Following his interview the other week declaring the movie business as being dead and movies no longer the top of the entertainment food chain, comedian/actor and now filmmaker Jerry Seinfeld has more to say – this time about TV comedy.
In a new interview with The New Yorker to promote his Netflix feature directorial effort “Unfrosted,” the former “Seinfeld” lead has blamed the “extreme left” for the death of the sitcom on TV.
He says “nothing really affects comedy, and “people always need it”. However, viewers are no longer watch TV in order to get their comedy fix like they did in decades past, and there’s a reason for that:
“It used to be, you would go home at the end of the day, most people would go, ‘Oh, ‘Cheers’ is on. Oh, ‘MASH’ is on. Oh, ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ is on. ‘All in the Family’ is on.’ You just expected, ‘There’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight.’ Well, guess what – where is it? This is the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people.”
He goes on to cite an episode of “Seinfeld” in which Kramer decides to start a business in which he recruits homeless people to pull rickshaws. His justification? “They’re outside anyway”. Seinfeld says:
“Do you think I could get that episode on the air today?… We would write a different joke with Kramer and the rickshaw today. We wouldn’t do that joke. We’d come up with another joke. They move the gates like in the slalom. Culture – the gates are moving. Your job is to be agile and clever enough that, wherever they put the gates, I’m going to make the gate.”
So where are they getting it these days? Seinfeld says stand-up comics have flourished in this time:
“We are not policed by anyone. 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.”
The full interview is up on The New Yorker website. His film “Unfrosted,” about the creation of Pop-Tarts, streams on Netflix beginning May 3rd.
