What’s funny about this is there’s never been anything edgy about Jerry Seinfeld’s standup act. And as far as Seinfeld goes he was barely involved in the writing. That was all Larry David and other talented writers. Of 180 episodes Jerry Seinfeld had 18 writing credits and all of them were shared with Larry David. Of those 18 credits 5 were in the first season which is undeniably the show’s weakest and most forgettable. Jerry was always just the name. Larry was the talent.
I guess that’s probably why Larry David just wrapped the final season of Curb this year while never once complaining about “not being allowed to do comedy” anymore like Jerry is. Turns out, you’ve always been allowed to do whatever comedy you like, you just have to actually be funny.
It’s also funny because It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is still airing too, and that is massively more edgy than anything seinfeld ever did.
I think that the problem is that jerry want to be edgy and still be considered the good guy. Which is not how Curb, IASIP or even the Seinfeld tv show ever was. They always were presented as bad/flawed people doing bad stuff. You 100% can still do that type of comedy. But you can’t do comedy where the characters are supposed to be good but do bad stuff
It’s also funny because It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is still airing too, and that is massively more edgy than anything seinfeld ever did.
And that’s always been my argument when it comes to this particular dead horse. I don’t think any jokes are off the table, you just really have to make whatever discomfort you’re summoning be worth the punchline. The edgier something is the more it has to be funny to compensate, the point of offensive humor is to be funny not to offend, right? This has to be common sense. I don’t get how it flies over the head of so many people.
There are a lot of people who seem to think offending is all it takes. I think Sam McMurray’s character “Glen” in Raising Arizona, who is constantly telling “jokes” about Polish people being stupid that none of the other characters find funny, is a perfect example of the type.
Exactly. Either risk it and have a big payoff, or insert a point behind it. Make the audience think after they laugh, or search within themselves why that was funny, or the context behind the joke.
Or if you go for the edgy or dark joke, and get called out - you rolled that die, live with it. Crying “it’s just a joke” or “comedy is cancelled” after your bit failed to land is hacky
Yeah it was absolutely Larry David’s show. But Seinfeld is a genius stand-up comedian in his own right.
He’s categorically wrong on his conclusion here.
seinfeld pilot
You know, why we’re here? [he means: here in the “Comedy club”] To be out, this is out…and out is one of the single most enjoyable experiences of life. People…did you ever hear people talking about “We should go out”? This is what they’re talking about…this whole thing, we’re all out now, no one is home. Not one person here is home, we’re all out! There are people tryin’ to find us, they don’t know where we are. [imitates one of these people “tryin’ to find us”; pretends his hand is a phone] “Did you ring?, I can’t find him.” [imitates other person on phone] “Where did he go?” [the first person again] “He didn’t tell me where he was going”. He must have gone out. You wanna go out: you get ready, you pick out the clothes, right? You take the shower, you get all ready, get the cash, get your friends, the car, the spot, the reservation…There you’re staring around, whatta you do? You go: “We gotta be getting back”. Once you’re out, you wanna get back! You wanna go to sleep, you wanna get up, you wanna go out again tomorrow, right? Where ever you are in life, it’s my feeling, you’ve gotta go.
seinfeld final episode:
It seems like whenever these office people call you in for a meeting, the whole thing is about the sitting down. I would really like to sit down with you. I think we need to sit down and talk. Why don’t you come in, and we’ll sit down. Well, sometimes the sitting down doesn’t work. People get mad at the sitting.You know, we’ve been sitting here for I don’t know how long. How much longer are we just going to sit here? I’ll tell you what I think we should do. I think we should all sleep on it. Maybe we’re not getting down low enough. Maybe if we all lie down, then our brains will work.
…what particularly about these bits is either edgy or genius?
I’ve seen his stand up. It’s nothing special.
So much of his standup depends on making initial observations of seemingly absurd things and then not putting a single ounce of thought or research into them to determine if they’re actually absurd. It’s low-hanging fruit for tipsy people at a comedy club.
He was utterly, perfectly cast as a supposed straight-man who’s just as callously thoughtless as his bizarre friends but with a veneer of “insight”. It was brilliant. I wonder if he quite realized why.
Weird how these woke kids keep killing comedy while still being the best comedians, and it’s always the ones leaning on their 30+ year old sets that think it’s a problem.
What is the deal with airline food, anyway?
What’s the deal with time passing? It just happens! You don’t want it to, but it does. One day you’re riding high, one hand on Larry David’s coattails and the other up some high school girl’s skirt. You’re thinking, “I’m gonna be on top forever. Everyone loves me now and it’s always gonna be this way.” Then the next day you’re complaining about woke on a drive time radio show with Kid Rock. What’s his deal anyway? He’s not a rock, or even a kid. He’s a man. He should be called Man Man.
You know who had a 30 year old set that was still awesome and hysterical to the very end? The Amazing Jonathan.
I got to see him in Vegas probably a few years before he died, he was doing shows in what amounted to a fancy conference room somewhere. I was the person called up to the stage, and even though I knew every single thing he was going to say and do, it was still just funny. I got to look him right in the eyes up close, and it was clear that he knew he was doing the same set he’s done forever, in a conference room. and it seemed like we both knew that “WTF am I doing here?” added a whole other layer of funny to the whole thing.
Maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe it was just the methamphetamine.
As a comedian you either die funny or live long enough to become a reactionary shit bag.
I don’t think he was ever funny. Larry David may have been funny, and Seinfeld was fortunate enough to be involved with the show, but Jerry himself has always been a poor comedian and a tool.
I think Seinfeld was pretty funny in the 80s. His style of observational comedy was fresh back then though. Then there were a million Seinfeld copycats and there wasn’t anything special about him anymore.
The same thing happened with Carlin. So he kept reinventing himself and updating his comedy with the times and that’s why people loved him until the day he died.
Carlin got better as he got older. His shtick was always tight fast well rehearsed dense sets but he went from mostly irreverent to actually saying something. And he was still able to be so funny while clearly getting so angry.
Carlin was an artist. He could tread that line between offense and enlightening. Like I could sometimes feel my hackles go up watching him, even back in the 90s, but like you said, you really got the feeling like he was trying to communicate something real and important to him. That goes a long way to buying good will and keeping people listening, even as they’re feeling slightly defensive.
I guess that’s authenticity.
I listened to much of the interview on the radio. He touched on a lot of good points and then came to the absolutely wrong conclusion. He talked about how many writing rooms are “writing by committee” where jokes will go through a review by many different groups. If this is truly the case (I don’t know) that is not an issue if the “far left mob” but rather the enshitification of comedy due to corporations and Wall Street bankrolling these productions wanting to ensure return on investment. This kills creativity by reducing risks. Topical comedy is a risky medium by default.
Also, shout out to Rob McElhenney for his sarcastic one word response. In Jerry’s imagined world, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia can’t exist.
Had to look up said response and I agree. For anyone else looking, here’s a screenshot of what I found:
But see, he wants it to be funny because he thinks making fun of homeless people is funny. It would instead be funny because of how fucking stupid Kramer is. That’s really the big turn in recent comedy: laughing at bad characters doing shitty things (and usually getting their comeuppance) instead of laughing at shitty things happening to people.
But the thing is… writing by committee has always been the norm- including for Seinfeld, which makes me wonder how much he was actually involved in the writing process.
The very idea of a writer’s room is writing by committee.
I got the sense he meant more that it would go up through business-side committees to double check the work and make sure it wasn’t inappropriate. If that was the case that again would be an indication of corporations being risk adverse.
That’s also always been the case.
It’s stupid for Jerry Seinfeld, of all people, to claim that executives don’t constantly meddle in shows to make sure audiences don’t get pissed off.
people seeing issues brought about by capitalism and concluding that the people who are fighting against capitalism are the REAL problem, a tale as old as time.
The first season of its always Sunny would definitely be canceled (if debuted) today
Yeah, things were so much less politically correct in- *checks notes* 2005.
What the fuck are you talking about?
People could still laugh at themselves, and people still recognized absurdity for what it was.
People still laugh at themselves now. People still recognize absurdity for what it is. Go watch a show like Abbott Elementary.
I have seen that show, and it was good, but alao focused to meet network standards that evolve glacially.
Its not standup.
Sorry… you think shows in 2005 weren’t focused? Really? I don’t know what golden age of comedy you think 2005 was, but it wasn’t one.
I remember seeing a post on r/agedlikemilk which theorised that Russell Brand was leaning more into right wing talking points in anticipation of the looming rape accusations being made public.
I wonder if the same thing is happening here.
I somehow did not expect the 17 year old thing to be quite so creepy.
She was a highschooler who he met in a public park when he was 38. JFC.
I can understand maybe thinking she was older when he talked to her and then finding out later she was underage and backing off, but he definitely just went for it. Creep.
Also he only dated her til she got to drinking age!
“Extreme left” is such a ridiculous term to use for this sort of thing lmao
boy if they think this is what the extreme left is, they’re in for a fucking ride
Why would he even be concerned about this? Seinfeld isn’t Richard Pryor or George Carlin, he’s the most milquetoast PG comic out there.
Exactly what comes to my mind every time he brings up his gripes about “PC culture”. Seinfeld isn’t worried about his comedy – he’s worried about his personal life.
Why does that matter? Is he wrong? Maybe your insinuation that this is about him is incorrect and he just sees it as a blemish on comedy as a whole? Could it be that he just cares about the profession?
It’s so peculiar that people would rather argue something irrelevant rather than admit that they agree with someone they don’t like.
Is he wrong?
Yes. There’s plenty of politically incorrect comics and they’re thriving. Dave Chappelle took a lot of heat on social media for being transphobic (not even as a joke) and he got 2 Netflix specials out of it.
We haven’t just gone through a deadly pandemic because many people got ill and survived. It seems that you don’t know what a logical fallacy is.
Did you really just use a fallacy accuse me of using a fallacy? Ok. Point out a single ‘death’ in the comedy world due to woke culture. Just one. Or, alternatively, give me a single example of how it has negatively affected Jerry Seinfeld’s career.
Is that really a result of woke culture? If so, it’s been since around long before Matt groening or Jerry Seinfeld were born. They stopped doing minstrel shows over a hundred years ago.
You’ve gone from name just one to it’s happening all the time pretty quick. Of course it’s something that’s always been around, but we tend to have the ability to gauge the gravity of a situation and react accordingly to address them. Of course that assumes you’re able to admit there’s an issue in the first place.
Yeah that’s why edgy comedian like Jimmy Carr has released 2 Netflix specials in last 3 years. And he, unlike Seinfeld, isn’t whining about ‘kids these days’.
Yeah, but Jimmy Carr’s greatest achievement is beating Father Time by transforming himself into a plastic vampire. Jerry Seinfeld’s greatest achievement is making a movie where a bumblebee cucks Kronk.
I love Kronk, but immortality > bee sex.
Jerry’s greatest achievement is his billion dollar bank account…
Nah, that came from the TV show Seinfeld, which is arguably Larry David’s greatest achievement.
Who’s bank account is it in LoL? Cuz at the end of the day, dude’s got a billion dollars and that’s a helluva accomplishment by anyone’s standards.
There’s a shit ton of good young comedians. Jerry is an old man telling kids to get off his lawn.
Jerry is an old man telling kids to get off his lawn.
i think i crossed the middle aged boundary because my head is filled with “those damn kids!” thoughts and i hoping that the fact that i’m still a stereotypical broke ass millennial that will never be able to afford his own lawn will help keep me young somehow.
He’s gone full Bill Maher.
“Is my comedy stale and out of touch? No, it is the audience who are wrong.”
Jew supports Israel. In other news, water is wet and the sky is blue.
Wasting no time conflating zionists and jews. Netanyahu would be proud, fucking fascist
I just wanna understand, not really looking to pick a fight. But isn’t he a Jew supporting Israel in that photo?
The problem isn’t stating that he is a jew that supports Israel but that it is “natural” for a jew to do.
They’ve certainly killed right-leaning comedians like Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Dennis Miller and (can’t believe he made the list) Dave Chappelle.
Or maybe they killed themselves by just getting even lamer with their unfunny jokes that punch down at marginalized groups. 🤔
Yeah the Dave Chappelle one came way outta right field lol that PIC with Taylor majore Greene idk how to spell it was unexpected or I’m uninformed
I think you mean left field just fyi
I was trying to be funny lol
That’s weird about this to me, I never would have called Seinfeld right leaning. Like every one of his standups I’ve ever seen is very neutral, and the show was actually pretty progressive for the time. Chapelle did the punching down, got called out on it (rightfully so), and then doubled down and swung to the right because now he’s the victim! But as far as I know, Jerry didn’t do anything (In terms of jokes, ignoring the… youthfulness… issues for the moment) He just decided to bust out with I’m a victim too stop censoring me? Was there any preface to all this?
I think it’s just anger about being out of touch. You can’t make comedy in a vacuum, it necessarily draws on contemporary culture, and Jerry’s probably feeling a bit left in the dust. But he frames it in a way where he feels victimized. That’s my reading for most embarrassing or offensive old comedians though, so maybe I’m painting with too broad a brush.
Real problem is that so many basic things, like we should treat each other decently, or that the earth is warming, shouldn’t be political issues. But here we are. And somehow these things become political in conservative circles and thus they are political to liberal circles too.
Now you can’t even say “what’s the deal with airline food” because even that gets political. Greenhouse gas emissions from flying planes, vegetarian and kosher options in flight, paper straws, airline bailouts, take your pick of where to go next, all political.
Since when is Dennis Miller a right winger? Bill Maher has always been a vocal member of the Democratic party.
I seem to remember Maher seeming more leftist at some point, but that might be because of his unabashed atheism. He’s always been insufferably arrogant though.
He’s a leftist that doesn’t like PC culture or identity politics. He does believe in equality, inclusion, and those sorts of principles, but he doesn’t agree with the way we’re going about seeking those things.
Economic reductionist would be the term, right? The “we fix the economy and regulate corporations and racism will fix itself” viewpoint?
That’s not a view that I’ve ever heard him express, but I haven’t heard much from him in years. He used to be outspoken about global warming, and the environment. He was the first celebrity to buy an electric car all the way back in like 1996, I think it was called the Honda Insight. He was pro-gay rights, pro-women’s rights, and a lot of other issues you’d consider Democrat. But he also mocked PC culture, and even had a show called Politically Incorrect. Last time I heard about him he seemed pretty much like the same person, but society has changed. I guess if you retain your same “progressive” views from 30 years ago, and social views change and progress, then you’re kind of “conserving” old views, even though you weren’t a conservative at one point. That’s probably why people appear to become more conservative as they get older. They haven’t actually changed, they just stopped agreeing with the direction of progress.
Both seemed to have turned recently. Both of them in recent stand up specials they’ve released since 2019 have said, on stage, they are Republicans and expressed views consistent with that in their routines. It was a shock to me, considering I remember them being very anti-conservative back in the 90’s.
Seems like people just age into being conservative.
They said they’re Republicans, or they expressed viewpoints that people considered to be aligned with Republicans?
Both.
Seinfeld is very exceptional in that it was a show which featured unapologetically bad people, and glorified them, very effectively.
You can be extremely cynical in your scripting while still holding up characters who have some sort of moral center and are trying to do the right thing. Old-season Simpsons did this very well. The characters are not bad. They are not nice and they have genuine failings, and the situations they find themselves in are not sugarcoated. But, it’s still a show about trying to maintain your humanity, in a pretty realistic portrayal of the grim reality we all find ourselves in. The original “Arrested Development” is similar although a little more upper-class and light hearted.
Maybe I am a corny motherfucker but I do think that it’s important to try to keep your eye on doing the right thing instead of the wrong thing, because it’s real shit that every human being runs into and it’s definitely not easy. Art does influence the ways people behave and the way they perceive the world. Seinfeld is a show about absolute horrible sociopaths, who ruin relationships and other people’s lives over and over again because of their commitment to selfishness, and if you only look superficially, how relatable and fun and entertaining they can be to spend time with, and how easy it is to overlook what abominably bad people they are as long as it all seems fun.
Somewhere there is a video talking about how Jerry Seinfeld is actually one of the darkest comedians working. I don’t even know where I could start to find it, but the guy talks about watching a Seinfeld bit about throwing trash in the movie theater before he leaves for someone else to clean up, and how the guy watching got this chilling feeling he never got from much more serious topics: Like it’s not an act, he genuinely just feels nothing below surface level, and doesn’t give a fuck what happens.
But you have to look at it within the context of the time. At that point, even the horrible people had redeeming qualities. Archie Bunker was a right-wing racist, but his heart was often in the right place. Murphy Brown was horrible to her coworkers, but she fought for the right causes.
And then Seinfeld came out. Everyone in it was horrible. Irredeemably so. There was just nothing else like it at the time.
It also did some really interesting things in terms of experimentation with what you could do with a sitcom, like the episode that takes place entirely while they are waiting in a restaurant for Chinese takeout.
It’s a totally outdated concept now because it’s been done again and again, but it was pretty revolutionary at the time. Personally, I credit this to Larry David, not Jerry Seinfeld.
Seinfeld is very exceptional in that it was a show which featured unapologetically bad people, and glorified them, very effectively.
I think that’s more just the consequence of celebrity. They’re supposed to be normal New Yorkers, which is to say petty and superficial and cheap and rude. And that’s supposed to be a funny thing to watch.
But by the ninth season, you’ve developed a parasocial relationship with them. You find the petty rudeness and the stingy superficiality endearing. And they’ve been one-upping themselves for so long, a lot of it just looks absurd rather than obnoxious.
Somewhere there is a video talking about how Jerry Seinfeld is actually one of the darkest comedians working. I don’t even know where I could start to find it, but the guy talks about watching a Seinfeld bit about throwing trash in the movie theater before he leaves for someone else to clean up, and how the guy watching got this chilling feeling he never got from much more serious topics: Like it’s not an act, he genuinely just feels nothing below surface level, and doesn’t give a fuck what happens.
Go back and listen to “I’m Telling You For The Last Time”, the comedy album he put out right after the show rapped.
I think a lot of the show is Larry David’s own brand of cynical humor. But Seinfield was the perfect vehicle precisely because he’s just this soulless husk of a human being who has filled his emptiness with unlimited money.
Found it on Reddit I think: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/18oeiw/clip_from_jerry_seinfeld_standup_on_letterman_feb/
I agree! I think just about anyone who has stupid amounts of money has no conscience, personally. Maybe Bill Gates a little. But I especially believe that Seinfeld was showing us who he really was during the whole show. Well maybe not the first year when he was relatively normal, but after success hit, I honestly think he just became a narcissist.
Nah, Bill Gates is just like the rest of them. He pushed for a Covid vaccine just so he could own it. The researchers didn’t want to profit from it and he shot that down. Check the Behind the Bastards episode on him.
Ok cool didn’t know that.
And his wife bounced afrer Epstien news dropped.
During the first two years of Seinfeld Jerry would stop by The Howard Stern show once a week trying to get the word out about the show. Howard said multiple times when the show takes off and is doing well Jerry would find a reason to stop coming in. Sure enough Robin reported the story of Jerry dating Shoshanna and Jerry stopped coming on.
Howard kept making fun of this, even sang a song with video intercut during his PPV.
Howard at least never pretended he wasn’t an asshole.
Normally when people identify all the “P.C. crap” that Seinfeld complains about as coming from the “extreme left” I figure it’s because they’ve gone so far to the right that from way out there Bill Gates looks like a communist. But it’s tempting to give Seinfeld the benefit of the doubt and assume that he might just be confused and ill-informed. The same refusal to accept reality that leaves him unable to let go of the urge to put a llama with a human head in his movie about Pop-Tarts may also have been sufficient to prevent him learning anything at all about politics for the past 30 years.
I think you’re right that he is* just out of touch and doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Oh my God, I forgot about that Pop-Tart movie.
E: He is out of touch, not you.
Wait is this an AI hallucination or is there really a pop tart movie?
Oh god. I see. He is making a bold and idiotic statement to get people talking since he has a new movie coming out.
At least he’s not playing a talking pop tart which is what I envisioned.
Still, here we are, talking about him. Ugh.
Yup, a guy who has a comedy movie coming out is whining about not being able to make comedy.
