Watching Paul Rudd watch the Super Bowl is my Super Bowl
Plus a reminder about Rudd's Jewish TV show.
I was born in Israel, which means I didn’t grow up watching what Americans call football and what the rest of the world calls American football or the concussion game with the weird-shaped ball (I’m sorry). But when I married into a Jewish Kansas City family, sports like football and baseball became part of my life.
Luckily, I had a familiar face to help guide me in this strange new world. No, I’m not talking about my husband. I’m talking about Marvel and Judd Apatow movie star, confectionary store owner and perfector of Judaism Paul Rudd.
See, in case you didn’t know, Paul Rudd, always my and once People’s Sexiest Man Alive, may have been born in New Jersey, but the son of British Jewish immigrants spent much of his youth in Kansas. He attended junior high and high school there. He got his undergraduate degree at the University of Kansas (home of the Jayhawks). That’s all to say that while Taylor Swift may be rooting for the Chiefs now, Paul Rudd is and forever will be a Kansas City Royals and Kansas City Chiefs fan.
And for me, personally, it means that I can always rely on watching him in the crowd during a big game and go through the highs and lows with Phoebe Buffay’s beau and the star of my favorite Hollywood bromance, “I Love You, Man.”
Last night was indeed a low. The Chiefs scored zero (0!) points by the time the halftime show came along, and when they scored their first touchdown 15 minutes before the end of the game, we knew there was no way for us to recover. Despite all that, I think it’s respectable the team managed to score 20 points in the end. And my biggest consolation was definitely going through that heartbreak with Rudd and his handsome young son Jack (from generation to generation!!). The two were very enthused to tour the field before the game started, and spent their time siting next to Adam Sandler and in front of Paul McCartney. But this shot of Rudd’s face during the game, yeah, that’s how every Kansas City Chiefs fan was feeling:
“This Super Bowl game might be the thing that makes Paul Rudd age,” someone even suggested (I sincerely doubt it!)
Since this is Jewish TV Club, I do compelled to remind you that Rudd starred in a very Jewish show quite recently, the Apple TV+ comedy “Shrink Next Door,” in which he plays a boundary-less abusive Jewish therapist, Dr. Ike Herschkopf, who derails the life of his Jewish client and neighbor Marty Markowitz, played by Will Ferrell. One of the truly ridiculous things he makes him do as a therapist is have an adult bar mitzvah, despite having already had a bar mitzvah as a teen. The venue he forces Marty to have it at? Ike’s house.
Nobody wants a Dr. Hershkopf in their lives (despite how delightful it is to see Rudd in an argyle vest), but everyone wants Paul Rudd rooting for their team. To all you Eagles fans out there, I wish you a hearty mazel tov. To all my fellow Chiefs fans — at least we’ll always have Paul Rudd. Or as one person wrote in the app formerly known as Twitter: “PAUL RUDD IS AT THE SUPER BOWL EVERYONE WON.”
Did you watch the Super Bowl? Share your big game and Paul Rudd feelings in the comments!
As a resident of the Delaware Valley, I was cheering for the Eagles, and one of the highlights of the game for me was when Patrick Mahomes threw one of his interceptions, the camera for some reason immediately panned to Paul Rudd, and he had this incredulous look on his face before doing a face-palm. :-D
Love Paul Rudd