TWO JEWS go on a website . . .

That's not a setup for a joke, it's the backstory for "Old Jews Telling Jokes," which on Wednesday tummels its way into the Penn's Landing Playhouse for a seven-week run.

"Old Jews" is the off-Broadway smash inspired by the similarly titled, six-year-old website that, as its name (oldjewstellingjokes.com) suggests, is all about humor, much of it with a Yiddishkeit slant.

One of the funniest things about the revue is that it was co-created by a man famous for his knowledge and delineation of serious and important topics.

Many know Daniel Okrent as a talking head in a variety of PBS documentaries, including Ken Burns' "Prohibition," which was primarily inspired by Okrent's 2010 tome, "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition." Others might recall his days as the New York Times' first public editor (Times-speak for "ombudsman").

So, it's just a little surprising that such a seemingly sober-sided man is a driving force behind the theatrical version of "Old Jews." However, as he protested during a recent phone call, it shouldn't be.

"It has surprised some people who don't know me, but people who know me aren't surprised at all," he insisted. "I'm not the most serious guy in the world. I can have fun."

He can't help it. It's in his genes. "Both of my parents and my paternal grandfather were joke-tellers," he offered. "My paternal grandfather told Eastern European-Yiddish types of irony jokes. My parents were more eclectic than that. My father was a wonderful joke-teller; my mother was an absolutely awful joke-teller, but it didn't stop her."

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Did you hear the one about the historian and his comedy revue?