David Cross
David is going to be in a very Torah-centered, Jew-filled movie! It's called Year One, and David plays Cain to Paul Rudd's Abel. Harold Ramis plays their dad, Adam, and he also wrote and directed the film. Hank Azaria plays Abraham, and even Jack Black is in it! Naturally, we made it one of our Movies of the Month.
David plays a another mean guy, a boss who punished his prank-loving workers Sean Astin and Michael Vartan, in Demoted.
By the way, did you know that Alvin and the Chipmunks are Jewish? Well, their voices were done by a guy named David Seville, who speeds up his own voice with a machine to make it chipmunk-squeaky. Mr. Seville is not Jewish, but the chipmunks— Alvin, Simon, and Theodore— were named for the Jewish producers he worked for at Liberty Records: president Alvin Bennett, founder and owner Simon Waronker, and chief engineer Theodore Keep.
But why are we talking about singing chipmunks? Because they are in a new movie called Alvin and the Chipmunks, and so is David! And he's going to be in the squeaky sequel, which of course they are calling the Squeakuel.
David’s other recent role is Jewish hippie poet Allen Ginsberg in I’m Not There, which is about different phases in Jewish songwriter Bob Dylan’s music career. And David’s other other recent movie is The Grand, about a poker tournament; David can really play, and even won the Celebrity Poker Championship on Bravo!
David also has been in (click to see his Jewish co-stars): School for Scoundrels, She’s the Man, Eternal Sunshine, Men in Black (Jewish director Barry Sonnenfeld), Scary Movie 2, Ghost World, Small Soldiers, Waiting for Guffman, and The Truth About Cats & Dogs.
But wait, there’s more! David has done the voice of a dog (Dr. Doolittle 2), a stork (Cat Tale), and a karate crane (Kung Fu Panda and its sequel). He also was Junior in Curious George with Eugene Levy and an alien named Yivo in a new Futurama video with Katey Sagal. (YIVO is the name of a Jewish organization that is helping to save the Yiddish language!)
David’s biggest TV role was Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development, starring Jewish actor Jeffrey Tambor (who we wrote about here); he's going to be in the movie version of that show in 2009. He also narrated the Wonder Years-like show Oliver Beene. But his breakthrough was an offbeat sketch show called Mr. Show, which he created with Bob Odenkirk.
David has shown up regularly on everything from Law & Order, Just Shoot Me!, and The Drew Carey Show to Strangers with Candy and The Ben Stiller Show. He has done voices in Family Guy, Dr. Katz, King of the Hill and Aqua Teen, plus some of the puppets on Crank Yankers. He also plays a made-up liberal radio show host, Russ Leiber, on The Colbert Report; made-up conservative talk show host Stephen Colbert has him on as a guest and they “debate.”
Before and during all of this, David has been a stand-up comic. In fact, he was nominated for a comedy-album Grammy and made Comedy’s Central’s list of the Top 100 Stand-Up Comics of All Time. David was voted “Most Humorous” in high school. Turns out, he was only the 85th funniest person ever. Hey, we didn’t write the list! By the way, 40 of those 100 on the list are Jewish!
David has showed up in a number of music videos, and even directed one for The Black Keys. He also is a voice of characters in several video games, including Halo 2.
Bonus:
OK, we know, you are dying to find out who else made the Comedy Central list.
Well, here it is! We'll give you the Top Ten, then all the Jewish ones after that.
1 Richard Pryor
2 George Carlin
3 Lenny Bruce (Jewish)
4 Woody Allen (Jewish)
5 Chris Rock
6 Steve Martin
7 Rodney Dangerfield (Jewish)
8 Bill Cosby
9 Roseanne (Jewish)
10 Eddie Murphy
OK, here are the other Jewish comics that made it, their rank, and our profiles on them:
17 Don Rickles
22 Robert Klein
28 Jack Benny (see this Bonus)
29 Milton Berle (see this Bonus)
31 George Burns (see this Bonus)
33 Andy Kaufman
34 Buddy Hackett
40 Mort Sahl
41 Jon Stewart
44 Joan Rivers
45 Richard Lewis
46 Adam Sandler
47 Henny Youngman
51 Lewis Black
53 David Brenner
55 Alan King
58 Larry Miller
63 Jackie Mason
66 Shelley Berman (see this Bonus)
67 Kevin Pollak
68 Dave Attell
71 Red Buttons
76 Robert Schimmel
77 Paul Reiser (see this Bonus)
82 Howie Mandel
85 David Cross (this is his page; scroll up!)
95 Andrew "Dice" Clay
96 Joey Bishop (see this Bonus)
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