The Jewish Mr. Rogers of comedy still wants to be your neighbor

David Steinberg made his first comedy appearance by telling a comic version of the Purim story at age 9. In 1969, he made TV history delivering spoof sermons on “The Smothers Brothers Show.”

His mock Reform rabbi appearances contributed to the CBS show being censored, and eventually canceled. But for Steinberg, a comedy icon, the show went on and on. He aired a running op-ed on “The Tonight Show” for 25 years as Johnny Carson’s substitute host, and a cornucopia of other gigs.

“I hadn’t planned anything,” Steinberg told the Times of Israel from his home in Los Angeles. If I had known how things would turn out, I wouldn’t have worried so much.”

This month, for instance, the performer, writer and director appears in a live conversation on stage with Billy Crystal at New York City’s Town Hall on November 12 as part of the New York Comedy Festival. He takes his own story to the stage November 20 and 21 as a solo act at the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach, California.

Steinberg has not only worked on stage with Crystal, Mel Brooks and some of the greatest comedic names in the industry. He has also interviewed comedy’s living legends on four seasons of Showtime’s “Inside Comedy,” a documentary show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAhvvwb2StI

In a rambling conversation with the Times of Israel, Steinberg displayed a bit of rusty Hebrew, culled during a year in Israel, which he spent on Mt. Scopus at the Machon L’Madrichei Chutz L’Aretz. He also resided in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Katamon and a kibbutz.

“It was such a young country. I was 17 there. And it was a remarkable experience,” he said.

His Jewish upbringing and yeshiva education lent itself well to the act that made TV history, his “sermonettes,” depicted in the documentary “Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story.” The biopic takes its name from a Jerry Seinfeld comment describing Steinberg’s legendary chutzpah.

“Stand-up comedy is a jolt of electricity that nothing in your day, nothing in your week and nothing in your month is as good as being on stage and connecting,” Steinberg says on screen. “I can’t get over how lucky I was. I can’t get over, even as I”m telling my stories, that this is my life.”

The 2013 documentary called the affable Steinberg, “a master craftsman of comedy.”

Steinberg’s evolution from comedian to director led him to direct numerous episodes of “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” “Mad About You,” “Newhart” and “Designing Women,” which he also executive produced. His many credits include the hit series “Weeds” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” His work has earned him several DGA and Emmy awards and nominations.

“These people are my friends. When you work on a show it becomes a little kibbutz,” Steinberg told The Times of Israel. “You’re working all the time, writing at night, directing during the day.”

After moving from his native Winnipeg to study at a Chicago yeshiva, Steinberg landed at Second City, which invited him to join after seeing his comedy act, ‘Kadish and Steinberg’

After moving from his native Winnipeg to study at a Chicago yeshiva, Steinberg landed at Second City, which invited him to join after seeing his comedy act, “Kadish and Steinberg.”

“The Jewish part lasted but not the Orthodox part,” Steinberg says. “I wasn’t very religious. My identity is very Jewish, even in the secular community because I talk about what it is to be Jewish and I talk about my family.

“One of my opening lines early on in my carer that my family had to get used to, I would say, ‘My father never lived to fulfill his dream of an all-Yiddish speaking Canada.'”

After joining the legendary Second City improv group, Steinberg realized within a month it was the first thing he “was good at.”

His repertoire included improvising as a Reform rabbi comical “sermonettes” based on biblical personalities. Another was his Groucho-inspired goofy psychiatrist, which became a mainstay of Second City.

An early start in Broadway shows was short-lived leading Steinberg to develop an act at the Bitter End. The New York Times called him a cross between Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen. It’s an easy comparison. His comic style was Jewish, intellectual, and unassuming like Allen but often edgy like Bruce.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7QGOM06Bd4

His sermons landed him on the No. 1 show, “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” where he told a humorous version of God telling Moses to remove his shoes off his feet in “God’s redundant way” at the burning bush only to approach and burn his feet. “And God said, Third one this week.” In 1969, Steinberg says, his mocking of religion evoked a rush of hate mail toward CBS.

In his second and last Smothers Brothers appearance, Steinberg as the Reform rabbi spoke of Jonah and the Old Testament scholars versus the New. The bit included a line that “they literally grabbed the Jews by the Old Testament.” He extolled the congregation to “get Christ back into Christmas, and the ‘ch’ back into Hanukkah.” The Smothers Brothers were thrown off air for five years.

‘My identity is very Jewish, even in the secular community because I talk about what it is to be Jewish and I talk about my family’

His first spot on the “The Tonight Show” led to a total of 140 appearances as one of Carson’s most popular guests and guest hosts. Only Bob Hope’s track record trumped him. In the early 1970s Steinberg capped a prolific stand up career with four comedy albums, two Grammy nominations, and a successful nightclub act at the Bitter End.

As a director of more than 300 commercials, Steinberg won two Clio Awards and the prestigious Silver Lion Award at the Cannes International Film Festival. From 2005 to 2007, Steinberg was the executive producer, creator and host of a one-on-one interview series shot live in front of an audience at UCLA called Sit Down Comedy. His guest roster reads like a comedy hall of fame with Roseanne Barr, Larry David, George Lopez, Jon Lovitz, Mike Myers, Bob Newhart, Seinfeld, Garry Shandling, Martin Short, Ray Romano, Jon Stewart and Robin Williams.

His run at “Inside Comedy” is equally entertaining, featuring the biggest names in funny. Ben Stiller and Mike Myers, Judd Apatow and Tina Fey, Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin, Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart.

‘I knew it was historic. I remembered this for the rest of my life, every single one of these lunches’

The on-camera conversations seem to continue a tradition Steinberg began early in his career. After Steinberg moved west, he enjoyed weekly lunches with Groucho Marks, Jack Benny and Milton Berle.

“I knew it was historic. I remembered this for the rest of my life, every single one of these lunches,” he said.

Back in the 1960s, all the Jewish talent agents urged him to change his name, calling it “too Jewish.” Steinberg refused.

Unlike his comic predecessors, Steinberg never sanitized his Jewish moniker. Nor did he stray far from his Jewish roots as the son of immigrants.

“The Jewish Agency met them in Halifax and they said, ‘Okay, like, uh, how can we find a place more hellish than where they came from?’ Hello, Winnipeg,” Steinberg recounts in “Quality Balls.”

His father, a rabbi, ran a grocery store, as well as a shul. Off-color jokes, told in his affable Canadian demeanor, were part of Steinberg’s trademark. As he recounts, “Gentiles, to my father, were people, [who] although intelligent, they sell their children for whiskey.”

As he explains, one of his first acts was a humorous retelling of Purim at age nine to an audience of about 150 people.

“I got laughs,” he says. “It was my first sermon actually… It was just so comfortable for me.”