Acquired
01:50:42 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[01:50:42] S0: They don't need to do much from there. They go the entire episode without saying what they are having a contest to try not to do. There's just this giant, unstated elephant. You know exactly what the elephant is the entire episode, and yet it's perfect. It doesn't break any rules, but they break all this new comedic ground. [01:51:07] S1: So apparently, like all or almost all great Seinfeld episodes, this actually also happened to Larry in real life. Course, it did. And Larry... Even Larry was scared of this episode. He would been thinking, no, we can't do it. It's it's too much. But finally here by season four, they've got enough confidence and enough, you know, just no fear attitude. Larry's talking to Jerry and says the idea. And Jerry says, that's funny. Let's do it. So they write the episode, the two of them, in secret. Usually, what they would do in their office on the on the set, the Larry and Jerry's office that they shared together, They had a a whiteboard. So if you watch the Seinfeld reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm, it's in the office. You can see the whiteboard. And on the whiteboard, they have all the plot points for all the characters and the candidates, etcetera, etcetera. So anybody could come in their office, the other writers, the NBC executives, they'd see what's on the whiteboard. They didn't put this one on. They just wrote it in secret. I don't know if they put decoys. That would be even better. [01:52:18] S0: Word did get out though.
01:52:18 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[01:52:18] S0: Word did get out though. [01:52:19] S1: Well, so the story continues. So they have it in secret all throughout the writing process, and then it gets to the table read. So the way the week would work was the cast would do a table read of the script first, and then do some rehearsals, and then they would shoot the episode. This is pretty close to filming. Like, you're well into production week at this point. They bring out the script, and NBC is just like, oh my god. [01:52:48] S0: We're gonna talk about the full schedule, the weekly schedule of making a Seinfeld episode in a few minutes. But know this. When you're at the table read, you are six days from shooting the episode for real in front of a live audience in studio.
01:52:48 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[01:52:48] S0: We're gonna talk about the full schedule, the weekly schedule of making a Seinfeld episode in a few minutes. But know this. When you're at the table read, you are six days from shooting the episode for real in front of a live audience in studio. [01:53:02] S1: Yep. You're pretty close to the point of no return or as close as Larry and Jerry could engineer getting Yes. Before revealing what they were doing. So the broadcast standards department at NBC, which is the in house sensor that is responsible for keeping all of NBC's programming up to broadcast standards, rules. They, of course, hear about this right away. They're just losing their minds. And the woman who runs this department, her name is doctor Roz Weinman in New York. She calls up Warren and is just apoplectic. And Warren's like, well, it is Seinfeld. It's the guys. They don't say the word. It's funny. And somehow, I don't know if she was a fan of the show, and she got it. She said, well, alright. We're gonna keep a close eye on this. Like, we could pull the plug at any time, But in this case, with this show, it might be enough that this show has a pact with its audience that we can get away with this. This is unbelievable.
01:53:02 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:53:02] S1: Yep. You're pretty close to the point of no return or as close as Larry and Jerry could engineer getting Yes. Before revealing what they were doing. So the broadcast standards department at NBC, which is the in house sensor that is responsible for keeping all of NBC's programming up to broadcast standards, rules. They, of course, hear about this right away. They're just losing their minds. And the woman who runs this department, her name is doctor Roz Weinman in New York. She calls up Warren and is just apoplectic. And Warren's like, well, it is Seinfeld. It's the guys. They don't say the word. It's funny. And somehow, I don't know if she was a fan of the show, and she got it. She said, well, alright. We're gonna keep a close eye on this. Like, we could pull the plug at any time, But in this case, with this show, it might be enough that this show has a pact with its audience that we can get away with this. This is unbelievable. [01:54:05] S0: Because broadcast standards really has two jobs. One is, are we literally going to fall afoul of any FCC regulations where we will get in trouble as a network? Two is, is there gonna be any blowback on our network where it hurts our brand? Yep. People don't like us anymore. Advertisers run, things like that. And if you're not running afoul of one because no words are coming out of your mouth, then it's really just about [01:54:32] S1: The question is only number two. Yeah. [01:54:33] S0: Right. Do we think the audience will love or hate this? [01:54:36] S1: Yep.
01:54:36 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:54:36] S1: Yep. [01:54:37] S0: And I think it's a big risk, but a very perceptive one to be like, Seinfeld actually has cultivated an audience where this is entirely okay, especially done this artfully.
01:54:46 · David Rosenthal
[01:54:46] S1: Yep. Yep. So broadcast standards lets it through, and then sales calls up. And they're like, are you out of your mind? You know, we have to we have to tell the advertisers what their spots are gonna run against. And Warren says, alright. Well, let's let them keep going. We'll get a rough cut of the edit before we have to put it on air. So the rough cut comes in. They give it to sales. Sales shares it with the advertisers. They come back and they say, hey. We've got a bunch of advertisers that are gonna pull out. They're not okay with this. We're gonna have to cut the rates for this episode to backfill to get enough people in last minute, enough new sponsors to fill the episode. Warren says, okay. How about this? There are these cable networks out there, MTVs out there. They've got this same kind of audience. They're killing it with a bunch of alcohol companies as sponsors and, you know, Nike sponsoring them. What if you guys go to all the advertisers on MTV and say, hey, we've got an opportunity to get you into Seinfeld this week? Which they do, and they fill the episode. And that's how sales allows it to go through. For all the advertisers that didn't pull out the regular sponsors that stuck with the episode, they end up having leather bound copies of the script printed, autographed by the cast, sent out as a thank you for sticking with us. And then the episode airs. There's no protest. It's great. It becomes the first catchphrase moment for the show. Master of my domain. Are you master of your domain? Yep. It completely changed the rules for Seinfeld.