Fans of the right-wing satire show Latma finally got their long-awaited wish on Thursday night, as the show that went off the internet back in August 2013 due to a budget crisis caused by a reneged-upon contract made history by airing on TV, and in doing so breaking the leftist monopoly on Israeli satire.
After Israel Broadcasting Authority's (IBA) Channel 1 initially gave the show something of a run-around, promising to air the show and leading it to raise production values that eventually bankrupted it after a full four years of donation-based glory on YouTube, the satire series has finally found a home on the TV channel.
Latma, the brainchild of veteran journalist Caroline Glick, appeared with a slick new look and graphics on TV under the new name Hakol Shafit, loosely meaning "everything can be judged."
The star of the show Noam Jacobson reprised his central position on the show in numerous roles, playing Binyamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Liberman and an elitist Supreme Court judge.
As Netanyahu he was interviewed on the show, avoiding the issues and touting himself as a sure bet for Israel's security; as Liberman he was looking for new interest groups to save his sinking party, including Arab voters, leftists, homosexuals, and even animal rights activists.
Ronit Avramov-Shapira appeared in the show to play in a lone skit, and fans took to Facebook to complain that she and her co-host Elhanan Even-Chen were missing from the announcers' chairs, being replaced by new faces.
Some fans expressed disappointment at the new spin on Latma's tried and true formula, calling the episode a disappointment. But regardless of the reactions to the first airing (which may be nothing more than a matter of rustiness), the new show now has an opportunity to prove itself again to its loyal fanbase.
Other pertinent issues in Israeli news were satirized as well, such as the recent rumors flying around Netanyahu's wife Sarah, and elitist Supreme Court judges who descend to a cult-like dungeon and chant "everything can be judged" before re-spawning one of their retiring members by laying an egg, in a jab at the system of self-appointment that allows a notably leftist ideology to maintain hold of the institution.
The episode ends with a duet of Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Herzog who sing of their romance on a motorcycle ride until they end up crashing, at which Livni goes for Yair Lapid in a joke at her fickle wandering from party to party.
The new episode has been aired to IBA's website and can be viewed here, but currently only exists in Hebrew. It remains to be seen if the series will feature English subtitling in the future as it did on YouTube.
Latma gained massive international recognition around the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla incident, in which it released its hugely popular satire song "We Con the World" sung to the famous charity song "We Are the World."
The video garnered millions of views before temporarily being blocked by YouTube for fraudulent claims of "copyright breach," and since being posted again has over two-and-a-half million views.