Acquired
00:53:14 · David Rosenthal
[00:53:14] S1: So as they're working on it, they're banging their heads against the wall. They also realize that there does need to be some kind of semblance of a story. I put story in quotes or, you know, some situations to get the characters into the scenes where the conversations would happen that would lead to the stand up material. So Larry floats an idea. What if we just do this as a standard thirty minute sitcom pilot, which a standard thirty minute sitcom is only twenty two minutes of actual content? You know, twenty two minutes? Great. Like, that is a manageable amount of stand up material that we can come up with for this thing. And doing it as a sitcom here that'll give us some story reasons, enough situation, situation comedy, sitcom to get characters into the scenes so we can say the dialogue, etcetera, etcetera. And the way that we'll make it all fit is, Jerry, what you wanna do anyway, like you said, Ben, you just play yourself in the sitcom to end in the stand up. So the script for this first pilot that they come up with, the first initial script that they're gonna pitch back to NBC, is that Jerry is supposed to go on The Tonight Show, you know, NBC tie in Tonight Show. But he doesn't have any new material, so he needs to pull his act together, and he's hanging out with his friends, particularly his Larry like friend, George, to get material. And then at the end of the episode, Jerry's gonna perform it on The Tonight Show. They go back to NBC. They pitch the new version, and they have a new title for what this is to reflect the shift from a ninety minute special into a pilot, essentially, for a sitcom. I'm gonna change it from Seinfeld's stand up diary to the Seinfeld Chronicles. It's gonna be an ongoing chronicle of Jerry's stand up material.
00:54:58 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:54:58] S0: Which if anyone, like me, now has the DVD box set, you can watch the original version of the pilot that airs, not the edited version later, that is actually called on screen the Seinfeld Chronicles. [00:55:10] S1: Indeed. Indeed. Once again, NBC, somewhat surprisingly, just says, okay. Jerry Jerry has a great quote about this. He says, every step of the way, we were waiting for somebody to come in and say, you can't do this on network TV. But nobody did. [00:55:28] S0: Because it's just different than everything else that's on network. It's like a sitcom that's not a sitcom, really. We just needed to kinda, like, borrow from the sitcom format to accomplish our goal of how a comedian gets its material. And it's, like, not even happening in the comedy department. It's happening through these late night people. [00:55:45] S1: Through the late night department, the specials department. This is part of why they say yes to this change in plans because it actually makes their life easier. Previously, they were gonna have to fit a ninety minute special into the calendar. Wait. You're telling me now I only need to give you guys thirty minutes? Sure. Whatever you wanna do. No problem. [00:56:02] S0: So they sort of sail through NBC here. [00:56:05] S1: In a wholly unprecedented move, the net of this is that NBC's late night and specials department ok's a sitcom pilot. This has never happened before. The show just stays in in in late night.
00:56:05 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[00:56:05] S1: In a wholly unprecedented move, the net of this is that NBC's late night and specials department ok's a sitcom pilot. This has never happened before. The show just stays in in in late night. [00:56:21] S0: And just so listeners understand what we're talking about, the comedy department that has, at this point, what, The Cosby Show, it has Cheers. Yep. It has, like, a bunch of hits. They've got a whole process for reviewing scripts and giving notes and working with the creators. And the late night department's just like, it's really easy to say yes because it's even easier yes than the thing we already said yes to. And they just get to skip all the comedy department checklists and committees. [00:56:51] S1: So NBC says okay, and Castle Rock, now the production company, and Jerry and Larry are like, well, alright. Let's, let's cast this thing. Let's go make a pilot. So Rob Reiner at Castle Rock suggests that they should look at a mostly Broadway actor at the time named Jason Alexander for the part of George. He felt... And and Jerry and Larry certainly agreed that they needed a really polished, like like, really... I mean, Jason Alexander is an an incredible actor. They needed a really, really great actor to play opposite Jerry because Jerry is not a
00:56:51 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[00:56:51] S1: So NBC says okay, and Castle Rock, now the production company, and Jerry and Larry are like, well, alright. Let's, let's cast this thing. Let's go make a pilot. So Rob Reiner at Castle Rock suggests that they should look at a mostly Broadway actor at the time named Jason Alexander for the part of George. He felt... And and Jerry and Larry certainly agreed that they needed a really polished, like like, really... I mean, Jason Alexander is an an incredible actor. They needed a really, really great actor to play opposite Jerry because Jerry is not a [00:57:27] S0: great actor. He was about to win a Tony a month later. Yes. When Jason came in to read, they were like, this guy's unbelievable. He's perfect for it. Later on, Jason would sort of figure out, oh, this character is kind of Larry David. He's not exactly Larry David, but he's loosely based on him. He actually thought it was a Woody Allen character at first. Yes. So he came in and sort of did a Woody Allen impression for George. [00:57:51] S1: Next, they need to cast Kramer because Larry has decided to write his eccentric neighbor into the script here for the pilot, but he's not calling him Kramer just yet. [00:58:06] S0: Kessler? Is that right? [00:58:07] S1: Yes.
00:58:07 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[00:58:07] S1: Yes. [00:58:08] S0: Kessler. Don't wanna make it too on the nose. And also, if we call him Kramer, then, like, we're gonna have to pay this guy or do some kind of rights situation. So they they call him Kessler. The funny thing is, eventually, they realize... And this is so Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. They are looking at the page. They're saying the name out loud, and they just realize, no. Of all the names we can think of, Kramer is actually the funniest name. [00:58:34] S1: It just sounds funny. [00:58:35] S0: Yes. Something about it that sounds funny. And funny is the most important thing. Everything else is secondary to that. We have to go with funny. And so they name him Kramer. [00:58:47] S1: And then, of course, it's the best thing that ever happens to the actual Kramer because he sets up Kramer's New York tours in New York City. Right. So they need to cast the character, and Larry says, I know the perfect guy from my days back at Fridays, Michael Richards. And that's how Michael Richards joins the show. [00:59:04] S0: George Shapiro has this great quote. Michael Richards was standing on his head while he was doing his lines, a yoga pose. And Brandon Tartakoff goes, well, if you want funny, this is at the audition. This is how he's preparing to go in and audition for this role.
00:59:04 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:59:04] S0: George Shapiro has this great quote. Michael Richards was standing on his head while he was doing his lines, a yoga pose. And Brandon Tartakoff goes, well, if you want funny, this is at the audition. This is how he's preparing to go in and audition for this role. [00:59:20] S1: Yeah. I mean, again, this is so off the wall compared to anything that would go through the normal process at NBC. So then they need to cast the fourth character, a woman, the character of Claire, the guy's regular waitress at the diner played by Lee Garlington. There's no Elaine in the pilot. So cast Claire, they shoot the pilot, and then they bring the NBC executives in to screen it. And they're not sure. [00:59:53] S0: Interestingly, the comment that really sticks out from this session is that some of the executives thought it was too New York and too Jewish. [01:00:02] S1: Yeah. Which is quite ironic because, basically, the entire origins of American comedy are New York and Jewish. [01:00:12] S0: But they didn't wear it quite on their sleeve the way that Jerry did. I mean, this is... They named the show Seinfeld, and it has this, like... I don't know how to put it other than this very Jewish type of humor, the the sensibility, the timing, the observational humor, the persnicketiness, the crankiness, the, like, the detail oriented, the obsession.