New funny hanukkah songs: the music videos for Mrs. Maccabee's Kitchen

I don't see that we'll be performing the music from our new Hanukkah cd very soon, so in order to have music videos I decided to try animation. Plus, cartoons seem to suit the silly Chanukah songs I wrote.

There's a program attached to youtube called goanimation.com; for somebody who doesn't have  time to learn how to animate properly it's a pretty easy way to slap something together! It's dominated by young men who want to make movies of things blowing up, so there are lots of demented warriors and weapons available pre-made on the site - but if you want non-bellicose items you may have to make them yourself. For this video I made applesauce, sour cream, cooking spray, aunts bearing latkes, and flying tofu and vegetables.

As for the song, I googled "bad latkes" and sampled from many online conversations - people are very opinionated on the subject. I strung together many of the complaints I found and set them to a traditional wedding doina, a "kale bezetsn" (that means seating of the bride). You can hear it played properly, on the violin, by Itzhak Perlman on "The Fiddler's House." You can buy the song for a measly 80 cents here: Pawn Shop Menorah.

By the way, I realize it's a little presumptuous for me to call these Hanukkah songs funny. After all, it's just my sense of humor and maybe nobody else will agree. But if there's any advantage to getting old, it's that you don't have to care any more whether somebody else agrees...