Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Ted Cruz’s Terrible Billy Crystal Impersonation Just Ruined ‘The Princess Bride’ For Us

We get it, running for president is a tough job. You have to be charming, yet firm, funny, yet serious, you have to dance and make jokes and pander to every sort of different crowd. And even if you do something well, you still get criticized.

With that said, this Ted Cruz impersonation of Billy Crystal’s iconic Miracle Max character from “The Princess Bride” is just awful. It must be what his Texan dinner buddies think is a brilliant old Jew from Brooklyn voice, but to us it just sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

But we will give Cruz the benefit of the doubt for going all in and bringing the enthusiasm.

You can judge for yourself. Here is Cruz’s version:

Here is Crystal’s:

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.