Jerry Seinfeld has blamed the downturn of network TV comedies on “the extreme left and P.C. crap.” In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Seinfeld explained why he believes sitcoms are no longer dominant, with comedy fans filling that void by going to standup shows instead.
“It used to be, you would go home at the end of the day, most people would go, ‘Oh, Cheers is on. Oh, M*A*S*H is on. Oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on. All in the Family is on,” he said. “You just expected, ‘There’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight.’ Well, guess what — where is it 1714416201? This is the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people.”
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Seinfeld went on to tout “stand-up comics,” whom he says “are not policed by anyone.” He continued: “The audience polices us. We know when we’re off track. 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, groups — ‘Here’s our thought about this joke.’ Well, that’s the end of your comedy.”
For example, Seinfeld cited an episode of his eponymous sitcom in which “Kramer decides to start a business of having homeless people pull rickshaws” as a bit that wouldn’t fly today. “We would write a different joke with Kramer and the rickshaw today,” he said. “We wouldn’t do that joke. We’d come up with another joke.”
He also brought up “Palestinian Chicken” and “The Watermelon” as two episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm that Seinfeld co-creator Larry David was only able to make because he was “grandfathered in” at HBO.
Further claiming “culture” is moving the gates “like in the slalom,” Seinfeld vowed to keep up and stay relevant with his standup. “Your job is to be agile and clever enough that, wherever they put the gates, I’m going to make the gate,” he added, before praising comics who make a habit of “stepping over the line.”
“Again, it’s the standups that really have the freedom to do it because no one else gets the blame if it doesn’t go down well,” Seinfeld said. He continued by naming Nate Bargatze, Ronny Chieng, Brian Simpson, Mark Normand, and Sam Morril as some of his favorite standup comics.
Read the full interview at The New Yorker.
Seinfeld, a recently minted billionaire, is gearing up for Unfrosted, his Netflix movie spoofing the invention of Pop-Tarts. The film arrives on the streamer on May 3rd — just after his upcoming appearance at Netflix Is a Joke Fest.