Acquired
01:09:54 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[01:09:54] S0: So the value basically just keeps building the more you use it. A conversation with Claude isn't disposable anymore. It carries into the next one. And so if you wanna learn more about how Claude can help transform your chats into tangible, memorable work, check out Claude dot a I slash acquired. And if you are inquiring about enterprise usage, just tell them that Ben and David sent you. So adding Elaine. Yes. Arguably makes the show. Mean I Yes. When you watch the pilot, you're like, oh, yeah. There is a giant ingredient missing. And it's not just because the couch is weird and Jerry's apartment's weird and, like, there's an Elaine shaped hole in the show. [01:10:32] S1: Totally. Elaine makes the show. And it's not just NBC's note of you need a girl. It's so much more than that. I mean, yes, adding a female character gives Seinfeld a lot more appeal to more demographics than the pilot did. But the character of Elaine is also this incredible act of subversion to the network. Because by you need a girl in it, NBC meant give Jerry a love interest. And that is not what Larry and Jerry are doing with Elaine. And I think it's really what establishes what Seinfeld the show is. [01:11:12] S0: Yes. Because if you look at every other sitcom, I I bet NBC felt like they didn't even need to give the full note. Give Jerry a female friend who will have an on again, off again, is there a flame here and then eventually end up together and give the viewers what they want. [01:11:31] S1: It's Sam and Diane in cheers. Yes. It's Ross and Rachel. Blah blah blah.
01:11:31 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:11:31] S1: It's Sam and Diane in cheers. Yes. It's Ross and Rachel. Blah blah blah. [01:11:35] S0: Eventually, Jim and Pam. Like, this is the formula. And the way that Jerry and Larry chose to interpret the note is literally, but we're not gonna do any of that other stuff. [01:11:46] S1: Yeah. We're just gonna need a girl. So, George Shapiro, the talent manager, has a great quote about this, about what you need a girl means. He says, the network wanted Jerry and Julia to be married or dating. That was normal network thinking. Fortunately, we had two creators who didn't give a crap. Jerry and Larry felt strongly that Jerry and Julia shouldn't have a relationship, and they were ready to walk away from the show because of it. [01:12:10] S0: And the way that they pulled this off is Elaine is a former love interest. Yes. Like, they've already had a relationship, and it didn't work, and they broke up. And so, viewers, you don't even need to take your minds there because we already told you it's not gonna work. There is one episode where they explore deal. Yes. Incredible episode. But then after that, the the... I think that's the end of a season. They come back the next season. The whole thing is forgotten. They don't take it anywhere. These characters are not a love interest, period.
01:12:10 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[01:12:10] S0: And the way that they pulled this off is Elaine is a former love interest. Yes. Like, they've already had a relationship, and it didn't work, and they broke up. And so, viewers, you don't even need to take your minds there because we already told you it's not gonna work. There is one episode where they explore deal. Yes. Incredible episode. But then after that, the the... I think that's the end of a season. They come back the next season. The whole thing is forgotten. They don't take it anywhere. These characters are not a love interest, period. [01:12:37] S1: That episode, the deal where they... The two of them reexplore the romantic relationship is even more subversive to the network because they do it. Larry Larry and Jerry do that episode, and then they just never mention it again. There's no resolution. There's no... They continued. They didn't continue. There's no development. There's no relationship. It's just, that didn't happen. [01:12:59] S0: This show would go on to be number one by throwing out the playbook entirely and going straight off of the thing that Jerry and Larry wanted to make with no, like, reverence for the roles that you were supposed to do to get to number one.
01:12:59 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[01:12:59] S0: This show would go on to be number one by throwing out the playbook entirely and going straight off of the thing that Jerry and Larry wanted to make with no, like, reverence for the roles that you were supposed to do to get to number one. [01:13:14] S1: Exactly. So this is why, you know, when I said that the Elaine character makes Seinfeld what it is. So what is Seinfeld? It is a merging of stand up and the sitcom. Just like the whole development of the show, this is what it's leading to. Like a sitcom, Seinfeld, the show has continuity of characters, places, relationships, across episodes, across seasons, across years of the show. You get to know these characters. You know the apartment. You know the coffee shop. [01:13:44] S0: You know George just can't help himself. [01:13:46] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [01:13:47] S0: Every time, you can count on them to do the wrong thing, to see the temptation and to give in to the temptation. And by creating these consistent characters, it helps have a framework for those jokes. [01:13:59] S1: What does stand up comedy not have? Continuity. Consistency. That doesn't exist in the stand up world. Okay. Now flip it on the other side. Like stand up, Seinfeld doesn't have any development of these characters and places and relationships. Jerry is always Jerry. George is always George. Elaine is always Elaine. You could tune in in any episode. There's no development of the relationship, the characters. They never learn anything. The places don't change. The apartment is the same. The coffee shop is the same.
01:13:59 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:13:59] S1: What does stand up comedy not have? Continuity. Consistency. That doesn't exist in the stand up world. Okay. Now flip it on the other side. Like stand up, Seinfeld doesn't have any development of these characters and places and relationships. Jerry is always Jerry. George is always George. Elaine is always Elaine. You could tune in in any episode. There's no development of the relationship, the characters. They never learn anything. The places don't change. The apartment is the same. The coffee shop is the same. [01:14:29] S0: It's a situational comedy. But the situation is static. Or I would say the characters are static. The characters are vessels Yes. For humorous situations. Whereas, they call them sitcoms before that, but really what they were were these [01:14:44] S1: They were dramas with jokes. [01:14:46] S0: Yes. And Seinfeld drops that and just creates situations that are inherently funny with characters that are static versus needing to insert isolated jokes to sorta, like, lighten the mood of a dramatic situation that has a beginning, middle, and end.
01:14:46 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[01:14:46] S0: Yes. And Seinfeld drops that and just creates situations that are inherently funny with characters that are static versus needing to insert isolated jokes to sorta, like, lighten the mood of a dramatic situation that has a beginning, middle, and end. [01:15:04] S1: And those dramatic situations, as we were pointing out with the, you know, the network note, sort of the unsaid subtext of you need a love interest, are almost always either romantic relationships or family relationships. And they develop over the course of the show. And the characters grow and learn and change and come together. Seinfeld is so radical by saying, absolutely not. We are not doing any of that. So one of the writers that I talked with for research is Jeff Schaeffer, and he wrote for the [01:15:36] S0: show in the the later years. His comment to me was, the plot itself has to be funny when you retell it. Like, that's how they know they're onto something is if literally describing the situation is the humorous part. And the best illustration of this is how Seinfeld episodes end. They don't resolve the plot in a satisfying way. It's it's just like stand up. When the joke [01:15:59] S1: ends consequences. It's just funny.