Jerry Seinfeld takes comedy seriously. Very seriously.
After his landmark NBC sitcom “Seinfeld” wrapped he gathered the funniest people on the planet for his follow-up show, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”
And, when the host of “The New Yorker Radio Hour” asked him specific questions on his craft, Seinfeld demurred. It would take an hour just to properly answer that, he said.
He didn’t need an hour to lay into another target, one that has handicapped comedians for the past decade.
Woke.
Why mastery matters, why good sitcoms are so rare & why @HackedOffHugh is @JerrySeinfeld ‘s favorite human. Fantastic interview. https://t.co/9myzSlgmYo
— Chris O’Brien (@realchrisobrien) April 28, 2024
Seinfeld, the director, star and co-writer of the new Netflix comedy “Unfrosted,” shared his complicated thoughts on humor for much of the conversation.
When host David Remnick asked him about mixing serious themes with comedy he couldn’t hold back.
“People always need [comedy] … they need it so badly and they don’t get it,” Seinfeld began. “It used to be you’d go home at the end of the day, ‘oh, ‘Cheers’ is on. Oh, ‘M*A*S*H*’ is on. Oh, ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ is on. ‘All in the Family’ is on.’ You just expected there will be some funny stuff on TV you can watch tonight.
“But guess what? Where is it? Where is it? This is the result of the extreme Left and PC crap and people worrying so much about offending other people.
Seinfeld’s comments come at a time when shows created before the woke revolution, including “The Office,” “Friends,” “Seinfeld” and “Parks and Recreation,” are streaming sensations.
RELATED: THE FATAL FLAW BEHIND WOKE COMEDY
Seinfeld shared where comedy continues to thrive in our P.C. world.
“Now, they’re going to see stand-up comics because we are not policed by anyone … the audience polices us. We know when we’re off track and we know instantly and we adjust to it instantly. But when you write a script ..and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, ‘here’s our thoughts about your jokes,’ then that’s the end of your comedy.”
“Isn’t that what [‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’] was all about?” Remnick asked of the just-wrapped series created by “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David. The show routinely broached challenging topics without fear of reprisal.
“Larry was grandfathered in. He’s old enough, ‘I don’t have to observe those rules because I started before you made those rules,’” Seinfeld said, taking on David’s voice to make a point.
Seinfeld brought up a classic moment from his self-titled show to bolster his argument against “P.C. crap.”
“We did an episode of the series in the ’90s where Kramer decides to start a business where homeless pull rickshaws because, as he says, ‘they’re outside anyway.’” the comedian said. “Do you think I could get that episode on the air today?”
It was a rhetorical statement, and the podcast host treated it as such.
Seinfeld returned to “Curb” to hammer home his point.
“If Larry was 35 he couldn’t get away with the watermelon stuff of Palestinian Chicken,” he said before adding his “Seinfeld” writing team would pen a different scenario for Kramer in that aforementioned episode.
That leaves many modern comics in a bind, he noted.
“They’re not smart enough to figure out how do we do this now … or just not be funny,” he said.
Remnick asked if the woke mindset, which Seinfeld referenced but didn’t name check as such, was showing signs of weakness of late.
“Slightly. I see a slight movement… with certain comedians now people are having fun with them stepping over the line and us all laughing about it. Again, it’s the stand-ups who are able to do it. No one else gets the blame if it doesn’t go down well,” he said.
He likely referred to rebel comedians like Tyler Fischer, Andrew Schulz, Tim Dillon and Joe Rogan who are thriving under the new woke order by sticking to platforms that support free speech.
Rogan similarly shredded the woke mentality for the dearth of bawdy, R-rated movies comedies.
The blowback on the far-Left didn’t take long.
Jerry Seinfeld is on the New Yorker Radio Hour blaming “the extreme left” & “PC crap” for why there are no sitcoms anymore. Not streamers or any systemic reasons that we *just* saw at play with the WGA strike. Just “The wokes won’t let us make comedy anymore.” Absolute brain rot.
— Julia Claire (@ohJuliatweets) April 26, 2024
Seinfeld previously caused a kerfuffle in 2015 when he stated the obvious. His fellow comedians often avoid playing college campuses because the students are too offended by even modest jokes.
Seinfeld’s latest project, “Unfrosted,” tracks the dawn of the Pop Tart in American households.
“Unfrosted,” co-starring Jim Gaffigan, Melissa McCarthy and Hugh Grant, debuts May 3.