It's self-effacing, it's hard-luck, the shtetl stories. All those Coasters things are an amalgam of Yiddish and black humor.
“I also taught myself how to blow glass using a propane torch from the hardware store and managed to make some elementary chemistry plumbing such as tees and small glass bulbs.”
“James Caan told me at the end of filming 'Elf' that he had been waiting through the whole film for me to be funny - and I never was.”