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
It’s just years of “what’s the deal with ______________” jokes, and 4 of the shittiest narcissistic people ever.
Are you talking about Seinfeld the show? The show is amazing. Jerry Seinfeld just isn’t funny as a comedian.
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.
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.
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?
You don’t have to find it funny. Did people laugh at it how and when he said it? If so, it was funny. Too late to cast your vote now. That’s how comedy works.
Without the show and its success, he wouldn’t be a well known Stand up today. He’s still surfing that wave.
He was a well-known comic before he did the show. Perhaps not a household name but very few comics ever are. He had already been on Carson like a dozen times, as a stand up in the 80s that’s like the height of fame. You might even say that Seinfeld’s TV show elevated him to a status that no comic had ever before achieved.
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.
If you haven’t heard it: Bill Burr Philadelphia Rant.
Look it up on YouTube. It’s unfortunately a crappy video, but the audio is straight gold. For 30 whole minutes it’s just Burr trashing the audience and Philadelphia and its perfection. Better than any stand up of the last few years because it’s organic and in the moment.
Bo Burnham is also fantastic if you want something introspective at the same time. Inside, by Bo Burnham was a critical piece of Covid media.
Bill Burr Philly
That was 2006.
Burr kills but is not new, nor is he a ‘kid’.
The deal with airline food has nothing to do with the food, but everything to deal with the dry, low preassure air in an airplane lowering the sensitivity of our tastebuds, making thw food taste bland.
It’s not low pressure. The cabin is pressurized to 5k feet.
Are you saying that people that live in Colorado or other high altitude locations have trouble enjoying their food because of “low pressure”? The answer is no.
The reason airline food sucks is because it’s highly processed and filled with preservatives to keep it “fresh”. In other words the food sucks.
And the issue with the joke is that it’s painfully obvious that serving meals to thousands of passengers on a cramped metal tube that’s sensitive to weight would result in something less than gourmet. THAT’S the deal with airline food. As an offhand comment from a sympathetic stranger sharing your experience, it’s mildly amusing. As performed humor, it’s lazy and not funny.
I don’t know if Jerry specifically ever did airline food (but he probably did). Still, it describes pretty much the entirety of his stand-up.
It is absolutely low preassure compared to sea level.
Also, note that I said it was a combination with very dry air.
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.
“The show was great, hilarious even, until Jerry opened his mouth and said something.” - Me imitating Seinfeld
But seriously. I loved a few of the kooky characters, and would always stop channel surfing on a Kramer scene. But Jerry would always say something dumb and I’d move on.
Ah yes, RIP Cosmo Kramer Michael Richards’ career & reputation ever since his incident with the heckler
Absolutely. He always came off as an arrogant prick and none of his shit was funny to me. But I might have missed many a point because I’m not from the USA.
I never liked the show because of him specifically. It’s my understanding that they’re all supposed to be bad people, but this is the same case with Always Sunny and I find the gang to be very likable. I didn’t at first, but they grew on me once I realized they were supposed to be degenerates and sociopaths. But with Seinfeld I have never been able to get over the hump.
Honestly, there are a few memorable episodes but most of it was pretty lame IMO.
The only reason I watched Seinfeld is it was what was on
The episode where George and Jerry pretend to be the names printed on a limo driver’s placard in order to get a free ride from the airport and end up getting driven to a white supremacist rally was the peak of the show, but after watching Curb Your Enthusiasm it’s pretty obvious whose sense of humor produced that one.
It means he lacks the ability to reinvent his comedy to fit the times. Instead he just complains.
We all need to continue to reinvent ourselves over time. Things change. We need to retool for the times ahead. Reality is Seinfeld doesn’t need to because he already made his money.
So instead of him getting back on the horse he just sits back and complains like the out of touch old turd that he is. He sucks but just can’t accept it or admit it. It’s easier to whine.
He is a has-been and never will be again.
“Reactionary” means regressive conservative/anti-progressive. It originates from, as much political terminology on the regressive vs. progressive divide does (including the terms “left”, “right”, and “conservative” themselves), the French revolution, where people who favored opposing the revolution (i.e. reacting to the revolution) were called “réactionnaires” in French.
Here’s the first known usage of the word in English, from a 1799 English translation of Lazare Carnot’s letter on the Conspiracy of the 18th Fructador.
He’s gone full Bill Maher.
“Is my comedy stale and out of touch? No, it is the audience who are wrong.”
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.
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.
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.
The first season of its always Sunny would definitely be canceled (if debuted) today
The first season doesn’t even come close to the worst things the gang did.
I see platforms cancelling or existing episodes and seasons all the time, there’s is still up
That’s because it already has a huge following. I’m saying if that season one debuted now it would. Just like tropic Thunder hasn’t been pulled but I doubt they’d let it today
edit: so all the downvotes imply you all say that a white guy in black face can air today? yea no way, y’all trippin hive mind shit. I’d love to see someone try lol
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.