When John Mulaney’s new Netflix late night comedy show “Everybody’s Live” debuted earlier this year, I was not surprised to see that Langston Kerman was a writer. The comedian, whose comedy is informed by both his Black and Jewish roots, released a hilarious debut stand-up special in 2024 called “Bad Poetry.” The director? John Mulaney.
But what I didn’t expect was that on the show I would see Kerman play a mohel to do a weird and hilarious bit about circumcision, apropos of essentially nothing.
On last week’s episode entitled “Can Major Surgery Be Fun?”, John Mulaney and his panel of Marc Maron, Molly Shannon, Ronny Chieng and anesthesiologist Dr. Emily Methangkool are listening to a viewer share a story about getting a cyst with hair removed, that the viewer’s mother believed was her twin. Mulaney then turns to the audience and said, “Now, as many of you know, we’re talking about medical procedures. Circumcisions have been in steep decline.”
John Mulaney, you had me at circumcisions. He went on, “But, I would like to bring out a local Jewish man who is hoping to change those numbers. Please welcome mohel Abraham Davis.”
Enter Kerman dressed in a suit, tallit and kippah, with an easel.
“Alright, people are letting their kids walk around here with weird British dicks,” he yells at the audience. “Enough is enough!”
Mohel Davis is not wrong. A 2013 study found that the rate of circumcision in the United States fell nearly 10 percent between 1979 and 2010. “You’re sitting here saying to yourself, ‘Oh, but if I circumcised my son, the trauma, it could live with him forever.’ You know what else could live with him forever?” He goes on. “That nasty penis gunk stuck to the front.”
The audience laughs skittishly, evidently feeling as tentative about the bit as the American public now feels about circumcision. But Kerman as Mohel Davis barrels forward. He shares that he has come up with new options for the sign of the covenant between God and Jews, placing a slide on his easel reading, “New Circumci$ion Cutz.” “Ain’t that nice?” Mohel Davis asks. “It’s Yiddish.”
He then begins to go through the next slides, revealing some of the options to be Spiky, Sideburns and the “Gerald” from “Hey Arnold,” all with corresponding illustrations of penises with foreskins in those shapes.
“We here at Mohel$ Davis Penis Shavers can do over 100 cuts to give you and your child the penis of God’s dreams,” Mohel Davis informs the crowd — though there is not nearly a big enough laugh when Kerman says “Mohel$ Davis,” a play on the name of famous jazz musician Miles Davis. “And yes, we let the foreskin collect on the ground, and then every couple of hours, a guy sweeps it up.”
The next slide depicts more of those 100 options, which include “The Rachel,” “Cute Hat,” “Mullet,” “Cybertruck” and, my personal favorite, “Basquiat.”
And then, as soon as the bit begins, it’s over. The audience claps politely but besides a decent size laugh on “The Rachel,” they clearly did not vibe with the Jewish dick jokes. The thing is, I absolutely did. It’s weird and out-of-pocket, and clearly a bit that Langston Kerman and the other writers had a fun time writing. In a recent New York Magazine profile, Mulaney shared that with “Everybody’s Live” he’s not trying to make a hit or appeal to a wide audience. So I’d like to formally request more Mohel$ Davis Circumci$ion Cutz jokes and more appearances by Langston Kerman, please, so that “Everybody’s Live” can continue appealing to me, specifically.
