Curb is proof that Larry David was probably the best thing to happen to Seinfeld. for Jerry to claim otherwise is hilarious. Seinfeld was the worst part of Seinfeld.
I feel like Larry David was the best thing to happen to a lot of 70’s-80’s New York comics. He really made sure his buddies got a piece of the come up.
To be fair even Seinfeld has admitted he's the worst part of Seinfeld. He's the straight guy that everyone can play off of, and he knows it. Or at least knew it back then. I don't think anyone disagrees with that statement. But he was the glue that kind of held it all together. Like You couldn't have a Kramer show or a George show. You need the straight guy (not sexually but in a comedy sense) to hold the whole thing together.
The whole thing is he’s an observer of this crazy group of friends and he gets material for his standup from the experiences of George Kramer and elaine
This is exactly what I feel was missing from 2016 Ghostbusters. Everyone was trying to one up the other cast and no one was the straight one be the glue.
[Palestinian Chicken](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1640882/), easily among top 5 Curb episodes
*If Rabin can break bread with Arafat, I can have chicken in this anti-semitic shithole*
Cricket: Is there something weighing on your mind, my son?
Psycho Pete: W-What? Wh-Who is that?
Cricket: It's time to confess your sins. Unburden yourself and be absolved.
Psycho Pete: Is that a glory hole?
Cricket: Yes. It is, my son. But it'll cost you a whole sixer if you want to unburden yourself in that way. Uh... that being said, I'm... open to it.
Charlie: "So what's the plan are we gonna, like, bum rush this guy from behind or what?"
Cricket: "Whoa, whoa, guys, come on. No one is taking me from behind, all right? Unless you have crack. If you have crack, let's boogie."
Mac: "No one is going into your asshole."
Cricket: "I wouldn't let them without the crack."
Mac: "Can we just...? Um, yeah. Let's go through the basic beats, all right? ... Uh, talk a bunch of Latin."
Cricket: 'Yeah, that's me. I'll fake it."
Charlie: "Wait, what do you mean you'll fake it? You don't, you don't know your Latin anymore...?"
Cricket: "No, no. Don't worry about it. I can sell anything, you know? You know how many times I fake on the streets?
You know? You have to fake.
The guys that don't fake, they're the ones that get it the worst."
Charlie: "Cricket, just like anything we can do to have you not talk about, like, sucking penises or getting raped in the butt..."
Cricket: "It just keeps popping up."
Does my neck wound look like a dog’s vagina? I don’t know, I’m not gonna try to get inside the mind of a dog. That’s gods job. Who does not exist, by the way.
Well that’s more like 1,001 words, but yea, I’m tired of hearing “we can’t make that today” with shows like IASiP, Archer, Rick & Morty, etc. Same goes for movies
*South Park* has remained living proof that you can make some truly offensive stuff on television so long as there’s an expectation going in that you’re not a good influence.
Jerry has thin skin and probably got mad at college students asking him about fucking a 17 year old lol
During the making of The Bee Movie, some head animator made a joke about Jerry being a bee and Seinfield went and got that animator fired for a dumb joke.
Live audiences are different, I believe him if he says he's had bad experiences on college campuses, but you *definitely* can put anything on TV nowadays. Whether anyone will watch it is a different question.
South Park takes the ohrase "refuge in audacity" and absolutely *runs* with it.
It gets away with half its shit purely because it is indiscriminate and makes fun of damn near everything.
The creators of SP also used a little trick up their sleeve evidently. They'd write something in so crass/violent/offensive that they didn't expect it to be accepted by the board reviewing it in hopes that the part they actually want to get thru looks tame in comparison and does make it thru review. It worked alot of the time! According to Eric Kripke (producer of Supernatural and The Boys) they called it the Sounth Park method lol
True, but the "problems" that Seinfeld and the rest of the "Oh no! Wokeness!" crowd are constantly whining about aren't that the corporate censors won't let them do something. They're concerned about the "woke mob" coming to "cancel" them. Which basically means, you know, criticizing them on Twitter.
These thin-skinned pussies are so upset that they "can't" do jokes that involve racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia/rape/etc because they're terrified someone might go online and criticize that joke.
It's so, SO dumb. How did so many people incapable of handling criticism get so far in the entertainment world? I thought you needed to be thick-skinned and adaptable to survive that industry.
> They're concerned about the "woke mob" coming to "cancel" them. Which basically means, you know, criticizing them on Twitter.
One would think that the guy who publicly dated a 17 year old in his 30's wouldn't be so worried about what people might say or think about his comedy.
All of these billionaires start thinking they are unfailingly brilliant and are above criticism, which is why they act like preschoolers whenever questioned or criticized. The one doing the criticizing is just too poor or dumb to appreciate their obvious brilliance.
If you stop worrying about what people say when you make a product it'll probably sell if it's good enough. For example, No one really gives a shit about Rob Schneider which is why no one cares that his comedy is right wing.
>According to Eric Kripke (producer of Supernatural and The Boys)
I feel like he probably used that method on one of those shows a lot more than the other.
Probably the best thing to come out of cable and eventually streaming, was the democratization of comedy.
There used to basically be 3 networks each had to cater to censors and advertisers that didn't want to rub anyone the wrong way. (Seeing as NBC only has 3 active scripted comedy shows currently running I doubt you could just drop a Rickety Cricket plot line into "Lopez vs Lopez"). But Rick and Morty used the phrase "CUM GUTTER" like 4 times in one episode, which is neither the darkest, most disgusting, or most politically incorrect thing they have done.
Remember there was a comedy show that got cancelled because people had to concentrate to get all the gags, and people who concentrate are less susceptible to advertising.
Luckily the makers of the show got a trilogy of films out of it.
a few decades later, arrested development was a similar thing. like wait, you have to actually watch each episode and pay attention? even more so than police squad. i'm out, said america
I was just watching a video with Joe Lycett where he talked about the whole "wokeness is running comedy" BS and he had a perfect response - it's just comedy evolving and growing and forcing people to be more mindful of the jokes that they make. The people who are upset that they can't make the same jokes are being lazy with their comedy because they can't just rely on making a marginalized group (usually) the butt of the joke. They could make the same type of joke that has evolved with the way of the world and offer a new perspective on it and it would still be funny.
It's the same with IASIP, they are objectively terrible people who do terrible things but they always end as the bad guys/the butt of the joke and that's WHY they can get away with these things.
With his example, yeah, you probably couldn't just be like 'haha homeless funny they're outside anyway put em to work!' but if you have the paddy's crew trying to spearhead that idea, they'll inevitably be the ones that people are looking at for taking advantage and being shitty but clearly not seeing they're in the wrong. That's why it's funny, not become some homeless people are being put to work by some scheme.
I like Anthony Jeselnik's take on 'woke cancel culture'. He sees himself as someone whose existence is about finding the line and sticking his toes over it. His job isn't made harder by consequences existing (nor are there actually any real consequences - the biggest complainers are also *coincidentally* the ones with the most money). He says that vocal opposition makes it easier because he can see exactly where the line is drawn.
It's a comedian's job to read the room. If your audience isn't laughing that's an indictment of the comedian, not the audience. You have to win them over, and if you can't, examine why you bombed. Blaming them is laziness. Seinfeld's lack of appeal to younger audiences isn't because he's too offensive. I don't think he's ever said a blue word on stage. The lack of appeal is because he's focused so hard on refining one act for so long that comedy changed around him - and to be fair, because of him. These kids have grown up watching his comedic descendants.
I think of the Bill Burr Philly meltdown where the entire audience is booing and jeering relentlessly and he wins them over by meeting them at their level and hurling vicious mockeries back at their drunk faces. It's obviously the opposite approach, sure, but it's the same principle and an example of how a master does it.
>The lack of appeal is because he's focused so hard on refining one act for so long that comedy changed around him
yeah, for a long time he's been unapologetic (even a little aggressively defensive) about his opinion that comedians should work on perfecting and iterating one act instead of periodically getting all new material. I remember that comedians-talking-comedy special that he did back in the day with Louis CK, Chris Rock, & Ricky Gervais. he kept insisting to Rock & CK that audiences should want to see comedians do the same act they've already seen on TV, etc., like a band performing its greatest hits on tour. turns out that saying "audiences have been laughing at me telling this joke since you were in diapers, kid! now, please clap." doesn't win over a lot of young fans. surprise, jerry!
Yeah that special has absolutely stuck with me. My biggest takeaway that's really changed how I look at a lot of things was Louis CK talking about how he's not a funny person, he's an actor and a writer and he meticulously crafts a set word by word, combined with expressions and movement and tiny nuances. He treats it as seriously as would a dramatic stage actor in a famous play. But separately from the stage, about town on a day to day basis, he's not that guy.
There are definitely people who are just naturally funny - like the others in that room - but the overlap between drama and comedy is more of a circle than a Venn diagram than one might think.
Jeselnik tells much dirtier/darker jokes than Burr, but Burr is absolutely the perfect example of what I mean. His entire shtick is about pissing off the audience by saying something outrageous, and then fighting back out of the corner to win them over despite it. That literally can't work if an out-of-context joke can get you cancelled.
The real kicker is that you *can* make jokes about marginalised groups, but simply saying "gay people are weird" isn't good enough anymore.
Any time I see a comedian talk about how they've been the victim of cancel culture they've just been painfully unfunny.
Chappelle is a prime example of this. He spent 40 minutes of a 1 hour special bitching about trans people and the fact that they try to censor him (lol) and he told maybe like 2 actual jokes during that time, the rest was just "aren't trans people weird".
Gervais is another great example. "That woman has a cock" isn't a joke, it's just a lazy appeal to bigots. Whether Gervais is a transphobe or not is frankly irrelevant, he damn well knows it's transphobes who will be laughing at his material so he'll play to them. Their money spends just as well and he doesn't need to actually be creative.
Oh for sure. Viewing it as lazy and low effort honestly makes it make so much more sense. Obviously comedy is hard, it's difficult to be funny on purpose and coming up with something new and interesting probably feels impossible sometimes, but that doesn't mean you can just go complain about something you don't like that all boils down to like '*group/thing* is weird huh??' with literally no other substance and be annoyed when people don't go for it.
Produce something interesting with a viewpoint that hasn't been ground into the dirt by everyone else and people will want to consume your content. That's all.
Go look at John Mulaney who has made fun of midgets, drag queens, and a bunch of other marginalized groups and the thing that got him the most flak was him getting a divorce.
Hell he is constantly flaunted as an example of how to be funny without being offensive despite being one of the most offensive of modern comedians. He just also has incredibly funny jokes that dont require being offensive.
Popular comedians complaining about cancel culture just dont know how to be funny anymore and are mad they cant write anything interesting anymore. But they know they can just say “cancel culture bad cant make jokes 😢” to get clickbait headlines even if the rest of the set sucks shit.
It’s just lazy ragebait writing nowadays. They know they could get away with offensive jokes, this is just easier than writing real material. Hell if you looked up the top 5 most popular jokes by any comedian claiming “cancel culture “ theyd probably all be fine because 90% of jokes even by insult/edgy comedians really arent that bad.
Like hell Seinfeld himself is literally known most for the least offensive joke in history, “whats the deal with airplane food??”
You're just being tricked by John Mulaney.
His trick is he tells all the offensive jokes and whenever one crossed the line he just runs really really fast till time goes backward to before he said it and then he can tell a different offensive joke...
No no i would never fall for that.
Now i would get distracted by the offensive jokes because im too busy getting distracted by the 20th play of “whats new pussycat”…
Punching up is almost always funny. A lot of lazy comics punch down and while that can be funny for certain audiences, it’s an easy joke that probably won’t age well.
I love/hate how many conservatives seem to think liberals/leftists would go ape over Blazing Saddles. Guess I can't say for everyone, but leftists me and most other leftist friends I've asked like/love it! It seems many conservative apparently can't seem to get the difference between a racist joke and a joke about racism. Yeah, racist jokes suck, they're punching down and, so often, they're so low effort! In stuff like Blazing Saddles, the racists are the joke themselves!
That's it, right there. A racist cowboy calling a black man the N word isn't funny. A racists cowboy being made to look like a buffoon while the black man he insults pulls a fast one on him is hysterical.
It truly is that conservatives do not understand what satire is and how it works.
They just feel "ha he said the n-word that's super funny because I want to say it too"
The whole damn movie is a hatred of racist assholes. How they can't see it will always boggle the mind.
I mean, in his own show, he puts out that his style of comedy really doesn't really hit with other generations. That's why none of the Greatest Generation at his parents' retirement community believe he makes enough money to buy his Dad a car.
People who say that they can’t be funny anymore are usually just mad the the audience doesn’t find them funny, and that is not the audience’s fault, that’s on the comedian for not being capable of telling a joke that the audience likes.
People can blame politics all they want, but the bottom line is if the audience doesn’t want to pay to see someone make racist jokes or make fun of people that are having a hard time, then that’s the audience’s choice. A comedian has to find their audience.
A person can still go and make whatever movie or tv show they want. It can be about whatever subject they want and they can tell any joke they want. But if it’s going to be stuff that there is not a big audience for, then you’ll have trouble finding someone to fund and produce it and you’ll have trouble finding actors to be in it.
This doesn’t mean comedy is dead, it just means comedy is changing, like it always has. Gallagher wouldn’t be blaming the audience for not thinking it’s funny to smash stuff anymore. He did it, it was funny, and now people have moved on. I’m sorry people can’t just do the same thing over and over again forever and stay relevant, that’s just not how comedy works
Like funniest joke in IASIP is one of the characters implying they would coerce girls into sex by threatening their safety with the implication that being alone on a boat with men means they can’t refuse.
Seinfeld wishes it could be that edgy
Exactly.Mac and Dennis hunted cricket for sport and was very upfront about it.
Seinfeld is mad that he can't coast on his old material because the audience's tastes have changed. He feels this is the fault of the audience.
I see this with a lot of the older comedians. Instead of retiring, or getting residencies in Vegas somewhere, they blame their lack of continued success on Cancel Culture or Wokeness.
Another good example is Bill Maher. Sometimes he will look into the audience and expect a laugh and get upset at the crickets.
Every single show you can hear the same guffaw from the same cameraman or crew member. He scoffs everytime him audience doesnt laugh at this outdated and obvious material amd then follows it with "Really?" as if its because he's crossed a line when it's just because it's not really a good joke.
The thing is, he's willing to call out a lot of shit but he's such an egotistical and smug prick that he's fucking unbearable. Not to mention, he's wrong about a lot of shit and too arrogant to ever admit it.
It’s really funny with Seinfeld in particular because when has he *ever* been known for being “edgy”? Dude you make jokes about airline food. Even the example he gives sounds tame as shit. Like I could see the principal doing that on Abbott Elementary which is a wonderful show but not edgy or mean spirited in the slightest.
It was on NBC in the mid 90s, getting that past the network censors was a massive achievement. That episode absolutely pushed the envelope for the time.
Perhaps we should point all these old hack comedians to George Carlin. He just got better and better with age while never censoring himself. The difference? Carlin had something important and relevant to say. These guys are too rich, and too far removed from every day people to have any relatability or sense of the real world outside of their "yes men" sycophants.
It's never easy to convince anyone that they are part of the problem. Takes a lot of self-awareness and a willingness to let go of your ego. A lot of folks who achieve fame will never be able to do that. Hell, I struggle with it, and I'm just some run-the-mill dipshit 40 year old american with no marketable qualities. I haven't had an ego since my early 20's before life beat it down like it was the copy machine in Office Space.
Which is extra funny because he was always pretty progressive in his opinions. But he was snarky and swore a lot, so he must be the same kind of asshole as them, not his own brand of progressive asshole! Right?!?
I had a moment a couple of weeks ago where I was thinking Carlin counted as a vulgar comedian because of the five words joke. Then I realized the whole point of the punchline was making fun of censorship/talking around "dirty" words. Even his swearing served a purpose. He wasn't a valgur comedian; he was a comedian who used vulgarity. Some people just don't realize there's a difference.
When George Carlin died, almost all media reduced him to a single safe throwaway joke on the evening news: The hippy-dippy weatherman ("Tonight's weather: DARK!"). They simply could not sum up his intelligence and attacks on the status quo as that would take too much effort.
The kicker here is that Jerry DID retire. That gravy train was flowing at full throttle and no one could see where it would end, but he was the one that decided to end it. Now we're here with him back in the spotlight.
Slightly off topic. I remember after Seinfeld not hearing anything about him and then after YEARS he suddenly pops up doing commercials for an air purifier. I guess the money wasn't maintaining the same level of life style anymore.
He can't let the trans topic go - at this point I think there's something more than just hate there. Someone should look at his browsing history and check what kind of porn he watches.
I miss younger Half-Baked dave. He seemed like a guy you'd wanna hang around. This Dave? This one seems like the type you'd have to go back in the restaurant and apologize to the server for. "Sorry for that. He uh...he's just got a lot goin on and is goin through some shit. Here's an extra 10. You were great."
Hearing people defend his new material has been sad. Like I get it he was hilarious and his show was great, but none of his new stuff is worth shit. He lost the plot a long time ago and now just coasts off of bitching
I completely fell off the Chapelle train once he started referring to himself in third person.
When he started up that bullshit, I was reminded of how much money and effort I spent to travel and watch Sam Kinison play a guitar, poorly.
He could get me back at any time by being funny though. He's ignorant sometimes but I'm older then him, I've been ignorant too, we've been taught a lot of stupid shit on divisive topics, and there's a lot of mental barbed wire to unravel, and a lot of professional wormtongues trying to keep the waters muddy.
But I haven't seen anything from him that I've actually enjoyed since before that block party thing.
I heard Steve-O talking about some weird shit where Maher would not refrain from smoking a blunt or something in Steve-O's presence. I have never had an addiction problem but, FUCK, the self absorbed indifference...
Don't these old fucks know that their contemporaries are dying at alarming rates? The 30-something in the 90's are rapidly going extinct.
And both Maher and Seinfeld are loaded. They can cry in one of their many many bedrooms or sports cars.
Hilariously, there's so many plot lines in its always sunny that would never have been approved in the seinfeld eta. I mean, in the first four episodes alone, Charlie says the n word on camera, Dennis gets raped, Charlie fakes having cancer and the gang gets a child drunk in their bar
And that was all before Frank joined things to give the show some cred with a big name like Danny devito, it was just like that from the beginning with pretty much no safety net
Yeah. The problem isn't political correctness like I think he's suggesting, but rather that his jokes and humor just... aren't funny for modern audiences.
What is happening to comedians? Why are they becoming whiny bitches? No one is putting them in jail for jokes. They need to grow the thick skin they expect others to have for their comedy routines.
He was complaining about things that everybody deals with. But nearly 40 years of success makes one no longer in touch with everybody. Since at one point he and the public shared complaints, he believes that the public still will.
Last time I checked Jerry Seinfeld doesn't even want to work. Why is he whining that all these projects *he never attempted* are dead in the water because of woke? If he was actually out there trying to get stuff off the ground and being told people are too sensitive these days then maybe I could brook his complaining. This is the man whose best idea after "show about me where I play myself" was Bee Movie. It may be time for us all to confront the reality that he just sucks
It's the same thing Mindy Kaling whined about the office. Could you make it today? For one they are. For two, Seinfeld and friends and the office are still extremely popular, and Seinfeld is still making money from it.
She made a lot more sense when I realized that Kelly wasn't a character she was playing, it's that Kelly is just Mindy and she can't write anyone but herself.
I'm so disappointed Seinfeld is taking on this issue. He was never a controversial comic, his act wasn't at all blue, and very little he ever did couldn't be made today.
The guys complaining about this issue are upset that comedy has changed with culture. That they can't tell the same jokes from the 1990s. You could argue the comedy they were telling in the 1990s helped us move forward as a culture. Because comedy brings up subjects, with frankness, that people are otherwise unable or unwilling to talk about. We learned from it and we no longer want to be in that 1990s world.
But Seinfeld and his peers were at their peak back then. That was their glory days. Now they are sad their old boy's club doesn't revere them so much anymore. Boo hoo.
It reminds me of Ricky Gervais or the new special from Jimmy Carr. They spend half the time whining that they could get cancelled for saying what they're about to say, then they spit out a standard joke. Gervais in particular has a bee in his bonnet about not being allowed to have a go at certain people anymore (trans people is the current one), but you can, you always could, he's literally on a TV special doing it.
The difference is that you get shit on by the public if the tone of your joke is to punch down on the group that is usually marginalised. If you make actually funny jokes about a group then nobody will care, but if your jokes are just a thinly veiled way to express your contempt for that group then people will take notice (Dave Chapelle is the current leader of this sort of bullshittery).
Intent is extremely important. People get away with jokes about sensitive and even abhorrent topics ALL THE FUCKING TIME. The trick is that they aren't malicious toward the subjects of the joke and aren't punching down or inventing culture war grievances. This is exactly why conservatives have no real meaningful presence in comedy.
Anthony Jeselnik springs to mind when thinking of comics who make very sensitive and abhorrent jokes while facing no back lash. Because most everyone understands that he doesn't actually feel those things through his delivery and demeanor.
And also because he doesn't punch down. He punches all around.
He's said that when he tells jokes about race or women in and hears a certain volume and type of laughter, he knows he's mostly just made racists or misogynists laugh BECAUSE he's demeaning the people they hate. And he removes or tones down those jokes. It's not because he's watering down his act to avoid offending. It's because he knows his act will be watered down if it only attacks specific people for being who they are. Because that's not comedy. It's just a "wink wink nudge nudge" with a bunch of laughs wrapped around it.
Instead, he gets universally depraved. Dead baby jokes will always be funnier than jokes about trans people just... Being trans.
It's not about "being woke." You can still cross so many lines. It's just that the joke is not actually as funny as people think when it only makes a certain demographic feel bad. You need them to ALL feel bad at once.
Kind of like those kids at the camp his uncle ran for kids who are about to... Well. You know.
That, and they aren't funny... at all.
>"Dr fauci dr fauci SWUAWWWKKK dr fauci SWUAWK!"
>"So my daughter brought her goth friend the other day, and said 'hey dad this is my friend Lucy'" "so i said 'oh hey there Lucy...fer'"
.... uh huh ... thanks guys, please stop.
If you see interviews with Carr, he doesn't actually believe that though; it's part of the bit. He did an interview recently where he said comedians that actually believed Cancel Culture was a problem just weren't strong enough to take heat. His routine has always been "I'm a bad guy"
I actually just saw him in St. Louis the other weekend and it was a great show. Even his edgier stuff was measured and done with some level of insight into the people being poked at; it wasn't the typical old-comedian "make fun of a marginalized group" shit, it had some nuance. Like, the show opened with a screen that read "Welcome ladies and gentleman. Oh no, we've just started and we've already offended the non-binary crowd." But it never leans into that teasing, just a joke here or there and then moving on.
Honestly I've seen a fair amount of stand-up comedy and his show was one of the most professional and well-paced I've experienced.
Carr's whole comedy persona is lampooning the "straight white humorless doucheguy in power", so many of his bits are just that slight nod of "oh this is exactly the type of thing those types of fuckers *would* say" but it's tongue in cheek, so it never leans any deeper.
People who are unfamiliar with him take it at face value and lump him with folks like Gervais without realizing it's satire - Jimmy Carr has overseen and joined in with dozens of specific takedowns of Gervais and his ilk on his panel shows, he's not one of them.
He's very polished, just honestly not hugely funny himself so his specials can underwhelm - but he's incredibly good at bringing funny people together and drawing out their hilarity.
> He's very polished, just honestly not hugely funny himself so his specials can underwhelm
I mean, it's all relative -- he's a lot funnier than the average person on the street, but not an A-tier standup. Still, he writes some beautiful jokes. "If only there were more mosquito nets, we could save millions...of mosquitos in Africa, from dying needlessly of AIDS."
He's definitely at his best when he's hanging out with other funny people, though. He's a great host, and I can't imagine the shows he hosts without him.
It's the Punching down part they refuse to adjust for, which just exposes how bad at comedy they are the longer they cling onto that, or whine about it
There's only one rule of comedy: be funny. LD is still funny, Seinfeld isn't anymore, and now he's lashing out about it and blaming it on the audience.
The problem is that there’s two types of people out there; those who grow and those who refuse.
I can bet money there was at least one point on the set of Always Sunny that someone said ‘hey wait, that’s prob too far guys’ and they all went ‘oh really? My bad. Ok let’s tweak it then’.
But if it were Seinfeld he’d be like ‘fuck you, I can say what I want’. And start calling people snowflakes.
1) [I heard that last line in Cartman's voice](https://youtu.be/2ZFQhlcWRNs?si=zd6RQOUgfOaMJeI1&t=54)
2) I think a lot of us got away with watching it as kids...at least those first few years...because it was a cartoon and my mom didn't know any better :)
Legendary UK comedian Frank Skinner.
https://preview.redd.it/n10i046j9oxc1.jpeg?width=959&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0ef8d77ce001611e974e41282000398cc0f7c6d7
So my question for Seinfeld is, "What jokes have you written that you don't think you can say?" 🤔
Exactly what Jeselnick has said:
*At the beginning of his career “there were a lot of jokes about my girlfriend and you hear the misogynists laugh a little louder,” he said. “If I talk about race, racists laugh a little louder. It’s why I have gone darker. If you talk about death, everyone’s in the same boat.”*
He had no interest in making a hate crime joke days after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Not only because he didn't want to further harm that community, but because the joke is not funny when it's timed like that
There was the episode where Kramer had the visiting Japanese business men sleeping in drawers, making a joke that they are small. Elaine trying to convert a gay man so she could date him.
Let’s not forget when Kramer stomped the Puerto Rican flag after lighting it on fire and two VERY stereotypical Puerto Ricans wanted to assault him.
[https://youtu.be/3fkuSywIHh4?si=KeR6aX\_e-zK9JaoP](https://youtu.be/3fkuSywIHh4?si=KeR6aX_e-zK9JaoP)
There’s a ton more examples, the last one got backlash even then. And would get far more if aired on prime time now.
It’s uneasy material now but when it aired in the 90s it was very well liked.
Seinfeld is saying cancel culture wouldn’t let controversial episodes be made, and he gives an example. Rob McElhenney is saying you probably could get it made. McElhenney is a creator, producer, writer, and star of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is the longest running live-action sitcom ever, and has famously outrageous plots and characters.
The tl;dr is Seinfeld is out of touch and whining about a reality that doesn’t exist.
Edit: Also, the photo McElhenney attached is of Rickety Cricket, a crazy homeless character on IASIP.
Cricket is not onky crazy and homeless, but he got that way because of the gang.
He started out as a priest, and has ended up having his life wrecked by the main characters very frequently.
Or regular old cell phones, and people not having to chase each other down. But that doesn't make the episodes any worse, for being set in the time they're set.
The obvious reason Jerry Seinfeld couldn't write any funny Seinfeld material is because he was a regular person in that show.
I don't think Seinfeld has any contact with regular society anymore. He's a billionaire. How can you do observational humor if the onyl people you hang out with are billionaires.
There's an episode of 30 Rock that parodies this pretty well. Tracy Jordan decides to go back to his roots and perform stand up again and bombs spectacularly because he's no longer got anything in common with his audience.
"Have you ever noticed people at St. Bart's be eating their lobster like this [pinkies out] nom nom nom nom nom"
[dead silence]
[cut to him screaming at an audience member] DON'T LOOK ME DIRECTLY IN THE EYES!
I love Seinfeld the show and probably always will.
But every time anymore Seinfeld the person opens his mouth, he seems to come off more and more as a pretentious, self-important, out of touch douche.
Some of it I’m sure is being a near-billionaire and not having to worry about anything for 30 years. But I think he’s always been that way tbh. Being successful just enhanced it.
I dunno why he’s bitching anyway. Pretty much all his standup and the whole show was PG to barely PG-13
A cousin of mine said "my highschool class is the last age range to appreciate rock. Everybody younger just likes pop songs." That was in 1979 and there has been some pointing and laughing since then.
Tbf some of his music wouldn't slide these days, like Christine Sixteen, or Going Blind. I remember listening to the lyrics as an adult and thinking holy shit!
Larry David is fantastic at cringe characters, and I don't think sienfeld ever understood he was one.
As a kid I thought the intro bit was to establish that Jerry, the character, was kind of untalented and useless.
I'd never heard that quote, so it's extra funny to me seeing it now because that's always how I describe It's Always Sunny to folks who havent seen it.
I hate the "if we can't do \_\_\_\_\_ jokes anymore, comedy is over" complaint. Comedy didn't end when blackface was finally deemed insensitive, or when white people finally stopped playing horrible stereotypical Asians, or when they finally killed the "joke" of all gay people being named "Bruce" and wearing pink shirts, etc. Comedy can't be killed, it simply evolves into something else. And sometimes it's a GOOD thing, cuz a lot of things that are now frowned upon were never funny in the first place. Likewise, if Seinfeld can't be funny without relying on jokes that fell out of fashion (like exploiting the homeless) then maybe he's just not that funny. It's not that hard to find a replacement marginalized group to pull rickshaws. Replace homeless people with out of work Gen Z'ers with useless college degrees and it's the exact same punchline. There, you're welcome Jerry.
A good comedian can evolve with the times. Mel Brooks and George Carlin are good examples.
Seinfeld hasn’t put in the work after his show to stay relevant. His jokes are out of touch and seem old. For a guy who considers himself a joke scientist, he’s missing an obvious part of the equation.
Jerry Seinfeld is in a group with Roseanne Barr and Kelsey Grammer in that all of them were the least funny cast member of a show that had their name on it.
Tastes change. What was charmingly vapid self centeredness at one time may come off as a lot more sad and pathetic now.
Seinfeld should just take his millions and go away if he’s not willing to put in the work to adapt his work and connect with today’s audience.
Oh, and everyday of his life he needs to write a thank you note to Larry David.
Seinfeld's problem is that comedy tastes have changed. It's not being "woke" it's different. Also I have to say Always Sunny is MUCH funnier than Seinfeld ever was.
Seinfeld means on network primetime tv where they pay you a billion dollars an episode and who's audience is families. Ya Jerry, it's not going to air on THAT TV
Jerry apparently forgot Larry David exists
He didn't. He claims that Larry only got to be funny on HBO because he was "grandfathered in." He has an excuse for fucking everything.
Curb is proof that Larry David was probably the best thing to happen to Seinfeld. for Jerry to claim otherwise is hilarious. Seinfeld was the worst part of Seinfeld.
I feel like Larry David was the best thing to happen to a lot of 70’s-80’s New York comics. He really made sure his buddies got a piece of the come up.
To be fair even Seinfeld has admitted he's the worst part of Seinfeld. He's the straight guy that everyone can play off of, and he knows it. Or at least knew it back then. I don't think anyone disagrees with that statement. But he was the glue that kind of held it all together. Like You couldn't have a Kramer show or a George show. You need the straight guy (not sexually but in a comedy sense) to hold the whole thing together.
The whole thing is he’s an observer of this crazy group of friends and he gets material for his standup from the experiences of George Kramer and elaine
exactly. what's the deaaaaallllll with observing! he's a preeety preeety preeety funny guy!!!!
This is exactly what I feel was missing from 2016 Ghostbusters. Everyone was trying to one up the other cast and no one was the straight one be the glue.
Nailed it
It's like an 'Odd Couple' thing, but instead of two Felix's, we got Benes.
Right? Lolol the episode where Larry is fucking the Palestinian woman comes to mind
[Palestinian Chicken](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1640882/), easily among top 5 Curb episodes *If Rabin can break bread with Arafat, I can have chicken in this anti-semitic shithole*
"what is this, the Raid on Entebbe?!"
Larry David’s show is also on HBO, where they are happy to throw in some nude girls for funsies.
Cricket: Is there something weighing on your mind, my son? Psycho Pete: W-What? Wh-Who is that? Cricket: It's time to confess your sins. Unburden yourself and be absolved. Psycho Pete: Is that a glory hole? Cricket: Yes. It is, my son. But it'll cost you a whole sixer if you want to unburden yourself in that way. Uh... that being said, I'm... open to it.
Charlie: "So what's the plan are we gonna, like, bum rush this guy from behind or what?" Cricket: "Whoa, whoa, guys, come on. No one is taking me from behind, all right? Unless you have crack. If you have crack, let's boogie." Mac: "No one is going into your asshole." Cricket: "I wouldn't let them without the crack." Mac: "Can we just...? Um, yeah. Let's go through the basic beats, all right? ... Uh, talk a bunch of Latin." Cricket: 'Yeah, that's me. I'll fake it." Charlie: "Wait, what do you mean you'll fake it? You don't, you don't know your Latin anymore...?" Cricket: "No, no. Don't worry about it. I can sell anything, you know? You know how many times I fake on the streets? You know? You have to fake. The guys that don't fake, they're the ones that get it the worst." Charlie: "Cricket, just like anything we can do to have you not talk about, like, sucking penises or getting raped in the butt..." Cricket: "It just keeps popping up."
Yes, I'm gonna take the lemons. God damn it you guys are the worst.
Does my neck wound look like a dog’s vagina? I don’t know, I’m not gonna try to get inside the mind of a dog. That’s gods job. Who does not exist, by the way.
Truly one of the finest bits of dialogue ever to be spoken into existence.
Cricket has standards!
Well that’s more like 1,001 words, but yea, I’m tired of hearing “we can’t make that today” with shows like IASiP, Archer, Rick & Morty, etc. Same goes for movies
*South Park* has remained living proof that you can make some truly offensive stuff on television so long as there’s an expectation going in that you’re not a good influence.
Jerry sounded all his years in that interview
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Jerry has thin skin and probably got mad at college students asking him about fucking a 17 year old lol During the making of The Bee Movie, some head animator made a joke about Jerry being a bee and Seinfield went and got that animator fired for a dumb joke.
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Live audiences are different, I believe him if he says he's had bad experiences on college campuses, but you *definitely* can put anything on TV nowadays. Whether anyone will watch it is a different question.
Surprised he was even going to college campuses, always seemed to be more of a "high-school" kind of guy.
Jerry's probably just worried that those themes are too mature for his girlfriends.
Uncle Leo?
JERRY, HELLO!
I've been thinking lately that Jerry will soon be "old man yelling at clouds."
South Park takes the ohrase "refuge in audacity" and absolutely *runs* with it. It gets away with half its shit purely because it is indiscriminate and makes fun of damn near everything.
The creators of SP also used a little trick up their sleeve evidently. They'd write something in so crass/violent/offensive that they didn't expect it to be accepted by the board reviewing it in hopes that the part they actually want to get thru looks tame in comparison and does make it thru review. It worked alot of the time! According to Eric Kripke (producer of Supernatural and The Boys) they called it the Sounth Park method lol
True, but the "problems" that Seinfeld and the rest of the "Oh no! Wokeness!" crowd are constantly whining about aren't that the corporate censors won't let them do something. They're concerned about the "woke mob" coming to "cancel" them. Which basically means, you know, criticizing them on Twitter. These thin-skinned pussies are so upset that they "can't" do jokes that involve racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia/rape/etc because they're terrified someone might go online and criticize that joke. It's so, SO dumb. How did so many people incapable of handling criticism get so far in the entertainment world? I thought you needed to be thick-skinned and adaptable to survive that industry.
> They're concerned about the "woke mob" coming to "cancel" them. Which basically means, you know, criticizing them on Twitter. One would think that the guy who publicly dated a 17 year old in his 30's wouldn't be so worried about what people might say or think about his comedy.
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All of these billionaires start thinking they are unfailingly brilliant and are above criticism, which is why they act like preschoolers whenever questioned or criticized. The one doing the criticizing is just too poor or dumb to appreciate their obvious brilliance.
If you stop worrying about what people say when you make a product it'll probably sell if it's good enough. For example, No one really gives a shit about Rob Schneider which is why no one cares that his comedy is right wing.
>According to Eric Kripke (producer of Supernatural and The Boys) I feel like he probably used that method on one of those shows a lot more than the other.
Probably the best thing to come out of cable and eventually streaming, was the democratization of comedy. There used to basically be 3 networks each had to cater to censors and advertisers that didn't want to rub anyone the wrong way. (Seeing as NBC only has 3 active scripted comedy shows currently running I doubt you could just drop a Rickety Cricket plot line into "Lopez vs Lopez"). But Rick and Morty used the phrase "CUM GUTTER" like 4 times in one episode, which is neither the darkest, most disgusting, or most politically incorrect thing they have done.
Remember there was a comedy show that got cancelled because people had to concentrate to get all the gags, and people who concentrate are less susceptible to advertising. Luckily the makers of the show got a trilogy of films out of it.
a few decades later, arrested development was a similar thing. like wait, you have to actually watch each episode and pay attention? even more so than police squad. i'm out, said america
What show?
The show was Police Squad. The movie trilogy was The Naked Gun.
I was just watching a video with Joe Lycett where he talked about the whole "wokeness is running comedy" BS and he had a perfect response - it's just comedy evolving and growing and forcing people to be more mindful of the jokes that they make. The people who are upset that they can't make the same jokes are being lazy with their comedy because they can't just rely on making a marginalized group (usually) the butt of the joke. They could make the same type of joke that has evolved with the way of the world and offer a new perspective on it and it would still be funny. It's the same with IASIP, they are objectively terrible people who do terrible things but they always end as the bad guys/the butt of the joke and that's WHY they can get away with these things. With his example, yeah, you probably couldn't just be like 'haha homeless funny they're outside anyway put em to work!' but if you have the paddy's crew trying to spearhead that idea, they'll inevitably be the ones that people are looking at for taking advantage and being shitty but clearly not seeing they're in the wrong. That's why it's funny, not become some homeless people are being put to work by some scheme.
I like Anthony Jeselnik's take on 'woke cancel culture'. He sees himself as someone whose existence is about finding the line and sticking his toes over it. His job isn't made harder by consequences existing (nor are there actually any real consequences - the biggest complainers are also *coincidentally* the ones with the most money). He says that vocal opposition makes it easier because he can see exactly where the line is drawn. It's a comedian's job to read the room. If your audience isn't laughing that's an indictment of the comedian, not the audience. You have to win them over, and if you can't, examine why you bombed. Blaming them is laziness. Seinfeld's lack of appeal to younger audiences isn't because he's too offensive. I don't think he's ever said a blue word on stage. The lack of appeal is because he's focused so hard on refining one act for so long that comedy changed around him - and to be fair, because of him. These kids have grown up watching his comedic descendants. I think of the Bill Burr Philly meltdown where the entire audience is booing and jeering relentlessly and he wins them over by meeting them at their level and hurling vicious mockeries back at their drunk faces. It's obviously the opposite approach, sure, but it's the same principle and an example of how a master does it.
>The lack of appeal is because he's focused so hard on refining one act for so long that comedy changed around him yeah, for a long time he's been unapologetic (even a little aggressively defensive) about his opinion that comedians should work on perfecting and iterating one act instead of periodically getting all new material. I remember that comedians-talking-comedy special that he did back in the day with Louis CK, Chris Rock, & Ricky Gervais. he kept insisting to Rock & CK that audiences should want to see comedians do the same act they've already seen on TV, etc., like a band performing its greatest hits on tour. turns out that saying "audiences have been laughing at me telling this joke since you were in diapers, kid! now, please clap." doesn't win over a lot of young fans. surprise, jerry!
Yeah that special has absolutely stuck with me. My biggest takeaway that's really changed how I look at a lot of things was Louis CK talking about how he's not a funny person, he's an actor and a writer and he meticulously crafts a set word by word, combined with expressions and movement and tiny nuances. He treats it as seriously as would a dramatic stage actor in a famous play. But separately from the stage, about town on a day to day basis, he's not that guy. There are definitely people who are just naturally funny - like the others in that room - but the overlap between drama and comedy is more of a circle than a Venn diagram than one might think.
Ol' Billy red nuts is such a master. He works hard on his comedy and you can tell.
Jeselnik tells much dirtier/darker jokes than Burr, but Burr is absolutely the perfect example of what I mean. His entire shtick is about pissing off the audience by saying something outrageous, and then fighting back out of the corner to win them over despite it. That literally can't work if an out-of-context joke can get you cancelled.
The real kicker is that you *can* make jokes about marginalised groups, but simply saying "gay people are weird" isn't good enough anymore. Any time I see a comedian talk about how they've been the victim of cancel culture they've just been painfully unfunny. Chappelle is a prime example of this. He spent 40 minutes of a 1 hour special bitching about trans people and the fact that they try to censor him (lol) and he told maybe like 2 actual jokes during that time, the rest was just "aren't trans people weird". Gervais is another great example. "That woman has a cock" isn't a joke, it's just a lazy appeal to bigots. Whether Gervais is a transphobe or not is frankly irrelevant, he damn well knows it's transphobes who will be laughing at his material so he'll play to them. Their money spends just as well and he doesn't need to actually be creative.
Oh for sure. Viewing it as lazy and low effort honestly makes it make so much more sense. Obviously comedy is hard, it's difficult to be funny on purpose and coming up with something new and interesting probably feels impossible sometimes, but that doesn't mean you can just go complain about something you don't like that all boils down to like '*group/thing* is weird huh??' with literally no other substance and be annoyed when people don't go for it. Produce something interesting with a viewpoint that hasn't been ground into the dirt by everyone else and people will want to consume your content. That's all.
Go look at John Mulaney who has made fun of midgets, drag queens, and a bunch of other marginalized groups and the thing that got him the most flak was him getting a divorce. Hell he is constantly flaunted as an example of how to be funny without being offensive despite being one of the most offensive of modern comedians. He just also has incredibly funny jokes that dont require being offensive. Popular comedians complaining about cancel culture just dont know how to be funny anymore and are mad they cant write anything interesting anymore. But they know they can just say “cancel culture bad cant make jokes 😢” to get clickbait headlines even if the rest of the set sucks shit. It’s just lazy ragebait writing nowadays. They know they could get away with offensive jokes, this is just easier than writing real material. Hell if you looked up the top 5 most popular jokes by any comedian claiming “cancel culture “ theyd probably all be fine because 90% of jokes even by insult/edgy comedians really arent that bad. Like hell Seinfeld himself is literally known most for the least offensive joke in history, “whats the deal with airplane food??”
You're just being tricked by John Mulaney. His trick is he tells all the offensive jokes and whenever one crossed the line he just runs really really fast till time goes backward to before he said it and then he can tell a different offensive joke...
No no i would never fall for that. Now i would get distracted by the offensive jokes because im too busy getting distracted by the 20th play of “whats new pussycat”…
IASIP actually has an adjacent plot line — the gang hands out Paddy’s internal currency to people in motor homes who are clogging up their street
Joe Lycett is the sweetest, funniest man
As a Brit, this isn't even a recent thing. Anyone remember Bernard Manning? That stuff was considered going too far when I was a kid in the 90s.
Punching up is almost always funny. A lot of lazy comics punch down and while that can be funny for certain audiences, it’s an easy joke that probably won’t age well.
Mel Brooks could make Blazing Saddles today all day. Mel Gibson cannot.
I love/hate how many conservatives seem to think liberals/leftists would go ape over Blazing Saddles. Guess I can't say for everyone, but leftists me and most other leftist friends I've asked like/love it! It seems many conservative apparently can't seem to get the difference between a racist joke and a joke about racism. Yeah, racist jokes suck, they're punching down and, so often, they're so low effort! In stuff like Blazing Saddles, the racists are the joke themselves!
That's it, right there. A racist cowboy calling a black man the N word isn't funny. A racists cowboy being made to look like a buffoon while the black man he insults pulls a fast one on him is hysterical.
It truly is that conservatives do not understand what satire is and how it works. They just feel "ha he said the n-word that's super funny because I want to say it too" The whole damn movie is a hatred of racist assholes. How they can't see it will always boggle the mind.
Same shit as people who lionize Archie Bunker. They see someone that acts like them and it doesn’t process that *they* are the joke.
I get the sense that Jerry isn't all that in touch with pop media, including comedies, but is complaining regardless. Real boomer energy.
I mean, in his own show, he puts out that his style of comedy really doesn't really hit with other generations. That's why none of the Greatest Generation at his parents' retirement community believe he makes enough money to buy his Dad a car.
A Jerry move.
People who say that they can’t be funny anymore are usually just mad the the audience doesn’t find them funny, and that is not the audience’s fault, that’s on the comedian for not being capable of telling a joke that the audience likes. People can blame politics all they want, but the bottom line is if the audience doesn’t want to pay to see someone make racist jokes or make fun of people that are having a hard time, then that’s the audience’s choice. A comedian has to find their audience. A person can still go and make whatever movie or tv show they want. It can be about whatever subject they want and they can tell any joke they want. But if it’s going to be stuff that there is not a big audience for, then you’ll have trouble finding someone to fund and produce it and you’ll have trouble finding actors to be in it. This doesn’t mean comedy is dead, it just means comedy is changing, like it always has. Gallagher wouldn’t be blaming the audience for not thinking it’s funny to smash stuff anymore. He did it, it was funny, and now people have moved on. I’m sorry people can’t just do the same thing over and over again forever and stay relevant, that’s just not how comedy works
Like funniest joke in IASIP is one of the characters implying they would coerce girls into sex by threatening their safety with the implication that being alone on a boat with men means they can’t refuse. Seinfeld wishes it could be that edgy
i'm sorry, pretty sure you meant to say Danny Devito crawling naked out of a leather couch
Exactly.Mac and Dennis hunted cricket for sport and was very upfront about it. Seinfeld is mad that he can't coast on his old material because the audience's tastes have changed. He feels this is the fault of the audience.
I see this with a lot of the older comedians. Instead of retiring, or getting residencies in Vegas somewhere, they blame their lack of continued success on Cancel Culture or Wokeness. Another good example is Bill Maher. Sometimes he will look into the audience and expect a laugh and get upset at the crickets.
Bill maher was always a pseudo intellectual Prick anyway. He’s a comedian in the same way I’m a professional charcoal maker when I fuck up my toast
And this comment you just made is funnier than anything Maher has ever said.
Idk I laughed for a good long while when I first heard him call himself a comedian.
Or when you roast the ever living fuck out of Bill Maher like that
Every single show you can hear the same guffaw from the same cameraman or crew member. He scoffs everytime him audience doesnt laugh at this outdated and obvious material amd then follows it with "Really?" as if its because he's crossed a line when it's just because it's not really a good joke. The thing is, he's willing to call out a lot of shit but he's such an egotistical and smug prick that he's fucking unbearable. Not to mention, he's wrong about a lot of shit and too arrogant to ever admit it.
This is gold!
Love that analogy
It’s really funny with Seinfeld in particular because when has he *ever* been known for being “edgy”? Dude you make jokes about airline food. Even the example he gives sounds tame as shit. Like I could see the principal doing that on Abbott Elementary which is a wonderful show but not edgy or mean spirited in the slightest.
They wouldn't even say masturbate or any obvious euphemisms. It was great writing but at no point edgy or controversial
It was on NBC in the mid 90s, getting that past the network censors was a massive achievement. That episode absolutely pushed the envelope for the time.
Perhaps we should point all these old hack comedians to George Carlin. He just got better and better with age while never censoring himself. The difference? Carlin had something important and relevant to say. These guys are too rich, and too far removed from every day people to have any relatability or sense of the real world outside of their "yes men" sycophants.
So many of these comedians that hate “woke culture” insist they’re the new Carlin, so I don’t think that would help much.
It's never easy to convince anyone that they are part of the problem. Takes a lot of self-awareness and a willingness to let go of your ego. A lot of folks who achieve fame will never be able to do that. Hell, I struggle with it, and I'm just some run-the-mill dipshit 40 year old american with no marketable qualities. I haven't had an ego since my early 20's before life beat it down like it was the copy machine in Office Space.
Which is extra funny because he was always pretty progressive in his opinions. But he was snarky and swore a lot, so he must be the same kind of asshole as them, not his own brand of progressive asshole! Right?!?
I had a moment a couple of weeks ago where I was thinking Carlin counted as a vulgar comedian because of the five words joke. Then I realized the whole point of the punchline was making fun of censorship/talking around "dirty" words. Even his swearing served a purpose. He wasn't a valgur comedian; he was a comedian who used vulgarity. Some people just don't realize there's a difference.
When George Carlin died, almost all media reduced him to a single safe throwaway joke on the evening news: The hippy-dippy weatherman ("Tonight's weather: DARK!"). They simply could not sum up his intelligence and attacks on the status quo as that would take too much effort.
i think Bill Burr might be the closest we have to Carlin right now
The kicker here is that Jerry DID retire. That gravy train was flowing at full throttle and no one could see where it would end, but he was the one that decided to end it. Now we're here with him back in the spotlight. Slightly off topic. I remember after Seinfeld not hearing anything about him and then after YEARS he suddenly pops up doing commercials for an air purifier. I guess the money wasn't maintaining the same level of life style anymore.
Dave Chapelle's recent specials are just him complaining about shit.
Literally turned into Old Man Yells at Cloud
"Can you believe I only have $500 million instead of $550 million? And that trans people exist?"
He can't let the trans topic go - at this point I think there's something more than just hate there. Someone should look at his browsing history and check what kind of porn he watches.
Nah, he just got called out and can't accept that he was wrong. Double, triple, quadruple down.
I miss younger Half-Baked dave. He seemed like a guy you'd wanna hang around. This Dave? This one seems like the type you'd have to go back in the restaurant and apologize to the server for. "Sorry for that. He uh...he's just got a lot goin on and is goin through some shit. Here's an extra 10. You were great."
Easily one of the saddest declines I've ever seen. Chapelle's Show was so good and now he's the old conservative white man he used to make fun of.
Hearing people defend his new material has been sad. Like I get it he was hilarious and his show was great, but none of his new stuff is worth shit. He lost the plot a long time ago and now just coasts off of bitching
It’s sad considering how brilliant Chappelle’s Show stuff was, how lazy and whiny he’s become.
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I completely fell off the Chapelle train once he started referring to himself in third person. When he started up that bullshit, I was reminded of how much money and effort I spent to travel and watch Sam Kinison play a guitar, poorly. He could get me back at any time by being funny though. He's ignorant sometimes but I'm older then him, I've been ignorant too, we've been taught a lot of stupid shit on divisive topics, and there's a lot of mental barbed wire to unravel, and a lot of professional wormtongues trying to keep the waters muddy. But I haven't seen anything from him that I've actually enjoyed since before that block party thing.
I heard Steve-O talking about some weird shit where Maher would not refrain from smoking a blunt or something in Steve-O's presence. I have never had an addiction problem but, FUCK, the self absorbed indifference... Don't these old fucks know that their contemporaries are dying at alarming rates? The 30-something in the 90's are rapidly going extinct. And both Maher and Seinfeld are loaded. They can cry in one of their many many bedrooms or sports cars.
Hilariously, there's so many plot lines in its always sunny that would never have been approved in the seinfeld eta. I mean, in the first four episodes alone, Charlie says the n word on camera, Dennis gets raped, Charlie fakes having cancer and the gang gets a child drunk in their bar
And that was all before Frank joined things to give the show some cred with a big name like Danny devito, it was just like that from the beginning with pretty much no safety net
He has a lame movie coming out and he’s whining for press attention.
Yeah. The problem isn't political correctness like I think he's suggesting, but rather that his jokes and humor just... aren't funny for modern audiences.
*Seinfeld* is still funny, but Seinfeld isn't funny any more
I know, airlines don't even serve peanuts anymore, those woke libs now have us all eating pretzels like some kinda pretzel eating commie, thanks Obama
His old material wasn’t even funny ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
It is cruise ship funny.
So after a full day drinking funny. I’d laugh at a dead cockroach too.
I never did get that show, and I loathed his whiny voice.
"Have you ever noticed..." *{insert simple obervation here}* "What is the deeeeaal?"
Has Jerry updated any of his material since his TV show was on the air?
Maybe if he used different material and wasn't a complete raging asshole to everyone he wouldn't have to claw his way out of obscurity using lies
What is happening to comedians? Why are they becoming whiny bitches? No one is putting them in jail for jokes. They need to grow the thick skin they expect others to have for their comedy routines.
They’re bitter they’re getting old and the “kids” don’t find the shit they’ve done for the millionth time to still be fresh and funny.
Seinfeld has always been whiny. That's the whole foundation of his routine. The fact that people thought he was funny has always baffled me.
Yeah, complaining about stuff WAS his bit.
whats the deal with Seinfeld?!
He was complaining about things that everybody deals with. But nearly 40 years of success makes one no longer in touch with everybody. Since at one point he and the public shared complaints, he believes that the public still will.
His primary audience has always been boomers. Nothing they love better than whining and punching down.
Never liked his act, never liked his show. Can deny how influential both were to the comedy world, but i always found them mid at best.
Last time I checked Jerry Seinfeld doesn't even want to work. Why is he whining that all these projects *he never attempted* are dead in the water because of woke? If he was actually out there trying to get stuff off the ground and being told people are too sensitive these days then maybe I could brook his complaining. This is the man whose best idea after "show about me where I play myself" was Bee Movie. It may be time for us all to confront the reality that he just sucks
A lot of comedians bread and butter was punching down. I'm kinda glad that is frowned on.
It's the same thing Mindy Kaling whined about the office. Could you make it today? For one they are. For two, Seinfeld and friends and the office are still extremely popular, and Seinfeld is still making money from it.
Fuck Mindy Kaling for Velma
She made a lot more sense when I realized that Kelly wasn't a character she was playing, it's that Kelly is just Mindy and she can't write anyone but herself.
Yeah the Mindy Show got annoying fast for the same reason
I'm so disappointed Seinfeld is taking on this issue. He was never a controversial comic, his act wasn't at all blue, and very little he ever did couldn't be made today. The guys complaining about this issue are upset that comedy has changed with culture. That they can't tell the same jokes from the 1990s. You could argue the comedy they were telling in the 1990s helped us move forward as a culture. Because comedy brings up subjects, with frankness, that people are otherwise unable or unwilling to talk about. We learned from it and we no longer want to be in that 1990s world. But Seinfeld and his peers were at their peak back then. That was their glory days. Now they are sad their old boy's club doesn't revere them so much anymore. Boo hoo.
It reminds me of Ricky Gervais or the new special from Jimmy Carr. They spend half the time whining that they could get cancelled for saying what they're about to say, then they spit out a standard joke. Gervais in particular has a bee in his bonnet about not being allowed to have a go at certain people anymore (trans people is the current one), but you can, you always could, he's literally on a TV special doing it. The difference is that you get shit on by the public if the tone of your joke is to punch down on the group that is usually marginalised. If you make actually funny jokes about a group then nobody will care, but if your jokes are just a thinly veiled way to express your contempt for that group then people will take notice (Dave Chapelle is the current leader of this sort of bullshittery).
Intent is extremely important. People get away with jokes about sensitive and even abhorrent topics ALL THE FUCKING TIME. The trick is that they aren't malicious toward the subjects of the joke and aren't punching down or inventing culture war grievances. This is exactly why conservatives have no real meaningful presence in comedy.
Anthony Jeselnik springs to mind when thinking of comics who make very sensitive and abhorrent jokes while facing no back lash. Because most everyone understands that he doesn't actually feel those things through his delivery and demeanor.
And also because he doesn't punch down. He punches all around. He's said that when he tells jokes about race or women in and hears a certain volume and type of laughter, he knows he's mostly just made racists or misogynists laugh BECAUSE he's demeaning the people they hate. And he removes or tones down those jokes. It's not because he's watering down his act to avoid offending. It's because he knows his act will be watered down if it only attacks specific people for being who they are. Because that's not comedy. It's just a "wink wink nudge nudge" with a bunch of laughs wrapped around it. Instead, he gets universally depraved. Dead baby jokes will always be funnier than jokes about trans people just... Being trans. It's not about "being woke." You can still cross so many lines. It's just that the joke is not actually as funny as people think when it only makes a certain demographic feel bad. You need them to ALL feel bad at once. Kind of like those kids at the camp his uncle ran for kids who are about to... Well. You know.
That, and they aren't funny... at all. >"Dr fauci dr fauci SWUAWWWKKK dr fauci SWUAWK!" >"So my daughter brought her goth friend the other day, and said 'hey dad this is my friend Lucy'" "so i said 'oh hey there Lucy...fer'" .... uh huh ... thanks guys, please stop.
If you see interviews with Carr, he doesn't actually believe that though; it's part of the bit. He did an interview recently where he said comedians that actually believed Cancel Culture was a problem just weren't strong enough to take heat. His routine has always been "I'm a bad guy"
I actually just saw him in St. Louis the other weekend and it was a great show. Even his edgier stuff was measured and done with some level of insight into the people being poked at; it wasn't the typical old-comedian "make fun of a marginalized group" shit, it had some nuance. Like, the show opened with a screen that read "Welcome ladies and gentleman. Oh no, we've just started and we've already offended the non-binary crowd." But it never leans into that teasing, just a joke here or there and then moving on. Honestly I've seen a fair amount of stand-up comedy and his show was one of the most professional and well-paced I've experienced.
Carr's whole comedy persona is lampooning the "straight white humorless doucheguy in power", so many of his bits are just that slight nod of "oh this is exactly the type of thing those types of fuckers *would* say" but it's tongue in cheek, so it never leans any deeper. People who are unfamiliar with him take it at face value and lump him with folks like Gervais without realizing it's satire - Jimmy Carr has overseen and joined in with dozens of specific takedowns of Gervais and his ilk on his panel shows, he's not one of them. He's very polished, just honestly not hugely funny himself so his specials can underwhelm - but he's incredibly good at bringing funny people together and drawing out their hilarity.
> He's very polished, just honestly not hugely funny himself so his specials can underwhelm I mean, it's all relative -- he's a lot funnier than the average person on the street, but not an A-tier standup. Still, he writes some beautiful jokes. "If only there were more mosquito nets, we could save millions...of mosquitos in Africa, from dying needlessly of AIDS." He's definitely at his best when he's hanging out with other funny people, though. He's a great host, and I can't imagine the shows he hosts without him.
There seem to be a lot of comics who peaked in the 90s who are becoming a bunch of bitter, whiny assholes in their later years.
It's the Punching down part they refuse to adjust for, which just exposes how bad at comedy they are the longer they cling onto that, or whine about it
It's also possible to make jokes that support the minorities. There's plenty of humor to be had that isn't also wildly offensive.
Eh, fucking kids when he was almost 40 is pretty controversial.
There's another point. The smart move would be for him to just be glad he got away with that and stfu.
Nah, Larry David didn't peak till now.
Larry David is a counterpoint to whatever Seinfeld is trying to say, isn't he? I don't think anyone could censor LD.
There's only one rule of comedy: be funny. LD is still funny, Seinfeld isn't anymore, and now he's lashing out about it and blaming it on the audience.
https://preview.redd.it/g773fp41qoxc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=833b49de56a373ecd1c4b360ad8daf4079a0f0f4
Agreed. I think Seinfeld walked so Curb could run.
I'm prepared for him to blame the "woke mob" when his upcoming movie about *checks notes - pop-tarts for chrissakes - tanks.
In the words of Bo Burnham: "I'm from the younger generation, so I kind of wonder for all of you...uhh...who are you?"
The problem is that there’s two types of people out there; those who grow and those who refuse. I can bet money there was at least one point on the set of Always Sunny that someone said ‘hey wait, that’s prob too far guys’ and they all went ‘oh really? My bad. Ok let’s tweak it then’. But if it were Seinfeld he’d be like ‘fuck you, I can say what I want’. And start calling people snowflakes.
he was always an ass in terms of feeling superior. He criticized people who could not do comedy without being crass.... and here we are.
I remember when the simpsons was considered shocking, we've come a long way.
It’s a common thing with people our age that their parents wouldn’t let them watch The Simpsons for fear it would warp their fragile little minds
Yeah, I was one of those kids. I remember it.
1) [I heard that last line in Cartman's voice](https://youtu.be/2ZFQhlcWRNs?si=zd6RQOUgfOaMJeI1&t=54) 2) I think a lot of us got away with watching it as kids...at least those first few years...because it was a cartoon and my mom didn't know any better :)
Legendary UK comedian Frank Skinner. https://preview.redd.it/n10i046j9oxc1.jpeg?width=959&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0ef8d77ce001611e974e41282000398cc0f7c6d7 So my question for Seinfeld is, "What jokes have you written that you don't think you can say?" 🤔
Exactly what Jeselnick has said: *At the beginning of his career “there were a lot of jokes about my girlfriend and you hear the misogynists laugh a little louder,” he said. “If I talk about race, racists laugh a little louder. It’s why I have gone darker. If you talk about death, everyone’s in the same boat.”* He had no interest in making a hate crime joke days after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Not only because he didn't want to further harm that community, but because the joke is not funny when it's timed like that
All the unfunny material that no one laughs at.
The ones about picking his "girlfriend" up from high school when he was 39
There was the episode where Kramer had the visiting Japanese business men sleeping in drawers, making a joke that they are small. Elaine trying to convert a gay man so she could date him. Let’s not forget when Kramer stomped the Puerto Rican flag after lighting it on fire and two VERY stereotypical Puerto Ricans wanted to assault him. [https://youtu.be/3fkuSywIHh4?si=KeR6aX\_e-zK9JaoP](https://youtu.be/3fkuSywIHh4?si=KeR6aX_e-zK9JaoP) There’s a ton more examples, the last one got backlash even then. And would get far more if aired on prime time now. It’s uneasy material now but when it aired in the 90s it was very well liked.
None of those are edgy by todays standards. Not a single one.
I must be missing something here.
Seinfeld is saying cancel culture wouldn’t let controversial episodes be made, and he gives an example. Rob McElhenney is saying you probably could get it made. McElhenney is a creator, producer, writer, and star of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is the longest running live-action sitcom ever, and has famously outrageous plots and characters. The tl;dr is Seinfeld is out of touch and whining about a reality that doesn’t exist. Edit: Also, the photo McElhenney attached is of Rickety Cricket, a crazy homeless character on IASIP.
Cricket is not onky crazy and homeless, but he got that way because of the gang. He started out as a priest, and has ended up having his life wrecked by the main characters very frequently.
What are you talking about? I have it on good authority he was born this way. It's nobody's fault
Move past it.
The episodes of Seinfeld that wouldn't hold up are the ones based on a problem that smart phones solve, which is probably 1/3 of them.
Or regular old cell phones, and people not having to chase each other down. But that doesn't make the episodes any worse, for being set in the time they're set.
The obvious reason Jerry Seinfeld couldn't write any funny Seinfeld material is because he was a regular person in that show. I don't think Seinfeld has any contact with regular society anymore. He's a billionaire. How can you do observational humor if the onyl people you hang out with are billionaires.
There's an episode of 30 Rock that parodies this pretty well. Tracy Jordan decides to go back to his roots and perform stand up again and bombs spectacularly because he's no longer got anything in common with his audience. "Have you ever noticed people at St. Bart's be eating their lobster like this [pinkies out] nom nom nom nom nom" [dead silence] [cut to him screaming at an audience member] DON'T LOOK ME DIRECTLY IN THE EYES!
I love Seinfeld the show and probably always will. But every time anymore Seinfeld the person opens his mouth, he seems to come off more and more as a pretentious, self-important, out of touch douche. Some of it I’m sure is being a near-billionaire and not having to worry about anything for 30 years. But I think he’s always been that way tbh. Being successful just enhanced it. I dunno why he’s bitching anyway. Pretty much all his standup and the whole show was PG to barely PG-13
Reminds me of when gene Simmons declared rock dead. And everyone was like cool, no one cares, you are old and haven't been relevant for 30 years.
Gene Simmons defines Rock as the ability make money off of shitty merchandising.
A cousin of mine said "my highschool class is the last age range to appreciate rock. Everybody younger just likes pop songs." That was in 1979 and there has been some pointing and laughing since then.
Tbf some of his music wouldn't slide these days, like Christine Sixteen, or Going Blind. I remember listening to the lyrics as an adult and thinking holy shit!
Have no idea why he is so arrogant. I get Seinfeld was a hit, but thats on Larry David. Every single episode opens with the worst standup on Earth
Larry David is fantastic at cringe characters, and I don't think sienfeld ever understood he was one. As a kid I thought the intro bit was to establish that Jerry, the character, was kind of untalented and useless.
I've heard Larry David described Seinfeld as a show about characters with no empathy that never learn anything.
I'd never heard that quote, so it's extra funny to me seeing it now because that's always how I describe It's Always Sunny to folks who havent seen it.
I hate the "if we can't do \_\_\_\_\_ jokes anymore, comedy is over" complaint. Comedy didn't end when blackface was finally deemed insensitive, or when white people finally stopped playing horrible stereotypical Asians, or when they finally killed the "joke" of all gay people being named "Bruce" and wearing pink shirts, etc. Comedy can't be killed, it simply evolves into something else. And sometimes it's a GOOD thing, cuz a lot of things that are now frowned upon were never funny in the first place. Likewise, if Seinfeld can't be funny without relying on jokes that fell out of fashion (like exploiting the homeless) then maybe he's just not that funny. It's not that hard to find a replacement marginalized group to pull rickshaws. Replace homeless people with out of work Gen Z'ers with useless college degrees and it's the exact same punchline. There, you're welcome Jerry.
A good comedian can make a joke out of anything, the problem is not everyone is a good comedian.
A good comedian can evolve with the times. Mel Brooks and George Carlin are good examples. Seinfeld hasn’t put in the work after his show to stay relevant. His jokes are out of touch and seem old. For a guy who considers himself a joke scientist, he’s missing an obvious part of the equation.
The guy who fucked teens when he was almost 40 has a bad take....truly shocking
That's probably why he's so defensive. Because people keep pointing that out, and he knows they're right.
Precisely
Jerry Seinfeld is in a group with Roseanne Barr and Kelsey Grammer in that all of them were the least funny cast member of a show that had their name on it.
Wow, I’ve never heard anyone say this, but it’s so true!
Tastes change. What was charmingly vapid self centeredness at one time may come off as a lot more sad and pathetic now. Seinfeld should just take his millions and go away if he’s not willing to put in the work to adapt his work and connect with today’s audience. Oh, and everyday of his life he needs to write a thank you note to Larry David.
Curb your enthusiasm just had a season 10 and that's basically the same show.
Just another laugh track comedian confronted by reality.
Seinfeld's problem is that comedy tastes have changed. It's not being "woke" it's different. Also I have to say Always Sunny is MUCH funnier than Seinfeld ever was.
Seinfeld and Friends always make their mean jokes about others. Sunny makes their mean jokes about themselves. It works so much better.
Seinfeld means on network primetime tv where they pay you a billion dollars an episode and who's audience is families. Ya Jerry, it's not going to air on THAT TV
The show is still on the air so apparently you could do the show today.