Jerry Seinfeld believes the current political climate is preventing comedians from being funny on television.
His self-titled NBC sitcom remains popular in reruns today, having aired from 1989 to 1998, but he doesn’t think some of the same jokes would still fly today. According to Seinfeld, 70, fans go to live shows instead of TV to laugh.
“Nothing really affects the comedy. People always need it. They need it so badly and they’re not getting it,” Seinfeld said The New Yorker in an interview published on Sunday, April 28. “You used to go home at the end of the day and most people would say, ‘Oh, Bottom up is on. Oh, MASH* is on. Oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on. Everyone in the family is on.’ They just expected, “We can see some fun stuff on TV tonight.” Well, guess what – where is it? This is the result of the far left and the PC crap and people being very worried about offending other people.”
The Emmy winner argued that if fans want to laugh, they’ll give up their televisions and “watch stand-up comics now because we’re not being monitored by anyone.”
It’s hard to believe, but 30 years ago, a show about nothing quickly became a show that everyone was talking about. When “Seinfeld” debuted on July 5, 1989, no one knew that the NBC sitcom about friends living in Manhattan, created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, would last nine seasons. It included 180 […]
“The audience is monitoring us,” he said. “We know when we get off track. We know it immediately and adapt to it immediately. But when you write a script and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups – ‘Here’s our take on this joke.’ Well, that’s the end of your comedy.”
The comedian used his own show as an example of how jokes he made in the past are not allowed today because they are not politically correct.
“We did an episode of [Seinfeld] In the ’90s, Kramer decided to start a business pulling rickshaws for homeless people because, as he said, they were outside anyway,” he continued. “Do you think I could air this episode today? … With Kramer and the rickshaw we would write a different joke today. We wouldn’t make that joke. We would come up with another joke.”
Seinfeld’s latest project is the Netflix film Unfrosted Co-star Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant And Amy Schumer. While making his directorial debut, he is also critical of the film industry.
“The film is not at the top of the social and cultural hierarchy that it has occupied for most of our lives,” he said GQ in a recent interview. “If a movie came out and it was good, we all watched it. We’ve all talked about it. We quoted lines and scenes that we liked. Now we’re walking through a fire hose full of water just trying to see.”
Seinfeld added that he doesn’t like working with film executives. “You are so absolutely serious! They have no idea that the film business is over. They have no idea,” he said.
The former host of Comedians in cars drinking coffee believes the film industry is in complete disarray.
“What, if anything, replaced film? Depression? Malaise? I would say confusion. “Disorientation has replaced the movie business,” Seinfeld claimed. “Everyone I know in show business asks themselves every day, ‘What’s going on?’ How you do that? What should we do now?'”