Adam Sandler is still having ‘funukah’ with his ‘Chanukah Song’ at 30, and so is my family

Ahead of “Saturday Night Live’s” holiday episode, a performance on the show by Adam Sandler 30 years ago is still bringing the “funukah.” Here’s how my family became involved in it.

Ahead of “Saturday Night Live’s” holiday episode, a performance on the show by Adam Sandler 30 years ago is still bringing the “funukah.” Co-written by “SNL” writers Ian Maxtone-Graham and Lew Morton, Sandler first debuted “The Chanukah Song” during a Weekend Update segment on December 3, 1994, expressing his perplexity about why there were so few songs about the Jewish festival of light. Over the years, the comical tune became part of the holiday season cannon. It has been updated in four different versions with varying lyrics and cultural references, but the tune has stood the test of time. When Sandler’s animated Chanukah movie “Eight Crazy Nights” hit theaters in 2002, “The Chanukah Song” Part 3 released with the film. That version of the song featured a choir of children, named by Sandler as “The Drei-Dreis” (after the Chanukah toy known as a “dreidel”), singing background vocals. Three of those singers, as it turned out, were my cousins – who auditioned and were cast to be part of “The Drei-Dreis.” “We performed live at a concert with Adam when he debuted it live. Rob Schneider sang with us! And then we recorded for the ‘Eight Crazy Nights’ album at a music studio in Hollywood,” my cousin, Jono Wagmeister, now 34, recalled of his audition alongside his brothers David, 37, and Michael, 29. (At the time, they were 11, 14 and 7 years old, respectively.)