The BBC’s grave Hebrew error
TV comedy featuring former ‘Friends’ star accidentally describes deceased character as ‘pickled at great expense’ rather than ‘dearly missed’
If only there were Jews in the entertainment industry, this might not have happened.
A TV comedy starring Matt LeBlanc — aka Joey Tribbiani on “Friends” — has made a pair of amusing Hebrew mistakes, one of which describes a deceased character as “pickled.”
In “Episodes,” currently in its second season on the BBC, a central character played by John Pankow attends his father’s Jewish funeral. Producers of the show tried to create a Hebrew inscription on the gravestone, but accidentally wrote the words backwards, engraving the letters from left to right, as though they were in English rather than Hebrew. (The faulty headstone is pictured here.)
Flipping the characters into the proper order reveals a second mistake — the result, most likely, of using Google Translate rather than an actual Hebrew speaker. Instead of describing the newly departed father as “dearly missed,” producers used a phrase classifying him as “pickled at great expense” — the result of a mix-up that will be immediately comprehensible (but still hilarious) to those with a knowledge of Hebrew.
Fans of the show are giggling over the errors in Israel, where the clip has gone viral. First to observe the error was blogger Shahar Golan.
The series, which won LeBlanc a Golden Globe in January, is currently airing its second season on the BBC. American cable network Showtime, which co-produces the show, will broadcast the funeral episode later this summer.
