Acquired
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.
01:00:12 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[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. [01:00:33] S1: It's a really good point. The Jewish tradition of comedy really was the main lineage of comedy in America. I mean, the Marx brothers, George Burns, like, but basically everybody that came out of Auldville was was Jewish. But they changed their names. They didn't wear it on their sleeves. It wasn't as obvious. I think the thing the NBC executives didn't realize is that here by the late eighties, it kinda didn't matter anymore. Everybody knew Woody Allen was Jewish. He was the biggest name in comedy. [01:00:57] S0: The other point in this is nobody knows anything. [01:01:00] S1: Yeah. [01:01:00] S0: It's Seinfeld. Right? It would go on to become Seinfeld, and they're like, I don't know. [01:01:06] S1: Yep. [01:01:07] S0: So they test it. They're like, we should proceed with our standard testing and feedback. [01:01:11] S1: We'll recruit a test audience to watch this thing.
01:01:11 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:01:11] S1: We'll recruit a test audience to watch this thing. [01:01:13] S0: Right. The practice at the time... And I know this is super interesting. They would cold call. They did... A research department would cold call a bunch of houses to recruit 400 households to watch a unused channel on their cable system at a certain time. And if you knew to tune in and you had the right hardware, you would tune in, and then you would see the pilot pop on. And then I think there's, like, nothing else afterwards. You're, like, just watching this one channel at this one time. The researchers then convene these people or call them and ask them a standard set of questions. It tested horribly. Horribly. Like Yes. The network executives were just a foreshadow of how people in the world saw it. Some of the most infamous comments that came out of this is, one, you can't get too excited about going to the laundromat. [01:02:04] S1: Which is where most of the pilot takes place with Jerry and George at the laundromat.
01:02:04 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:02:04] S1: Which is where most of the pilot takes place with Jerry and George at the laundromat. [01:02:08] S0: And Jerry and George have this whole discussion about what it means that this girl who's coming into town wants to see Jerry when she's there, and is she gonna stay with them, and, like, how much should they read into it. And, like, when he greets her at the airport, are they supposed to hug? Is she gonna hug him? Like, just overanalyzing the crap out of this situation, but they're having the conversation while in a laundromat, which is where a lot of the the feedback sort of focused. The other quotes include Jerry's loser friend George isn't a forceful character. Jerry needs a stronger supporting cast, and why are they interrupting the stand up for these stupid stories? Yep. If the viewers liked anything about it, it was actually just Jerry's stand up, but even that didn't test that strong. The recommendation from the research department to NBC was, if you're gonna air this, and then if you're gonna greenlight this, and you're gonna do something with Jerry, it should be stand up, and it should be better than this. [01:03:04] S1: Yeah. My favorite, quote from the pilot research report was, no segment of the audience was eager to watch the show again, and the overall pilot performance was rated as weak. [01:03:16] S0: And Jerry and Larry did not see this memo for several years, but once it was brought to their attention, they hung it on the wall of the bathroom on set. [01:03:25] S1: That's right in the bathroom of their production office on the set.
01:03:25 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:03:25] S1: That's right in the bathroom of their production office on the set. [01:03:28] S0: So they do air it. [01:03:29] S1: They do air it in a, time and day slot where the network notoriously burns off not very promising pilots. They air it on 07/05/1989. Not a lot of people tuning into television on, July 5 in America. And with that, 99 times out of a 100 in history, that would have been the end of the Seinfeld Chronicles, would have gotten put out to pasture with many, many, many other failed pilots. NBC does not pick up the show for a season run that fall in 1989. Instead, NBC picks up two other sitcoms over Seinfeld and all the other pilots that they ran, the nuthouse and sister Kate. [01:04:19] S0: You probably don't remember them. [01:04:20] S1: Yes. Exactly. Just to just to prove your point, Ben, that nobody knows anything. That would have been the end, except that back in the late night and specials department at NBC, they keep thinking about this Seinfeld thing. I mean, they love Jerry. They wanna do something with Jerry, and they're like, yeah. I mean, everybody was worried it was too Jewish. It was too New York, but but I'll be damned if it's not funny. Like, it was just funny.
01:04:20 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:04:20] S1: Yes. Exactly. Just to just to prove your point, Ben, that nobody knows anything. That would have been the end, except that back in the late night and specials department at NBC, they keep thinking about this Seinfeld thing. I mean, they love Jerry. They wanna do something with Jerry, and they're like, yeah. I mean, everybody was worried it was too Jewish. It was too New York, but but I'll be damned if it's not funny. Like, it was just funny. [01:04:47] S0: And even though most people didn't like it, there was a small group of people who completely got it. Yep. It's like any successful startup. You're not trying to be a seven for everyone. You're trying to be a 9.9 for a very small group of people that you can then figure out how to get those super fans to tell their friends. There were people at NBC that were like, this is the future. This is what we need to do. We need to be in business with Jerry Seinfeld and this brand of comedy.