This past Sunday, comedian Amy Poehler made history as the first person to win a Golden Globe for Best Podcast. Her “Good Hang with Amy Poehler” cut through all our podcast fatigue and brought us a celebrity podcast that feels genuinely human, celebratory and joyful while also being laugh-out-loud funny, intentionally and unintentionally. (One of my favorite moments from the show involves Rachel Dratch’s tangled headphones).
Personally, I think Poehler deserves the award solely for managing to get Judy Sheindlin on her show. The “Judge Judy” star very rarely gives interviews, and yet somehow, Poehler got her into her studio for a delightful interview that often had the Jewish celebrity, who wore the most fabulous rose-adorned hat, taking the reins.
From the beginning, Sheindlin told Amy what she wanted to talk about most. “Let’s talk kvetching,” she said, using the Yiddish word for complaining, “I love kvetching, it’s a great thing.”
The interview is wide-ranging, with Sheindlin debating dog waste picking and cart-returning etiquette, and also opening up about being a working mom at a time when the decision wasn’t popular, saying that the choice was never hard for her because it was what made her genuinely happy, and her career ended up being a big boon for her family.
She also spoke about how important her Jewish father, Fred, was in making her a successful and confident person (“If I had a pimple on my forehead he would say: ‘Oh my God, that is gorgeous, everyone should have one! Not as big as yours, but everyone should have one!'” Sheindlin recalled in the interview.)
Yet, one of my favorite moments from that episode is when Sheindlin, who grew up Jewish in 1950s Brooklyn, introduced Poehler to the Borscht Belt.
“My father was a dentist. My mother ran his dental office,” she told Poehler of her childhood. “His dental office was in the house, so we were all very close. And there was never a question of trying to get over on the system. It was always: ‘You work, you earn a living, you take care of your family, you save up, you go to Grossinger’s for a weekend, or the Concord.”
“Wait, what was Grossinger’s?” Poehler interjected.
“Grossinger’s was a resort like the Concord Hotel,” Sheindlin replies incredulously that Poehler doesn’t know these staples of her childhood.
“Like ‘Dirty Dancing?'” Poehler then asked.
“Exactly, but bigger,” Sheindlin replied. Grossinger’s was in fact the inspiration behind Kellerman’s, the resort in “Dirty Dancing.”
“That’s where Jewish people went for the weekend. Everybody was gluttonous. There was much too much food. You took dancing lessons,” she explained to a giddy Poehler, who seemed excited at the prospect of young Judy taking dancing lessons à la Baby in “Dirty Dancing.” We all know nobody in history has ever put Judge Judy in a corner, after all.
I truly wish we had photos of Judge Judy dancing in the Borscht Belt! Can someone please cast her in the upcoming “Dirty Dancing” sequel?
