Renowned stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld made headlines this week for criticizing the “extreme left” for ruining comedy.
The quote came out during a wide-ranging Sunday interview with The New Yorker about the state of comedy and Seinfeld’s upcoming film “Unfrosted.”
When asked about how the “serious aspects of the world” are impacting comedy, the ’90s sitcom star claimed that “the extreme left and P.C. crap” are to blame for the lack of universally praised comedy television shows.
“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.’ 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 told the outlet.
As mentioned above, that story was covered ad nauseam this past week.
What was not quite as well-covered, however, was what Seinfeld said next.
After his above comments, The New Yorker pressed about Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
If Seinfeld was correct about how P.C. culture had ruined comedy television, then how had “Seinfeld” co-creator David been able to create such a successful comedy show in today’s day and age?
The stand-up legend then clarified.
Do you agree with Seinfeld?
“Larry was grandfathered in,” Seinfeld said.
“He’s old enough so that—’I don’t have to observe those rules, because I started before you made those rules.’”
If “Seinfeld” had been made today, with David and Seinfeld not having yet earned their stripes in the entertainment industry, many of the show’s most famous jokes would not have flied, in Seinfeld’s opinion.
“We did an episode of the series in the nineties where 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 said.
In his opinion, under the same circumstances — i.e. if Larry David had not been “grandfathered in” — many of the best “Curb Your Enthusiasm” jokes would not have been allowed either.
“Right, right. If Larry was thirty-five, he couldn’t get away with the watermelon stuff and Palestinian chicken . . . and HBO knows that’s what people come here for, but they’re not smart enough to figure out, How do we do this now?” Seinfeld said.
“Do we take the heat, or just not be funny? And what they’ve decided to be is, Well, we’re not going to do comedies anymore. There were no sitcoms picked up on the fall season of all four networks. Not one. No new sitcoms.”
