Star of David

In the Bible according to David Steinberg, Moses "saw a bush that was burning, yet it would not consume itself. A voice came out. 'Moses, take off your shoes from off of your feet,' God said in his redundant way, 'for the land that you are standing upon is holy land.' Moses takes his shoes off of his feet and approaches the burning bush--and burns his feet. God goes 'Ah-ha! Third one today!' "

God may have laughed, but not the nabobs at CBS when Steinberg preached such a mock-sermon on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour three years ago. The network asked its affiliate stations to preview the show in order to determine if it was within the bounds of "good taste." Later, after the Brothers refused to excise a second "irreverent and offensive" Steinberg sermonette, CBS canceled the series.

The incident might have made the diminutive (5-ft. 7-in.) comedian a network pariah. But, as the author of Ecclesiastes might have predicted had he been born in the television age, "To everything there is a [summer-replacement] season." This one finds Steinberg, now 31, working for CBS again--as host of a five-week variety series filling in for the Carol Burnett Show. One of his guests will be Tommy Smothers, the man who is currently suing CBS for $31 million. Steinberg himself will be an anti-CBS witness in that case. Says he, savoring the irony: "It's as though I'm living in a David Steinberg situation."

When Steinberg departs from religious motifs, his humor deals with the psychology, sociology and surrealism of modern life. As one of his show's features he portrays an "existential psychiatrist" whose therapeutic sallies are interrupted by his own compulsive shrieking at vermin only he can see.

Skits seem to be Steinberg's forte. In one he asked black Songstress Leslie Uggams her specifications for the ideal man. "I love a man who has a powerful chest," she replied, and Steinberg stripped off his shirt. "Barefoot," she said, and Steinberg, like Moses, took the shoes from off of his feet. "And black," she cooed. At that, Steinberg picked up his clothes and moped offstage.

Strange fruit from a man who once seemed destined to be a scholar of Hebrew literature. The son of a Winnipeg rabbi, Steinberg left home at 15 to attend high school in Chicago, then went to Israel, where he earned a B.A. in Hebrew letters from an institute for foreign students. Even then he had a happy-go-lucky attitude that put him at odds with his religiously zealous classmates. "I chased after girls," recalls Steinberg, still a bachelor. "I was just normal, but around those students I must have come off like a Nazi."

Steinberg then switched to the University of Chicago, where he studied for a master's degree in English. He never got it, since his energies were diverted to acting in college productions. By graduation he was a mainstay of Second City, the troupe that nurtured such comic talents as Mike Nichols and Elaine May. "Then I saw Lenny Bruce," Steinberg remembers, "and he was James Joyce on a nightclub stage--not just being a buffoon, but at the top of his intelligence. That influenced me."

There followed stand-up comedy dates at New York City nightspots and 25 appearances on the Tonight Show. Steinberg also cut two records featuring the offbeat brand of Old Testament humor that had become his trademark. "My sermons strike out in all directions," he says. "At the prophets, at myself, the clergy and at God. But when God comes off looking ridiculous, this is the God of the clergy."

God is mostly absent from Steinberg's current show, perhaps indicating an attempt to mollify cautious network executives. The show dispenses with big production numbers and cue cards--to the dismay of some guests who have difficulty memorizing their lines. TV's canned-laugh track is also eliminated in favor of a live audience--but fortunately there is plenty of genuine laughter to make up for it.

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