50 | APRIL 25 • 2024 
J
N

WACKY SHABBAT 
DINNERS: HERB ALPERT: 
ON SINAI & MANY OTHER 
PLACES
I confess, Dinner with the 
Parents, a “quite Jewish” 
comedy series, began 
last week (April 18) on the 
Freevee Channel/App and 
I didn’t know about its 
existence until the 15th (too 
late to be in my last column). 
But, in my defense, there 
wasn’t a single pre-premiere 
review anywhere; it wasn’t 
on most lists of “upcoming” 
series; and even Wikipedia 
had not a word about it.
I think the main reason it 
“flew low” is because it is 
on Freevee, a free channel 
(or app) owned by Amazon. 
Most people haven’t even 
heard about Freevee. If 
you have Amazon Prime 
Video, Freevee programs 
are integrated into Prime — 
except Freevee programs 
always have ads. If you 
have Roku or Amazon 
Fire, you can add Freevee 
as a free app. Most cable 
networks offer it as another 
channel. 
Parents is a 10-episode 
series. Four episodes 
streamed on April 18. Two 
episodes stream every 
following Thursday, with the 
finale on May 9. 
Dinner with Parents is 
based on Friday Night 
Dinner, a hit British series 
that ran from 2011-2020. 
It centered on a “pretty” 
secular Jewish family that 
met every week for Friday 
Shabbat dinner. 
Two trailers for Dinner 
have been released, and 
it’s clear that a lot of wacky 
stuff happens at the Langer 
family Shabbat dinners 
and just about every main 

character is kind of wacky, 
too.
Jane Langer (Michaela 
Watkins, 53) and Harvey 
Langer (Dan Bakkedahl) 
have two young adult sons, 
David (Henry Hall) and 
Gregg (Daniel Thrasher). 
Jane’s mother, called 
“Nana,” lives with her 
daughter. She’s played by 
the always-funny Carol 
Kane, 71.
Watkins starred in Casual, 
a Hulu series, and has had 
many guest star roles. 
Hall has a little Jewish 
ancestry. He’s the son of 
Julia Louis-Dreyfuss. Her 
paternal grandfather was 
Jewish. Thrasher, 30ish, is a 
comedian and musician who 
has a very popular YouTube 
channel. Right now, I am not 
sure if he’s Jewish.
Jon Glaser, 55, plays 
Donnie, a series regular. 
However, Donnie’s 
relationship to the Langers 
is not in the show’s 
advance info. Glaser grew 
up in Southfield, and he’s 
a University of Michigan 
graduate. He’s best known 
as an Emmy-nominated, 
top comedy writer. But he 
also has a lot of experience 
as a comedy sketch actor 
(Second City), and he had a 
recurring dramatic role on 
Girls (HBO). 
Every year, ABC shows 
The Ten Commandments 
(the 1956 movie) just before 
Easter and its showing is 

usually close to Passover. 
This year, the two holidays 
were a month apart and, 
for monetary reasons that 
I don’t have to explain, 
ABC ran Commandments, 
a Passover story, before 
Easter (not Passover). 
This year, I caught 
about five minutes of 
Commandments when I 
changed the channel to 
YouTube. On YouTube, I 
stumbled upon an excellent 
2020 documentary about 
famous trumpet player and 
composer Herb Alpert. 
It’s entitled Herb Alpert 
Is. YouTube offers a number 
of free films (with just a few 
ads), and this documentary 
is one of them. 
As I watched the 
documentary, I remembered 
that Alpert, 89, was in 
The Ten Commandments. 
He had an uncredited 
role as a drummer on Mt. 
Sinai. Curious, I checked: 
Alpert is one of the three 
surviving cast members of 
Commandments. The other 
two are Riselle Bain, 77, an 
active cantor who played 
Young Miriam; and Debra 
Paget, 90, who played 
Joshua’s girlfriend.
Alpert was “huge” in the 
1960s and early 1970s. He 
and his band, the Tijuana 
Brass, sold millions of 
albums and often out-sold 
the Beatles. His upbeat, 
catchy instrumentals 
managed to appeal to older 

people who didn’t like 
rock, while capturing a big 
following among younger 
people, too. 
The film clearly traces 
how Alpert, a very intelligent 
man, developed his sound 
and how he began, and ran, 
a highly successful album 
label, A&M, with the late 
Jerry Moss. They sold A&M 
for $700 million in 1989.
It is annoying that the film 
never mentions that Alpert 
is Jewish. He is the son of 
a Russian Jewish immigrant 
who worked as a tailor in 
the States. Herb’s father 
was also a serious musician, 
as was his mother, his sister 
and his brother. 
The only clue that Alpert 
is Jewish is near the film’s 
end. There’s a short home 
movie clip of Alpert being 
married, under a chuppah, 
to his second wife, singer 
Lani Hall, 78. (Alpert had 
two children with his first, 
Jewish wife, and one child 
with Hall).
The film focuses on just 
one example of his many 
philanthropies. I checked: 
Alpert’s many other “good 
works” include funding a 
music school in Jerusalem 
that educates Jews and 
Arabs. 
Alpert was in good 
shape in the 2020 film and, 
amazingly, he is still giving 
concerts with Lani. He has 
four concerts this May and 
four more in July. 

CELEBRITY NEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

ARTS&LIFE

U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO/STAFF SGT. LAKISHA CROLEY 

Michaela Watkins

GREG2600

Carol Kane

HERBALPERT.COM

Herb Alpert

