Evening falls on the Superland complex in Rishon LeZion. The sky darkens earlier, as usual at this time of year. Four dancers dressed in colorful skirts and tank tops huddle in a corner, behind a stage at the park's vendors' entrance. The director of the show runs between them and the security personnel, preparing equipment and props, making sure everything is ready for the show that will begin as soon as the audience on the side of the stage finishes gathering.
Haim Osdon – "David Chaim", as most children in Israel know him – will soon take to the stage for 45 minutes of singing, guiding, acting alongside enormous puppets, music and acting. Meanwhile, Osdun stands on the sidelines, mummified in a suit and bow, exchanging things with the production people and supervising everything.
"You know," he says, "with all my resume and 30 years of experience, I've never felt like a star. Some might call me a child star, but before every production I always have the fear that someone will find out I'm not good enough, that the bluff will be discovered, that someone will surpass me."
Classic imposter syndrome, whose sufferers are usually the talented and humble, the ones who usually won't cultivate the awareness necessary to evaluate themselves correctly.
"That's why every production I come to – I'm nervous," he explains, "They tell me: What are you under pressure? This is your seventh Festival Honey. But I still come with insecurity, to prove myself. Even my conduct in advance refuses to be the behavior of a star. Stars enter the locker room waiting for the signal to come out. I come a few hours before, checking that everything is sitting, that the costumes are there and that everything is standing. I must always make sure of everything. They tell me: Sit in the van, everything is fine. It's the same team that was with you yesterday. But I don't have those papers.
"Maybe that's what keeps me safe. Even when I perform in front of 5,000 or 10,000 people on Independence Day, I never feel like a star. I feel like I'm Haim the clown who was lucky."
"From me moving to Noa Kirl"
Fortunately for Osdon, those around him see him as a star in every respect. One whose name was said in the same breath as the other leading children's stars in the country. "We love working with him the most," says one of the park's security guards. "Manny Mamtara gives us a headache, little Michal repeats herself, there are artists who have to stop the facilities for them. But Haim is one who can keep the facilities working during his show, because an audience will come." And an audience does come, takes an active part in the performance, completes the sentences and sings the songs. One mother in the audience demonstrates impressive proficiency in the materials.
At the end of the show, Osdun will return backstage, wipe the sweat from his face with a handkerchief, sit down on a chair and signal to the person in charge of allowing the orderly entry of parents and children who stand in a long line, waiting for an opportunity to soak up stardust (before singer Stefan Leger takes the stage). With everyone, until the last of them, David Chaim will be photographed and smile. At that moment, he explains, each of them is their VIP.
Osdon with Uncle Chaim's costume. "I don't have papers, and maybe that's what keeps me safe", Photo: Efrat Eshel
Earlier that day, in the office of his home in Nes Ziona, Osdon presents me with a multi-year work plan in a thick, neat binder. Apart from a special concert called "The Stars Spread Their Wings" conducted by Gil Shochat (3.10 at the Opera House), "Jumbo Honey" with Tzipi Shavit, Manny Mamatra, Mickey, Roy Boy and the Sapir Family and the fourth season of "David Haim Ba", which will air on the Stars Channel at 1.10, Haim continues to work with Israel Railways, with which he makes the train accessible to Israeli children through short books and is a partner in a program on the Sports Channel, That goes back to the childhood of the well-known athletes in the country.
And he's also developing a format that he designates for future broadcasts on American television, a game show called Smash the Car. "You come with your car, and there's a wrecking ball on top of it like Miley Cyrus's," he explains. "They ask you questions. With every correct answer you answer, the ball goes up. You gave the wrong answer - he's going down. The thing is, if you win, you leave with a new car. If not, they crush your car. Something very extreme, American. It's not for the country."
Osdon in concert. "I know I'll never be number one", Photo: Nir Stolo
Me and two redheaded kids
His target audience is older kids, but his hardcore audience, he says, is ages one to six. "Then they leave me, tell me, 'Bye, thank you, be nice,' and move on to Noa Kirl. Many grew up on me, so called, and there are female soldiers who come and say 'Uncle Chaim!' to me, and now their little brothers are watching me. I'm part of the family."
Was that your vision growing up?
"My dream was to work in a respectable profession. Maybe a pharmacist, something in the business field. From the age of 15, I started working. I just went into the pool at Kibbutz Givat Hashlosha, asked if they were looking for employees and they said yes. I came from an average home. There was money, but not too much. My parents divorced, each went their own way, and I realized I needed to start helping a little. I went to school until noon, and then I would catch three buses to the other side of town, sometimes working until midnight. Cleans the wardrobes with a mop, the toilet. Today it's hard to find boys to do these jobs, I embraced them. I was always afraid of being fired."
"At the beginning of my career, I kept thinking, 'Why does confused Yuval succeed and I don't?' Good luck to him, but I turned jealousy of him into drive. If he can, so can I. Now I can expose that jealousy, because it's been 30 years, but then I was ashamed of it."
You weren't an actor child looking for an audience.
"It's the weirdest story in the world. In the army, I served in Unit 8200 of the Intelligence Forces. At the end of the army, my friend broke up with me. In movies people always come to the bar, sit down and talk to the bartender about their troubles, so that's what I did. I took the bus to a place called Terminal in Tel Aviv, sat in front of the bartender and drank beer and beer.
"Then a friend of mine and a friend of hers came, and I told them about the breakup in my own way, with a lot of black humor. They exploded with laughter, it was really a stand-up comedy show. The next day, my friend's friend called me and told me that he had seen a job ad in the newspaper for an entertainment staff member at a hotel in Eilat. I said, 'What am I related to?' and he said, 'Try, what do you care?' I was on parole leave. I even thought I'd become a burner, because that's what I learned in school."
Then you get to the audition at the hotel when you don't even have a piece ready.
"I came to the Paradise Hotel and stood in front of seven or eight examiners. I come from a life that, at best, only knows how to tell jokes. I don't have a piece ready, I don't have anything. I told a joke, after which only the noise of the air conditioner could be heard in the room. I said, 'Wow, listen, that's not a good joke, I'll tell you another one.' The air conditioner was turned off. They looked at me like, 'Where did you have the audacity to come here?'
"My black humor always saved me, so I started laughing at myself. I said, 'I understand that I now have to work for six months at a gas station, a preferred job.' Another joke and another joke, and then suddenly there were waves of laughter. I was accepted for a trial week. This was the trip after my army. I made 1,500 shekels a month, a shocking salary, but I had fun and stayed there for eight months."
He found his vocation as an artist for children in that accidental work. "The hotel had a children's room called the Scribble Club. His supervisor was sick, and they asked who from the staff could replace her, so I volunteered. I had never communicated with children before.
"I went into a small shelter where there were two redheaded kids who couldn't stand in the sun. I asked what they liked, they said football. So I moved all the tables, arranged four chairs as gates and said, 'Come on, play.' Then I told them, 'Come back at 16 p.m. with your friends.' Soon enough, the club became like a football field with 00 children. As if they had opened a party that none of the adults in the hotel knew about. I was a 200-year-old boy. Everyone wanted to be on the entertainment team back then because that's where the action, tourism and everything was, but that wasn't an issue for me. At the club I had the most fun."
"Let's put things on the table: I'm mediocre in a lot of things. I'm a mediocre singer, a mediocre actor, a mediocre dancer – and I know that. But my forte is diligence and creativity. I cover up the absence with some creativity and more and more hard work."
Businessman on the channel "Baby"
At first glance, it is easy and perhaps even necessary to analyze the Uncle Haim persona using cynical tools. The tidy office, the merchandise cabinet, the wall displaying professional achievements filled with children's tape covers and posters for the films, plays and Hanukkah festivals in which he participated - all these can give the impression that this is nothing more than an operation.
This is not entirely inaccurate. Before he became the uncle of Israel's children - Chaim, 53 years old (although he looks significantly younger than his age), he was a successful salesman of fiber optics. A man who set himself a goal of purchasing a large house with a garden before he reached the age of 30, and did so at the age of 27. He still lives and works in this house, where he lived for ten years before he met his wife – Meital, a teacher – and before their three children, Bar (10), Ben (7) and Ariel (5) joined.
He was born in Lod, grew up in Petah Tikva, and himself will testify that he built himself through hard work. The children's world is always not a gig, but in his case it is a life project. At any given time, he initiates projects, employs staff and takes care of the smallest details, the negligible cogs in the well-oiled machine called "David Chaim".
He is a workaholic. A professional who sat down in his office at 8:30 a.m. even during the coronavirus pandemic, when he initiated a YouTube guerrilla program that, lacking stages to perform on, took him out to rotating locations from his personal life. The first of these – a pizzeria in his hometown, Ness Ziona – served as an office for him before he had one.
He designs the accompanying products, books, dolls and programs himself, along with a team that surrounds him and has only grown as he has become a children's content empire. When he's not promoting himself, he's promoting other artists in the firm he founded for himself (notably Yuval "Confused" Shem-Tov). A brief and not very successful foray into the world of stand-up made him leave the world of children - not before selling his jokes to comedians such as Manny Ozeri for 400 shekels per punch.
He entered the world of children professionally in the early 90s, when he adopted the character "Haim the Clown". For 15 years he was known as a clown, until he realized that in order to be more successful - he needed to change branding.
There is a business thought behind this character. First of all, you are a businessman, one who happens to be in the children's world.
"The children's world is a very attractive world, and I always move in contrast, in conflicts. In the logical scenario of my life I should have been a real estate man, say. I've also opened businesses twice in my life that have nothing to do with it, like ice cream. I opened Anita's branch in the Sarona compound in Tel Aviv, and I also opened a Golda branch during Corona. It's a great business, but also intense. You have to be a professional, and I felt like it was hard for me to be good at that. So yes, I'm a businessman, but one who knows how to write a series for the Baby channel for ages zero to one year."
And how do you turn from clown to uncle?
"I saw Yuval, who worked for me here, become a meteor, and I said, 'Why isn't this happening to me?' I felt I was good, and I said I needed to build a strategic plan for myself. And if that doesn't happen, I'll be an insurance agent or something. I started thinking, 'What character can I do?'
"I kept thinking, 'Why Yuval yes and I'm not?' Good luck to him, but I turned that jealousy into a drive. If he can, so can I. Now I can reveal this thing, because it's been 30 years. So I was ashamed of it.
"I've never lived off being jealous of people. I hardly follow other artists, because I don't believe it. Doesn't open the morning and check where my competitors appear. I don't care about that. Do I have a hole in my calendar? I'll drive my cowgirl crazy until she finds a show on that date."
Yuval Shem-Tov. "Still the King", Photo: Efrat Eshel
Is the child star market competitive?
"Very."
Getting dirty sometimes?
"You can."
What does conflict between child stars look like?
"Look, there's a very clear leadership that has been leading this market for the last 15 years. Sometimes someone flashes in and stays - like Manny Mamatra, who is a meteor. But there is a very clear group of the first seven-eighth. Yuval, Manny, Little Michal, Roy Boy, Mickey, Cupico. There was a time when I was very much up, and a year later you could be somewhere else. It's very clear to me that Yuval is king."
Did the drug story hurt him significantly?
"I don't think people really want to be angry with Yuval. Obviously, there will be parents who will say 'not in our school,' but most wanted to forgive him. I think Yuval has done a lot of good deeds throughout his life and career, a lot of mitzvot, and that helped him."
How about the Roy Boy incident, Little Michal and the horse in Ayalon? This attracted a lot of negative attention to them.
"Look, no one is infallible. I really like Roy Boy, he's a good friend of mine, and we also did a lot of projects with little Michal and I love her. I'm very careful. Let's just say it can happen. We're all human beings, and sometimes you feel like falling apart, exploding. When I'm walking down the street, even at 2:00 A.M., I'll look for a crosswalk, so that no child accidentally sees me crossing the road diagonally. You have to be in control all the time, and that's hard."
Roy Boy. "He's my friend", photo: Ami Shumen
Michal Weizmann. "I love her very much", photo: Efrat Eshel
How much inspiration do you take from Mr. Bean? Your show is a bit reminiscent of him.
"Do you know who I'm being compared to more? Pee-Wee Herman (American actor and comedian Paul Rubens, who passed away two months ago at the age of 70, according to him). Alon Oleartchik was the first to say to me, 'You're the Israeli Pee-Wee Herman.' Then I started watching it. He was a genius. He was me in an American.
Pee-Wee Herman. "I'm always compared to him," Photo: AP
"But I... Listen, I'm mediocre. Let's put things on the table: I'm mediocre at a lot of things. I'm a mediocre singer, I'm a mediocre actor, I'm a mediocre dancer – and I know that. But my forte is diligence and creativity. I cover up the absence with some creativity and more and more hard work. I have self-awareness, and I know I'll never be number one. By the way, I might even choose that. Why? Because number one is always on your head. Please note: Omer Adam, Noa Kirel. In everything they do, they are sought."
"As for Roy Boy, little Michal and the horse in Ayalon, I will only say that no one is free of mistakes. I really like them, and I'm very careful. Let's just say it can happen. We are all human beings, and sometimes it comes to fall apart, to explode. As a child star, you have to always be in control – and that's hard."
Will you also be doing adult projects in the future?
"I decided that by the end of 2024 I wanted to write stand-up comedy underground, but different from what I had done in the past. Stand-up comedy that fits who I am now. And that's where I'm going to be Haim Osdon. I'm also writing a book for adults now, a suspense novel. It was inspired by the story of attorney Dori Klagsbald, who in 2006 killed a mother and child in a car accident in Tel Aviv. This incident has not left me. The book talks about how in one minute of carelessness, thought or caring - all life can change. I've been writing it for six months."
It sounds like you might have an open account with the adult world. It's a market you want to crack, and it sits on you a little bit.
"Yes, it sits on me. True, last summer was the strongest in my history, my career jumped twice as much as last year. But I'm aware enough that I don't have much time left on the hourglass. That's why I'm running crazy now. So I'll write adult novels, do a thousand and one other things. But in the end, as long as I'm relevant, I'll always stay with the kids."
"It's hard for me when you're not satisfied"
The skies of Rishon LeZion were already completely darkened above Superland, and Osdon said goodbye to the last person being photographed. Somehow he didn't look exhausted, and his facial muscles didn't seem tired of smiling at dozens of toddlers who were excited to meet him. Mr. Rogers is local, blue and white - that's how you can define him. A warm man who will melt even the cold and cynical in hearts.
"Some might call me a 'child star.' But with all my long resume and 30 years of experience, I never felt like a star. Before every production, I always have the fear that someone will find out that I'm not good enough, that the bluff will be discovered, that someone will surpass me."
"When someone isn't happy with me, voila, it's hard for me. Once I was invited to watch a production, and I went into the theater quietly with my children, after the lights went out. Then some mother wrote me something that amazed me. She wrote: 'The children call you from above in the hall, why don't you walk around and take pictures with them?' I replied that I didn't want to draw attention, and that I came myself with my children. So she said, 'Yes, but you're everyone's!' I managed to soften it, because in the end you have to finish it well."
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