Bar Refaeli’s racy commercial, no Amy Winehouse hologram tour, Joan Rivers’ Holocaust jokes

By JANA BANIN

HOLLYWOOD, FL. (JTA) — A risque ad featuring Bar Refaeli in bed with a purple, mustachioed Muppet has been banned from running before 10 p.m. in the holy land, Walla!, Israel news website reports. Per a governmental council called The Second Authority for Television and Radio, the ad for local fashion brand Hoodies has “too many sexual insinuations” to be seen during prime time.

The spot opens with a post-coital shot of the Israeli supermodel and her puppet friend, a guy named Red Orbach, with whom many Israelis are already familiar. For some background on the swarthy Muppet, we turn to The Hollywood Reporter:

“The character Red Orbach emerged locally from an all-puppet classic rock group called Red Band and his stereotypical persona is that of an aging 1960s American rocker. This past year, Red Orbach co-hosted late-night The Red & Dvir Show with actor Dvir Benedek on Channel 2’s franchiser ReshetBroadcasting.”

Anyway, the purple rocker/TV host/skilled lover goes on to imagine what it would be like to be dating not one, but THREE Refaelis. This involves sexy scenes from a car wash (referred to here as a “Bar wash”), a photo booth and a game of strip poker.

R-rated, weird or both? You decide.

Amy Winehouse hologram tour not happening

If you thought rumors of a concert tour featuring a hologram version of the late Amy Winehouse seemed too good to be true — or perhaps creepy — you would be correct.

Last week, the UK newspaper The Sun reported that billionaire Alki David was planning to use 3-D computer technology plus an orchestra to bring the singer back to the stage.

The same high-tech method was used to resurrect murdered rapper Tupac Shakur for the Coachella festival in 2012.

Unfortunately for Winehouse fans, her dad, Mitch, who controls her image, made it very clear on Twitter they won’t get to watch her perform “live” anytime soon:

No truth in the Hologram story. Utter rubbish as usual. Mitch — mitch winehouse (@mitchwinehouse) March 29, 2014
Sorry guys.

Watch: Joan Rivers back on ‘Tonight Show’ after 26 years, cracks Holocaust, genitalia jokes

It’s been 26 years since Joan Rivers has been on “The Tonight Show,” and in the meantime, it seems, she’s been working diligently on Holocaust and vagina jokes.

Rivers technically returned to the show for the first time since being banned by Johnny Carson nearly three decades ago for Jimmy Fallon’s inaugural episode. But that was just a cameo. Last Thursday night, she actually sat down with the new host, who cringed for a significant part of the seven-minute chat.

It wasn’t all jaw-droppingly shocking, though. Tamer moments included Fallon producing a photo of a young, pre-plasticized Rivers from her second-ever “Tonight Show” visit and Rivers talking about ideas she pitched to the “Tonight Show” during her ban, including “a Jewish religious show called ‘700 Club And That’s My Final Offer.” Not a penny more!

Check out the whole thing here.

Julianna Margulies lays ‘Jew guilt’ on ‘The Good Wife’ co-star Josh Charles

What to do when a key player on your hit series has one foot out the door? Invoke your bubbe at her most manipulative. At least that’s the route “The Good Wife” star Julianna Margulies took when trying to convince co-star and friend Josh Charles to stay on the show, Entertainment Weekly reports.

At a Charlie Rose-moderated panel discussion, the conversation turned to Charles and his ”Good Wife” contract, which expired at the end of the fourth season. Charles was feeling “fried” and ready for something new. Well, that didn’t exactly sit well with Margulies.

“I called Josh, and I gave him terrible Jew guilt,” the Jewish actress said. “I knew he was about to get married and I said, ‘Josh, how about this? Fifteen episodes? Think about it. Money in the bank for 15 episodes. You’re about to get married. Do you know how expensive it is to have a baby in New York?’ I went right to the kid thing.”

And the school thing: “We were looking at kindergarten for our son at the time, and I was like, ‘Do you know how much private school is in New York?’ I went on this whole thing about kids and family, and he was like, ‘Well, 15? Let me think about that.’ And I said, ‘And two directing slots!’

It worked. Now Margulies can start pressuring her friends to make that baby.

Watch: ‘Pedestrians In Bars Eating Toffee,’ a parody of Seinfeld’s Web series

From the music to the editing to the way the host paces himself and interrupts his guests, “Pedestrians In Bars Eating Toffee” (featured on CollegeHumor and Laughing Squid) is very much a spot-on spoof of Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”
Oh, and this parody, featuring Gabe Oppenheim and Samuel Goldberg, also has that underlying New York Jewy thing going on.

Our favorite moment: Mid-toffee munching, Jerry stand-in Gabe begins flossing. Samuel, this episode’s guest, doesn’t like flossing. It makes his gums bleed.

“What kind of torturous exercise do you think flossing is?” Gabe asks, after pointing out that gums bleed when they are unhealthy, not because flossing is bad.

“I’m Jewish,” Samuel offers up as a response.

For the latest Jewish celebrity news, visit JTA’s 6 Degrees (No Bacon) blog.