Old Jews Telling Jokes Getting Spinoff Series
The rumormill is churning with news that the web video series Old Jews Telling Jokes (which was recently adapted into a book by the same name) is being made into a TV show, tentatively titled “Nag & Noodge.” According to the comedy website splitsider.com, the hilarious “webisodes” will be the basis of a new web series that will take the form of a sitcom.
According to the article:
The show, tentatively titled “Nag & Noodge,” will be a short-form sitcom shot in front of a live studio audience. It’s being written by married writing partners Fred Rubin (who tells the joke in the above video) and Marley Sims, who have experience writing for “Night Court,” “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Home Improvement” between them.
The article says that the production style will be similar to that of the current Old Jews web format (ie, quick and cheap): “They’ll shoot an entire season of 10 seven-minute episodes of Nag & Noodge in one day. They’ll then put the show online, pushing it to the existing OJTJ audience.”
As the Forward recently reported, the website Old Jews Telling Jokes was launched in 2009 by Sam Hoffman and Eric Spiegelman, and now averages 700,000 monthly plays and has become an internet sensation, with bold-faced names like that of former New York mayor Ed Koch and filmmaker Sidney Kimmel dishing out their best one-liners.
But as funny as it is, the show may not make it to the small screen. “The main goal is to bring additional laughs to our audience, which is an Internet audience,” creator Spiegelman told splitsider.com. “If we do well to that end, and someone wants to adapt this to traditional television, hey, great. But that’s not our focus. We want to be funny on the Internet.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
