I Helped Adam Sandler Write ‘The Chanukah Song’

Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song” transcends classic SNL bit and now qualifies as a legitimate holiday classic — as much a post-Thanksgiving staple as “Jingle Bells” or “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

Debuting on SNL on December 3, 1994, “The Chanukah Song” has changed a bit over the last three decades — with the names of new Jewish celebrities being swapped in and out — but it’s never stopped being a banger (Chanukah or otherwise). Sandler wrote the original with SNL writers Ian Maxtone-Graham and Lew Morton, the latter of whom recently spoke to me about coming up with the biggest Chanukah hit since “I Have a Little Dreidel.”

When did you join Saturday Night Live as a writer?

In the fall of 1993. Sandler had been there for a while already, but I’d only worked with him a little bit before “The Chanukah Song.” He would do these holiday songs that were always fun to work on. He did Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day, and this was just one of those. We had no idea it would be the winner it turned out to be.

How did the idea for a song about Chanukah start?

Sandler deserves all the credit for the song. Ian Maxtone-Graham and I sat in a room with him with a book called The Book of Jewish Lists, which was a book in every Jewish person’s bathroom at this time, and we helped him with some rhymes. It was a fun time with Adam and his guitar, posing unlikely rhymes with names of Jewish guys. 

Do you have a particular favorite celebrity that you got to include in the song?

I really loved that we had Rod Carew in there. There was some performance somewhere where he showed up to give his line: “I converted!”

What do you remember about the initial audience reaction to the song?

It destroyed so hard during the show that Adam kind of had to stop after every line. I remember worrying, “I hope this plays well at home because it’s killing so hard here that he can barely do it.”

You guys did craft a true holiday classic.

I’m Jewish, and when you live your life as a Jewish kid around Christmas time, you’d always hear the choir sing five or six really great Christmas carols written by the greatest composers in the Western canon. Then you’d get, “I had a little dreidel, I made it out of clay” — it really couldn’t have felt more token. Everyone knows damn well it’s the crummiest song of all of them.

So, it’s sort of amazing to have been part of something that’s become a part of the holiday canon.