Juan GutierrezThe L.A. Weekly's 2013 Web Awards honor the best of what's online. Check out the complete list of winners.
The protagonist of “You Can Touch My Boobies” is one Jeffrey Goldstein, a Hebrew-school student studying for his bar mitzvah. Focused on his teacher's bosom, he drifts off to sleep, only to confront his instructor in a dream, clad in her negligee. “You're about to have a dream,” she tells him. “And not just any dream — a sexy dream.”
What follows is perhaps not quite as sexy as, say, Robin Thicke's “Blurred Lines.” This is YouTube, after all, so trust that the Hebrew-school teacher, played by Rachel Bloom, leaves something to poor Jeffrey's imagination.
But it is hilarious, cleverly poking fun at adolescent ignorance of the opposite sex. “I'll show you my vagina, which is located on my stomach somewhere,” Bloom teases. She adds: “No need to check the lock, 'cause your parents are at Benihana. Throw away the sock.”
With more than 1.5 million views, “You Can Touch My Boobies” is the second most popular video on Bloom's YouTube channel. (“Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” has 2 million-plus views.) The L.A.-based writer-singer-actress-comedian, who hails from Manhattan Beach, has written for Adult Swim's Robot Chicken, Fox's short-lived cartoon Allen Gregory and Lucasfilm's upcoming animated series Star Wars Detours.
Her greatest passion, though, is for her oft-raunchy brand of short musical theater. In May she released Please Love Me, a musical-comedy album featuring “You Can Touch My Boobies” and other songs from her channel, such as “Pictures of Your Dick” and “Historically Accurate Disney Princesses.”
Bloom's humor is reminiscent of the Lonely Island, and also reflects influence by South Park and Upright Citizens Brigade. She seems to have a special place in her heart for the socially inept; “I Steal Pets,” for example, focuses on a kid who takes pets from the popular kids, dresses them up and hangs out with them on the weekends.
Her online fan base is quickly accumulating, but there has been a bit of a backlash, specifically to “Boobies.” “Many people have attacked me, saying that I'm a pedophile, because the video is talking about trying to seduce a boy, but those people are completely missing the point,” she says.
The joke, she adds, concerns young boys' ignorance of the female anatomy. She says she empathizes with them: The “erotic fiction” she wrote in her high school diary had, she says with a laugh, a very juvenile point of view. Thankfully a bit of that mentality stays with her today.
Like us on Facebook at LAWeeklyMusic.
Top Ten Musicians of All Time, In Any Genre
Top 20 Sexiest Female Musicians of All Time
Top Ten Awkward Coachella Dance Move GIFs
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.