Adam Sandler is known as the king of Hanukkah thanks to his “The Chanukah Song” he performed on Saturday Night Live. The actor is now revealing that Roseanne Barr was tapped to sing the song before ultimately going to Sandler.
In a new interview, Sandler talked about how he ended up performing the classic song that he penned himself on the week that Barr was hosting the NBC late-night show back in 1994.
“They were talking about Roseanne singing it, and she was nice enough to say ‘no, let Adam do that, that’s his, he wrote it, that’s his song,’” Sandler said in an interview with Access Hollywood.
Sandler continued, “I’m happy to be a part of Hanukkah. That was a good time of life to be associated with the song and the holiday. Very proud of that.”
The comedian says that he still sings the song up until this day adding, “I sing it alone, I sing it without the kids, I go into our basement, I rip it out, I do the soft-shoe to it. No, if it comes on the radio, and I hear it, I get excited, that’s still awesome.”
It was in 1994 when Sandler first performed “The Chanukah Song” on SNL during the “Weekend Update” segment. Introducing the tune, Sandler said he wrote the song after noticing the lack of tunes dedicated to Hanukkah. The song named famous Jewish people that people might not know were like David Lee Roth, Goldie Hawn and The Three Stooges.
Watch Sandler’s performance in the video posted below.