‘It isn’t accidental that Jews are good at humor. It’s a survival tool, not merely an escapist one,” said Yaniv Zohar, the co-creator and co-head writer of the wildly popular sitcom, Checkout, shown in Israel on KAN 11 and around the world on Netflix, about the staff and customers of the fictional supermarket Shefa Issachar.
Checkout’s sixth season started running in Israel this week (and can be seen on kan.org.il as well as on KAN 11), and a movie based on the series was released over the summer. It sold more than a million tickets and became the hottest summer movie.
Zohar’s comment about Jewish humor was a serious moment from a mostly funny interview with some of the series’ writers.
In addition to Zohar, I spoke with the other co-creator and co-head writer Nadav Frishman, as well as writers Matan Blumenblat and Daniel Salganik.
First off, I asked them to tell me what it was like being behind the biggest Israeli movie of the summer, especially given that moviegoers had quite a few choices during this period, like Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
A chat with the filmmakers
Zohar, who spoke via Zoom from a supermarket (“You’re not allowed to ask which one”), said, “Who’s this Christopher Nolan?”
Salganik quipped, “The Odyssey’s budget was a little bigger than ours, by about NIS 300,000.”
Frishman added, “Something like that.”
Blumenblat said, “I’m just happy that we passed [classic Israeli movie] Two Kuni Lemel on the list of the most-watched Israeli films. We’re one place above it.”
But they agreed they were just fine with being back in the daily grind of series television.
Checkout has been praised for how it finds laughs in the daily routine of an Israeli supermarket, where employees and customers from every sector of society meet, joke, and bicker.
I saw the movie at a Jerusalem multiplex just after it opened, and I have never seen an audience so enthusiastic, or one that spoke to the characters on screen so loudly and so often.
Fan favorites include Ramzi, the incredibly upbeat Arab Israeli employee played by Amir Shurush; Cochava (Keren Mor), a deliciously self-centered cashier; Anatoly (Daniel Styopin), a Russian butcher department employee; Shira (Noa Koler), the ambitious manager who patterns herself on Steve Jobs; Amnon (Dov Navon), a fussy customer; Nissim (Yaniv Swissa), Anatoly’s buddy; and more than a dozen others who make up the Shefa Issachar family.
The writers gave a few details about the sixth season and some new cast members, including Israel Katorza, Tal Friedman, Yael Shelbia, Meni Mamtera, Roy Kafri, and Ilan Peled.
Friedman will play himself, they said, while Peled portrays a family member of one of the main characters, and Katorza plays a contractor who comes to renovate the supermarket, which seems to be falling apart more every week.
While the series usually avoids politics, the new season will include an episode about the upcoming election.
Salganik admitted: “It was a challenge. But if from the outset your ideology isn’t Left or Right and your only ideology is ‘Is it funny?’ then it’s much easier to get laughs out of everybody…
“I think the hardest thing about the election episode was that we wrote it roughly a year ago. We didn’t know when it would be relevant. We didn’t even know when it would air. It could have aired three months later or, as it turned out, a year later.
“So, we had to make an episode that would somehow feel topical a year into the future.”
Zohar said, “Like Daniel said, we came to make people laugh. Even in the [first episode after the war started], the goal was to find what was familiar and shared, the everyday things the average person experiences privately, and less to make a political statement.
“Our statements are more social, behavioral, and psychological. Those are the worlds we enjoy swimming in… I think enough programs talk about politics. You need one program that doesn’t, so we volunteer to be that program.”
Asked what happens in this episode, Zohar said, “It takes place in the supermarket.” Pressed for more details, he revealed, “Yaakov Zada-Daniel of Fauda is in it; he has a very cool guest role.”
Frishman said that he made a cameo, and they also revealed that Amnon would become a darling of the Left and that the wealthy life coach Shuni Stretiner (played by Dorit Lev-Ari), who shops there, runs for the Knesset.
Latest seasons filmed during recent wars
The latest seasons came out during the various recent wars, and the cast and crew released clips showing them running to shelters during the filming of season six in the midst of the last war with Iran.
Asked how they continued writing comedy during wartime, especially following October 7, Zohar admitted, “I think there were about two weeks when we weren’t funny.” But soon they realized they needed to keep going.
Salganik said, “In the end, comedy finds a way, both after the dust settles and as a coping mechanism. It is also very useful to occupy yourself with other things, with escapism, to get away from reality …
“Basically, the answer is that you simply have to keep going. A, because you’re contractually obligated. And B, because what else are you going to do?”
Blumenblat said, “By the time the first season during the war came out, some time had passed. There was a period, maybe six months or a year, when it felt as if all of television was dealing with the same thing: the war, understandably.
“I think people eventually wanted to return to escapism for a moment, not to think about horrors. People really needed it.”
Zohar said, “I remember hearing stories about ghettos during the Holocaust where they had theater, and that really surprised me.
“You think, people are starving, they have nothing to eat, and nevertheless they go out, dress as nicely as they possibly can, take a bowl of potato peels, and go to the theater.
“In the end, just as a person needs food and drink and all the other necessities, a person needs to feel normal. People need it for their souls.”
Asked whether it felt different to write the Arab character, Ramzi, over the past three years, Blumenblat said, “Maybe someone else feels differently, but to me it doesn’t feel different at all. I don’t think the viewers see him differently at all, either.
“Ramzi is Ramzi… If I look at Season 5 [which was written during the war] compared with previous seasons and Season 6, which we’ve just written – Ramzi is still an idiot. He still does dumb things. He is still crazy about the supermarket. He’s Ramzi.”
“I think Ramzi being Arab is the least interesting thing about him. That’s why it simply doesn’t matter,” added Salganik.
As they talked about how they get ideas for the series, they said they spend a lot of time shopping, naturally.
Blumenblat said, “Sometimes I go to the supermarket when I don’t even need to buy anything. I go and simply hope something will happen…
“If I go into a supermarket and everybody is polite to me and everything goes smoothly and I walk out thinking, ‘OK, I’m really disappointed.’ What was the point? Why were they helpful to me? I wasted a trip.”
Zohar agreed, saying, “There’s nothing to write about when everything goes well… Seinfeld used to tell his writers that if something hadn’t actually happened to them, they shouldn’t bring it into the writers’ room.
“Ultimately, that’s how you avoid clichés and come up with something fresh – by drawing from experiences you’ve actually had.”
Asked whether people come up to them and claim that they know “the real Ramzi” or “the real Cochava,” Frishman said, “All the time. All the time. In every supermarket. It isn’t necessarily that they recognize us.
“But if you go somewhere with one of the actors, people tell them constantly, ‘Come here, we have our own Ramzi, we have our own Cochava.’ Or Shira… And not just in supermarkets. Everywhere. They are very archetypal characters, and they remind people of people they know.”
Salganik said, “Ever since the show began, I constantly hear from people, ‘Listen, I work at the National Insurance Institute – wow, that’s a series.’ Or, ‘I work at Mercantile Bank – wow, that’s a series. Come spend one day with us, and you’ve got a series. Ten seasons.’ Every workplace.”
They also revealed that some of them are working on a surprising new project. “We’re currently writing a hospital comedy in Arabic for Kan 11, for Arab society. There, all the characters are Arab except for two,” said Zohar.
“So, it’s reversed: there, the ‘Ramzi’ is Jewish. His name is Shlomi, but never mind. It’s a parallel universe. We’re trying to show that we’re all people. And when you’re in a workplace, everyone works together, Jews and Arabs.
“When there’s one-to-one contact, everyone is human. Like with Ramzi, when he’s your friend, you forget that he’s Arab; you don’t deal with that, you just deal with him.”