Hanukkah starts this evening (December 6), so what better way to celebrate than with one of the best and only Jewish holiday pop songs on the market -- Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song"?
Debuted in 1994 on season 20 of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update hosted by Norm McDonald, a young Adam Sandler nervously sat behind the desk to perform the song for the first time, seemingly very unsure of how it would play to the live audience.
But as he got through the first chorus, the comedian quickly realized people were into it and this wasn't going to be a complete disaster. It was quite the opposite as the audience loved it, making Sandler laugh as he sang, and a new tradition was born.
In that first performance, he said it was hard growing up Jewish when everyone had fun Christmas songs and he just had "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel." Sandler may have been joking when he said he wanted to create a song for "you Jewish kids to sing," but 21 years later, it still holds up remarkably well.
Watch the very first performance below.
From there, Sandler started taking his act on the road, performing the song during his stand-up bits at colleges and theaters. Part II was recorded live at Bradeis University for his 1999 stand-up album, Stan and Judy's Kid, which was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album in 2000.
In 2002, Sandler made his first animated movie named after the opening line from the song, "Eight Crazy Nights." He played a slew of new songs in that movie but it also included Part III in the credits, which he also performed on SNL with the Drei-Dels kids choir and Rob Schneider.
This year, he released a brand new version for the 2015 season, making references to Drake, Shia LaBeouf and Frozen's Idina Menzel.
In case you don't have the patience to listen to all of the celebrity references made, the song's Wikipedia page has them all listed out.
