With Passover Plague Videos Like These, Who Needs the Maccabeats?

Image by Screenshot, Nina Paley

By Anne Cohen April 1, 2015

Holiday-themed parody video are usually lame, and cringe-inducing. Exhibit A: This Passoverized version of “Uptown Funk.”

But sometimes, you get that one gem that makes it all worth it.

Nina Paley has given us such a golden unicorn with her animation of each of the ten plagues (props to our good friends at Heeb for finding these). You may remember Paley from her viral hit, “This Land is My Land.” If you don’t, watch it here.

The artist and animator is working on a full-length feature called “Seder Masochism,” but released the plague videos as a teaser on her website. If the movie lives up to the standards put out by these clips, well, hang on to your Afikomen.

So, forget the Maccabeats. Check this out instead:

Blood (“Blood Red River Blues,” Josh White, 1933)

Frogs (“Frogs,” DJ Zeph Ft. Azeem, 2004)

Lice (“Insects,” Oingo Boingo, 1983)

Flies (“Insects,” Oingo Boingo, 1983)

Murrain (“Dead Animals,” Mental Decay)

Boils (“Helter Skelter,” The Beatles, 1968)

Hail (“Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here,” Nat Shilkret, 1917)

Locusts (“Insects,” Oingo Boingo, 1983)

Darkness (“Who Turned Out The Light On My Life,” Daniel Boone)

Death Of The Firstborn Egyptians (“Spider Suite,” ,The Duke Of Uke And His Novelty Orchestra, 2012)

[h/t Heeb]

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO