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"We got used to a 'great country' only to the elections and to Corona. Now we'll finally deal with other things."

The challenge of creating satire when Netanyahu is not in power ("Bibi provided elections every season, but we were before him and we will be after him"), the incident with Amit Segal ("What was, behind us. We will continue to emulate him") and the pressures from above ("they are repulsed").

On the occasion of a new season of "Wonderland" (Tonight, Rainbow 12), Eyal Kitsis speaks.

Interview

Tags

• Wonderful Country

• Eyal Kitsis

• satire

• Benjamin Netanyahu

Sagi Ben Nun

Wednesday, November 10, 2021, 00:00

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Trailer for season 19 of "Wonderland" (Rainbow 12)

After its recent seasons aired "Wonderland" alongside unprecedented political chaos and a global Corona epidemic - the old satire and humor show will have to deal with a new kind of threat: the disgust with the news and current affairs that is also reflected in the ratings drop.

Will this also affect the flagship of Keshet 12, which often laughs at the news and politics?

"I love this challenge, it actually turns me on. We have really been accustomed in recent years to having elections every season, so we can talk about the election campaign and then the government train, and there have also been wars and corona. I mean, there has always been something we knew, for better or worse. We're messing around.

"In every edition you try to touch more or less what happened during the week, and when such dominant things happen you have very little time left for other things. I wish we had a chance to deal with other things as well. It has not happened in any of the 18 seasons we have had so far. "Besides, consuming news through us is something more fun than watching net news. I hope that the fact that we are funny, entertaining, challenging and maybe punching a little in the stomach here and there, it will only add interest to the viewers."

"Do you know those who start their answer with 'Come'? So come on, we're in season 19, which means we had quite a few years before him. It's true that the man knew how to provide us with an election campaign for every season, and there's something comforting and pleasant about that, "And we're probably going after him."

"First of all I'm not sure it's boring. It's such a bad word in this context. It's true it's more challenging. I really think people want to look at other things a bit, and that's fine. And for us, I'm actually happy about this challenge because when we have to look in new places it always brings out better things in us. We always have the tendency and intention to take down characters a moment before they get tired. We're trying to do that. When I'm asked later on the street, 'why are you not doing this anymore?', That's the good thing that should happen when you stop making a character. to them?".

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When I am later asked on the street, 'Why are you not doing this anymore', that is the good situation.

Eyal Kitsis (Photo: Ohad Romano)

One of the most brilliant moments in the history of “Great Country” was Shauli and Irena’s sketch from last season in which Shauli proposes a civil war as the only solution to the political tangle.

He corresponded with reality in a frightening way - shortly afterwards the riots took place in Israel.

It was in a sense a partial civil war.

"First of all it's one of Shauli's masterpieces, which is one of our masterpieces. It's really one of our highlights, this monologue of him about a war you go down to with sweatshirts and flip flops because it's under the house. It was ingenious. Listen, it's not that we totally invented it Most of the things we do, even if they are said by characters as they may be non-political and topical, we do not just choose to say what they say. It's all based on all sorts of things we feel, see, read and hear. After all, it was completely based on something. The fact that it came true so quickly, it's really surprising. It had all kinds of good triggers like corona and closures and such. But it's not weird. "The issue that aired many years ago. It almost always happens. You see how many things repeat themselves. How many are actually expected. And how many of us are surprised anew each time."

At the end of the last season of "Great Country" there was a media confrontation between the political commentator of News 12 Amit Segal and "Great Country", after his imitation that dealt with his failures to predict the formation of the government.

Segal attacked the program staff for being racist and claimed that its leaders were complaining to Keshet officials about his right-wing statements.

In response, the show's editor-in-chief, Molly Segev, shared the sketch and tweeted: "You will not find words like 'right' and 'shofar' in it.

I mention the incident to Kitsis, and he says: "I ask a faculty member to keep giving us reasons to do his character because I love this character. But what was - behind us. You know what? Until the moment you reminded me of it now I did not even remember it "It happened. We love it and we will continue to do it when needed."

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Each time surprised anew.

Eyal Kitsis (Photo: Ohad Romano)

By the way, Amit Segal, also in the satire program "Channel Zero", which aired here on May 11, did what seemed to be his imitation.

He was portrayed as a "son of a terrorist", the imitation also received harsh criticism from within the corporation, and the show went down after only six episodes.

What did you think of it?

"Listen, during the seasons of 'Great Country' there were all sorts of attempts to make a satire show. It's something very difficult to do. It's really not obvious that we're able to do it. I think our advantage is just the experience. We have so many years of Experience how to write these things. The big challenge is to create it week after week. You know, to do one or two programs - it's one thing. We finish every program, and especially the first one every season, with what feeling we got to the finish line. Then suddenly We realize that next week there is another program, and a week after that another one. And there is nothing to do, when you start such a new program, straight compare you to other programs that exist, the pressure only increases and it is very difficult to survive week by week. "Find yourself a different identity, that it will not be similar. But I'm sure one day it will happen."

"Listen, no pressure comes to us. They not only push it, they also make sure it does not come to us. Because once it comes to us, no matter which way, then the pressure will somehow be applied to us. We have a completely free hand, and I think That we're responsible enough to get that hand. In my life I do not know of any pressure exerted. I also think all the imitators have long since learned to say they laughed and had fun. The funniest thing is that they say they have not seen. It doesn't help either. "

The character of Amit Segal in "A Wonderful Land" (Photo: screenshot, Keshet 12)

What imitations should be retired in "Eretz"?

"Look, what's the fun in imitations? After all, the real character in reality dictates how much the character in 'Eretz' survives or not. Sometimes it's enough a sentence for someone to say that he will suddenly shine a different light and this character gets a whole new life. Bennett said just once 'Enough already ', In some TV interview, but it's very funny to Zarhovich, he dressed up for it, and it expressed some facet of Bennett's character who suddenly took it somewhere else. And it's a lot of fun. Sometimes there are characters we did a lot of, and suddenly something happens to them and they I also think that Netanyahu's character, played by Mariano, became a character in his own right at some point. Obviously she still represented who was then prime minister but she was already a completely different character. "Not necessarily what Bibi would have done. It's also cool. So there is no such thing as a character that needs to be taken down. She just has to prove herself out there so that there will be a reason to do it with us."

"I think for many years there was no such punch. Once, in the very first seasons, there was something in the flash in the areas of Zvika Pick and his daughters, which I was really disappointed after I said and also apologized to him. You know, it's very important not to fall in love with a joke. , So in love with some joke, that it's hard for us to let it go when someone illuminates it in some light you say, wow, I did not think of it. I think over the years you learn to let go and not insist, so do not regret anything you said. "Such a quality control of so many people who go through everything, repetitions that we do, that the risk that something we did not really mean will reach the viewer is almost zero."

"Well, if I say it again, then what did I do about it? I'll have to apologize again! If you make the same mistake twice, you already have a problem."

"I do not have an unequivocal answer to that. On the one hand, when I did imitations, probably in Jonathan Geffen where the makeup name is a little more aggressive, I felt how the actor feels when he suddenly looks in the mirror and sees the object of his imitation. It's an amazing thing. "That makes you better. On the other hand, I'm not good at it enough. Really all our players know how to do it better than me. I think I need to understand that and settle for the role I have. And I'm totally satisfied with it.

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The character got a life of its own.

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Knesset Spokeswoman Noam Moskowitz)

Are you interested in doing a dramatic role in a series or at least a sitcom for children as quite a few of your friends in "Eretz" do?

"I have often been offered to be a part of all kinds of series like this. I admit that the work itself turns me on less. It is a very different work. It is to shoot an entire month in a series of horizontal scenes, not in order. It does not turn me on enough. In a movie I think it would have been very cool to me. But apparently it's really less appealing to me and it's less to me. You know, Seinfeld said: what's the difference between an actor and a comedian? "I think that's one of my problems - that if I can already play something it's probably some aspect of myself, and not really now bring you some game that you say, wow, where did he get it for you? I'm a limited person."

"When you occasionally show things from the first seasons, I see what I looked like and I'm glad those days are gone. Every time you look back twenty years, you meet someone innocent and nice, who does not yet know half of the things you know now. But in the end I love him too. I also look with love at who I was twenty years ago. "

"It was great. The text there was really funny. I thought it was a bit for the well-traveled, I didn't think it was something that everyone knows and connects to. But I really enjoyed it and it really made me laugh."

Regrets his punch for Zvika Pick and his daughters (Photo: Aviv Hofi)

I guess you're excited about the "this is it" union too, but what do you think of the plan? About writing?

"I think part of the grace of 'this is it' is that it's how they do it. That's how they did it once, and that's how they do it today. That's part of the players 'character, that's what it's right for them to do,' They have a different voice, a different style, and it's very fun to watch. I really enjoy watching them. It's fun to see them like that. I do not want them to be like us, not really. It's very fun to see them do this show because it also means I At their age, I might be able to do it, and it's very heartwarming. "

"The question most people ask me is 'How come you're not kidding?'

"True, you're right, she's much less than she used to be. It's very hard to get rid of things that are said about you. You can also see when the camera is photographing me on the monitor, so I just wait for the moment when I am photographed and there I collect myself, in the middle I laugh a lot, you just do not see. "

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Laughs a lot rather.

Eyal Kitsis (Photo: Ohad Romano)

In the first season you were by your side as a six-player pitcher. This season, according to the promo, 16 players are participating alongside you. As a Hapoel fan, do you think you do a little of what Maccabi Tel Aviv has done all these years: take the best players just so they won't be elsewhere?

"First of all it's not true, they are all in other places as well."

"Yaniv Bitton does 'The Jews are coming', Lior Ashkenazi probably does everything he does. Everyone who has done something before - continues to do it. We did not make any plan stop existing. On the contrary, I think we changed our attitude a bit. If we ever were Truly a terribly clear and closed cast, that almost every show does roles, we have become a kind of open stage, that almost anyone can come and do a role in it because it is specifically suited for that role. "Everyone. I think everyone benefits from it."

"I admit not. Listen, our seasons are half a year every year, which already gives time to freshen up. And secondly, they are also so different seasons from each other, the action is so from moment to moment and each time it has a different shape and text, that in my life I "I do not feel exhausted. I even say thank you every time I am part of this project."

"Listen, I hope this show continues long after all of us because it's a show that's important to have. I think you have to ask yourself who will be the last survivor in the writers. Because it's even more important. Because actors come and go, with all due respect, but Buena "If you start taking the writers from us - that's starting to be a problem. I think Molly Segev and the writers should participate in this reality, not us."

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