Jerry Seinfeld's recent interview with the New Yorker is prompting a serious reckoning amongst comedians about the state of modern television sitcoms and comedy more generally. Among those weighing in is It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia co-creator Rob McElhenney.

Seinfeld told the New Yorker in a profile published recently entitled The Scholar of Comedy that the lack of comedy shows on TV these days is “the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people.”

He cited Seinfeld episodes that wouldn't be approved as appropriate topics nowadays: “[One would be] Kramer decides to start a business of having homeless people pull rickshaws because, as he says, ‘They’re outside anyway.' Do you think I could get that episode on the air today?” he wondered.

Rob McElhenney responded to the quote on X/Twitter with a picture of one of his most infamous character creations on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Rickety Cricket, and the one word caption, “Probably.”

It's unclear though whether McElhenney was answering Seinfeld's rhetorical question, or whether he was agreeing with Seinfeld's assessment about the state of comedy.

The former seems more likely, since by referencing Rickety Cricket, It's Always Sunny fans seemed to feel McElhenney was alluding to all of the messed up things that character has had to endure right up til the present day.

A former priest who the It's Always Sunny gang have corrupted in numerous destructive ways and on numerous heinous occasions is a fan-favorite beloved recurring character — and McElhenney appeared to be pointing to the fact that his show also travels in seriously un-P.C. comedy, yet still remains on the air and is going strong.

Seinfeld's initial comments though were more specifically aimed at the four major broadcast television networks. “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 explained.

“You just expected, there’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight,” Seinfeld continued. “Well, guess what — where is it?”

He continued, “There were no sitcoms picked up on the fall season of all four networks. Not one. No new sitcoms.”

Seinfeld is correct that there were no traditional multi-camera sitcoms with a laugh track picked up for the fall season, although CBS does have the Damon Wayans and son Damon Wayans Jr. sitcom Poppa's House coming out later this year.

It also has the single-camera, non-laugh-track Young Sheldon spinoff comedy series in the works.

Nevertheless, Seinfeld's comments are prompting a lot of discussion in Hollywood, and McElhenney will likely far from be the only other comedy creator to weigh in on them.

What about Larry David?

Seinfeld also told his New Yorker interviewer that his Seinfeld co-creator and longtime friend Larry David was “grandfathered in” and is thus granted some immunity from current P.C. culture because of his comedic background.

“He’s old enough so that— ‘I don’t have to observe those rules, because I started before you made those rules,'” Seinfeld explained. He continued that “if Larry was 35, he couldn’t get away with” his brand of humor nowadays.

Seinfeld lamented that television networks are “not smart enough” to find a fine line between humor and political correctness anymore.

“HBO knows that’s what people come here for,” he explained, “but they’re not smart enough to figure out, ‘How do we do this now? Do we take the heat, or just not be funny?'”

As Seinfeld elaborated, “What they’ve decided to be is, ‘Well, we’re not going to do comedies anymore'.”

Seinfeld did put some of the onus on comedians as well to navigate the changing cultural atmosphere.

Referring to society's preferences, he said “They move the gates like in the slalom (in skiing).”

“Culture — the gates are moving,” he continued. “Your job is to be agile and clever enough that, wherever they put the gates, I’m going to make the gate.”

He stressed that stand-up comedians can navigate those minefields slightly easier, since they can react to an audience in real time and answer to fewer executives giving them creative notes.

“We are not policed by anyone,” Seinfeld explained.

“The audience polices us. We know when we’re off track. We know instantly and we adjust to it instantly,” he continued.

“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,” Seinfeld lamented.

That may be true but Seinfeld reruns are still tremendously successful on streaming and in syndication. Maybe the show is forgiven because of viewers' awareness that it comes from a different time and comedic era, but Rob McElhenney‘s response for one seems to suggest there's still room for comedians to push boundaries on the air. Regardless, the co-creator and star of the show about nothing, Jerry Seinfeld, certainly has given his fellow comedians something to talk about.