Maurice Sendak: Laughing at a Funeral

NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. March 12, 2004 | PBS
When the trailer came out for Where the Wild Things Are I was amused to realize the Wild Things were Jews. Of course, as a huge Sendak fan, I knew he was Jewish, and the darkness of his work was distinctively Eastern European, and Jewish to me. But Judith and Ira? A little research turned up this hysterical story about drawing the monsters after cutting up with his siblings while sitting shiva (a Jewish ceremony when someone has died). Love him more than ever.