In case you didn’t know, Paul Rudd used to be a bar and bat mitzvah DJ when he was in acting school. He started his DJ and MC career at a 50s-themed bar in Kansas City called Studebakers and when he started acting school in California, he used his DJ-ing and party-rousing skills to get hired by a company that sent out DJs and MCs to parties in Los Angeles.
On Amy Poehler’s excellent new podcast, “Good Hang,” Rudd, who was actually bar mitzvah-ed at a Reform synagogue and grew up Jewish, spoke about the songs that got people moving way back in the late 80s and early 90s. He said that kids were into a lot of C+C Music Factory tunes, and that many kids loved Billy Idol’s “Mony, Mony,” because of the trend of shouting “Hey everybody, get laid, get fucked!” during the song’s silent verses, which had many 13-year-olds excited to shout out expletives in public and many a Jewish grandparent looking around in shock and confusion. Good times.
The actor who gave us that iconic line about perfecting Judaism spoke about his DJ-ing gig in 2015 with Howard Stern, saying that he didn’t love it that much — “I always felt like a bit of a…” he starts, and Stern suggests: “Douche?” to which Rudd agreed. “I got to get these kids on the dance floor,” he said, “and that’s where I get to keep the party going.”
He recalled that one time, after 18 hours of doing bar and bat mitzvahs in a row, “I started dancing like a freak and mocking the whole thing.” The kids at the party found Rudd’s moves hilarious (I mean, we’ve all been won over by his dance moves at some point in our lives!) and gave him the dance floor, and his boss, over at the DJ stand, introduced him to everybody as “Donnie Dweeb.” Much to his chagrin, but also, to his great financial gain, people started requesting — and paying extra — for the “dork dance” to be featured at their kids’ party.
Jon Hamm, who has been friends with Rudd since they were teens in Missouri (Rudd spent his teen years in Kansas City, Hamm grew up in St. Louis) also recalled Rudd’s MC-ing career in his interview with Stern. He told the radio host that he was jealous of the lucrative gig and recalled how one night, he and actor Joe Buck went to pick up Rudd at a bat mitzvah job and hung out there a bit — so some lucky women in LA had all three of these huge future stars at her coming-of-age celebration and didn’t even know her luck! We’re all very jealous.
You don’t have to go far to find a video of Rudd MC-ing at bat mitzvah. Former Kveller editor Gabrielle Birkner just had to go to her family’s videotape archive to find the evidence from her own party, to which Rudd wore a very fancy yellow suit jacket over a ruffled yellow button-up (what a look! I’m also equally obsessed with Gabi’s pink puffed sleeved dress!). And while he may not have loved the job, it’s clear he was very good and sweet at it. You can see him helping her in blowing out the candles (“They’re trick candles! They won’t go out!” he joked when they wouldn’t go out), abetting some limbo cheating (hey, it was her party, and she can cheat if she wants to!) and playing air guitar while dancing with the teens.
Rudd’s yellow MC-ing outfit recently made it in as an easter egg in season three of “Only Murders in the Building,” where he played actor Ben Glenroy, whose murder is the focus of that season. The show’s protagonists are lured into the apartment of a crazy Glenroy stalker, who happens to have a lot of memorabilia of the fictional actor with hilarious references to role from Rudd’s past, including a doll dressed in black shorts and a yellow blazer. “Includes body glitter & limbo pole!” the box hilariously reads (you can see a spray bottle, records and a silver pole in the packaging). I think I need a Paul Rudd bat mitzvah DJ doll myself?
In the interview with Poehler, the two also talked about how a bar mitzvah influenced one of their early projects, the quite Jewish “Wet Hot American Summer,” which was shot at a summer camp in Pennsylvania, where the cast stayed together for weeks. It rained for more than 20 days of the shoot, which means the “wet” was quite literal for the young comedians, even if the movie — Bradley Cooper’s first film! — seems to take place during sunny summer days. Rudd and Poehler, along with the rest of the cast and crew, had to leave the set for a week in the middle of shooting. The reason? Someone had rented the camp for a bar mitzvah!
The”Ant-Man” star also spoke with Poehler about another movie he was in, where it has now been confirmed that his character was definitely Jewish: “Clueless.” Apparently, the actor had that signature head of wavy hair when he auditioned for the Beverly Hills-set retelling of Jane Austen’s “Emma,” and almost didn’t get the role because director and writer Amy Heckerling discovered he shaved all his hair after the audition. Luckily, his hair grew out enough for the shoot and the rest is movie history. Now all we have to do is hope that Paul Rudd will make his return to the “Clueless” franchise in the newly confirmed sequel “Clueless” show starring OG Cher Horowitz Alicia Silverstone (who recently shared her own very adorable bat mitzvah pic!). Maybe Josh and Cher’s progeny will celebrate their bar or bat mitzvah in the show? Now that would be a true full-circle moment.
