To be fair, the Jewish festival of lights is spelled so many different ways it’s understandable that someone might mess up the pronunciation from time to time. But when you’re Motown legend Smokey Robinson and you butcher it in a Cameo video for an old Detroit neighbor and it goes viral, that’s a hard one to come back from.
Quick recap: Robinson filmed a very sweet Hanukkah greeting for a woman name Margo, whose son told him that she grew up on the same street as Smokey. “So for Chanukah, I wanted to reunite them via @Cameo,” son Jeff wrote. “But the video takes a strange twist.” If, somehow, you have not seen it yet, the twist is that Robinson — well, we’ll let him tell you.
“They wanted me to wish you happy Chanookah. I have no idea what Chanookah is, but happy Chanookah,” Robinson said gleefully in the clip as he appeared to be (mis)reading the holiday’s name phonetically.
A super sweet sport, the 80-year-old R&B legend was back at it on Monday night (Dec. 14), asking Jeff if he could have a mulligan.
“In the spirit of 2020, I’m gonna need a do-over!,” Robinson tweeted along with the original video. “Please DM your mother’s phone number so we can try this again.”
In another twist, Jeff responded to Smokey’s offer in the most gracious way possible. “By the way, @smokeyrobinson can pronounce it any way he damn well pleases,” wrote Jeff before Smokey’s offer. “He is a true legend whose music has been with me since birth. His kindness and generosity of spirit has already made this most-unusual 2020 Chanukah one of my family’s most memorable. Also, my mom says hi.”
And, by the way, Jeff said he’s happy to set up a second effort, but, to be fair, “Smokey but you owe her and us nothing. We love you!” Now that is truly a Chanookah miracle.
Check out the tweets below.
