Fun and Sun in This Wonderful Pre-Passover Void!

By The Legendary Danny O’Doul

Sure, funny things happen all the time in these Five Towns – like when a Cedarhurst meter maiden writes your parking ticket with the wrong plate number wrong, or when Capital One gets the takeout lids that are too small for their “Cap One” coffee cups, or even  those times when multi-car pile-ups plug up the Gourmet Glatt parking lot and bring traffic on Washington Avenue to a grinding halt! Yes, we do have our share of daily  humor — especially if you factor in the gaggle of pre-teen girls waiting on line in The Cheese Shop to purchase ginormous caffeine-supercharged ice coffees the size of giant Austrian beer steins and grown-up women ordering lunch at Toddy’s spewing so many detailed instructions to the countermen that for sheer volume and intricacy they rival those found in the owner’s manual of their Lexus 460 parked outside!

So, it’s no surprise that this fine and funny neighborhood has served to spawn many notable comedians, writers and performers.  This Saturday night  at 8:30 PM — actually –“Live this Saturday Night” — Alan Zweibel, whose groundbreaking comic writing sparked the early days of Saturday Night Live (now known to the kiddies as “SNL).

Mr. Zweibel returns to his hometown, as well as, his “home shul,” Congregation Sons of Israel, he will give a video presentation and lecture.

Personally, I remember watching those early Saturday Night Live shows weekly, and I vividly recall Alan Zweibel in the “Spuds Beer” mock commercial and remember his smiling, spaced-out look as a lobotomized, electro-shock patient given a mug of Spuds.

I understand that this was the first “mock commercial” on Saturday Night Live and it instituted a weekly tradition for over 35 years.  While I am not shilling for Mr. Zweibel,who worked with Gilda Radner, and John Belushi, both of blessed memory, I am sure it will be an entertaining way to spend your Saturday night this weekend, and will probably be funnier than the new SNL to be broadcast later that evening at 11:30 p.m.!

Well, enough about Mr. Zweibel, who seems busier than I am –what, with his new film with Billy Crystal, and his books and television shows! So let’s just fade out with me acknowledging that Alan Zweibel is “legendary.”  Now, onto other things in these Five Towns…

Cut to Central Avenue…the scene is sunny, happy and bubbly…parents are overjoyed, children are gleeful, and even the motorists have stopped honking at the double-parked

SUV’s.  Why is the scene so idyllic?  Well, everyone is so excited to find “The Upper Crust” now ready and open for business — in the old Zomick’s bakery /Fusion Toast spot.  Now, let’s be straight – I haven’t eaten there and this is not a restaurant review.  I probably won’t even pop into this attractive, cucina-style eatery to wrangle a free

made-to-order brick-oven gourmet pizza pie, or one of their promising Italian appetizers, pasta dishes, or fish entrees.  This is not to say, however, that I don’t find this appealing,

of course, I do! But, as a professional, unless they twist my arm to come over and sample a nice gratis assortment of their menu items, I’ll be paying my own way, when I get around to it!   I do wish The Upper Crust the best of luck and anticipate that many of the Five Towns’ “upper crust” will frequent this exciting new eatery.

So, two major plugs in one column is catapulting me to legendary “kiss-up status,” so let’s go for three!  For all of you fashionable ladies out there who are looking to load up on high-end cosmetics for your upcoming Passover Getaways, be sure to visit

Kiss and Make-Up, on The Avenue, for that perfect and exciting “New Passover Look.”

You’ll be hotter than Pharaoh’s daughter when their expert make-up artists work their magic on you! And, if you’re worried about not looking tan enough upon your arrival in  “       ” (insert your destination here, i.e:  Miami Beach, Cancun, Jerusalem, Scottsdale, the Caribbean, Saturn)  – Kiss and Make-Up offers wonderfully safe and effective “cosmetic tanning” solutions that will instantly change your complexion from “finely porcelain” to “darker-than-a-Kardashian!”

And, while I am at it, let me talk up that long misunderstood and maligned Passover Seder staple,  Maror — the much-feared “Bitter (horseradish) Herb.”  Being a legendary competitive eater, who can easily wolf down a slice of pizza in one continuous bite (you may actually see this at youtube.com/dannyodoul), I am a professional at consuming large quantities of sundry edibles, including  jalapenos, wasabi and, yes, Maror.

Heck, I even grow my own horseradish in my garden, and savor the intense rush of downing a solid chunk barely dunked in Charoset.  It is an intense rush, akin to the feeling of inhaling Afrin nasal spray (after the “Afrin” has been removed and substituted with the juice of six habanero chili peppers), or the sensation of being propelled from zero to 120 MPH, in a mere three seconds, as a passenger in a Bugatti Veyron!

Well, I wish all my jet-setting, world-traveling friends and neighbors a wonderful Passover holiday and vacation and, though I, along with The Standard, will be here

for next week’s episode, unless you pre-order your April 6^th copy now (along with the necessary pre-paid postage), you will just have to read your Haggadah for fun!

This is The Legendary Danny O’Doul signing off and wishing everyone a Happy Passover in “Yenems Velt” (meaning “wherever you’re going”) and leaving you with the following traditional Irish-Jewish Passover blessing:  “May your Matzohs be  unbroken, may  your four cups of  wine be sweet, and may your stool stay soft and plentiful!”