. This version updated for the two thousands Drake Scarlett, Johansson, seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon, Levitt, Jake Gillenhall, the guys who founded Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brinn, even Princess Leiah Gotta Mention, Carrie Fisher and Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe, whose mother is Jewish. Each version follows the same basic template, but reflects the moment it was created.

9:33 The celebrity references change, but the core message remains. Jewish kids, You're not alone. Look at all these successful, talented people who share your heritage. The errors and corrections became part of the song's charm. In Part two, Sandler incorrectly claimed Courtney Love was half Jewish, she's not, and Jennifer Beals was Jewish, also not, though Beals has said she once wanted to be. These mistakes didn't finished the song. If anything, they made it more human, more authentically Sandler just trying to celebrate his people without perfect research. What's remarkable is how the song balanced silliness with sincerity. On paper, it's a novelty tune, a comedy sketch extended to album track, But for Jewish kids growing up in the nineties, two thousands and beyond, it genuinely mattered. It said your holiday deserves songs too. You deserve to feel celebrated. You're part of something bigger. The song also celebrated Jewish achievement without being obnoxious about it. The Carnegie Deli reference, the mentions of people who'd fled Eastern Europe, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner's parents, the sheer number of Jewish people who'd succeeded in entertainment. It was proud without being exclusionary. The ending invites everyone in. You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate Hanukah or to sing along. Sandler has spoken about the song's legacy with genuine pride. In recent interviews. He

11:07 said he still sings it alone in his basement, just for himself. If it comes on the radio, he gets excited. His daughters are proud of it, and he's very, very proud to be associated with Hanukkah this way. The song has been covered by various artists, parodied countless times, and referenced in pop culture constantly. In twenty twenty one, the band Haim posted a brief cover updating it with contemporary names. Jimmy Fallon impersonated Sandler singing it in a celebrity Jeopardy sketch, but the original remains definitive. That first Weekend Update performance, with Norm MacDonald giggling next to Sandler, with the studio audience so clearly delighted with Sandler's genuine nervousness and enthusiasm, that's the version that matters. In twenty twenty five, as SNL celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, the song was selected as the sketch represent nting Season twenty. The one piece of content from that entire season chosen to reflect the show's legacy.

12:06 That's significant. Not a sketch with Chris Farley, who was at his peak that year. Not something from Norm McDonald or David Spade or Chris Rock, all cast members at the time. A goofy song about Hanukkah performed by a nervous Jewish comedian with a guitar. Because the Hanukkah song did something rare for SNL, it created something that transcended the show, that became part of the actual holiday season it celebrated. It's played in Jewish homes every December. It's taught to kids, it's become tradition. Adam Sandler, standing on fifty six in Broadway, feeling that old childhood loneliness about being left out during Christmas, decided to do something about it.

12:50 He wrote a silly song with his SNL riding buddies. He performed it once nervously sitting next to Norm MacDonald, making people lie, and thirty years later Jewish kids don't feel quite so alone during December. They have their song. It's goofy and imperfect and contains factual errors, but it's theirs. It says you matter your holiday matters, and look at all these amazing people who share your heritage. Not bad for four minutes of fake rhymes and celebrity name dropping. The genius of the Honkkah song is that it solved a real problem Jewish kids feeling invisible during the Christmas season, with the simplest possible solution acknowledgment. Not a serious anthem, not a sacred hymn, just a funny song that says, I see you, You're not alone, and here are a bunch of famous Jews to prove it. Sometimes that's all anyone needs to be seen, to be celebrated, to know they belong to something bigger than themselves. Adam Sandler, Goofball comedian, gave that to an entire community, and he did it by rhyming Menora with Dinah shra. I'm Garrett Fisher, Happy Honakha.