Acquired
01:22:17 · David Rosenthal
[01:22:17] S1: Yes. Yes. So Seinfeld goes on the air Thursday, 05/31/1990, premiering after the summer rerun of Cheers. And critically, that very same month, Brendan Tartakoff leaves NBC. He was the head of the entertainment portion of the network. So he didn't run, like, sports or news or anything like that. But everything within entertainment, dramas, comedy, sitcom, late night specials, reported up to Tartakoff. His successor is chosen, Warren Littlefield, one of the two primary champions of Seinfeld, just became president of entertainment at NBC, which means that when it comes to the next critical decision point in the young Seinfeld show's life cycle here of whether it's gonna get an actual season in the fall, gonna get picked up for real finally, it's now Warren Littlefield's decision to make. So the new episodes air throughout June and July. And Littlefield, of course, he loves the show. He wants to support it. And Rick Ludwin, the specials department head, is right there too. But they know they've got resistance in the network. And, yes, Littlefield can make the decision, but they gotta build consensus here. So Warren pulls over a guy from NBC Research named Preston Beckman and says, you know the folks at Nielsen, the ratings company. I want you to go talk to Nielsen and see if you can get custom reports made for each airing of these new Seinfeld episodes. And I want you to get reports by city, by metro area for each of these episodes so that we can have some data of whether this thing only plays in New York or whether it's universal. So Beckman does. He goes to Nielsen. He gets these custom reports, and he comes back. There is no difference in audience retention from the Cheers reruns to staying with Seinfeld in any major metro area. The same percent retained in New York as they do in Chicago or Houston or Seattle or San Francisco. And that percentage is pretty high. It's not a 100%. Nobody retains a 100% from Cheers, but it's, like, high. Most of the audience that is watching the Cheers reruns sticks around and watches Seinfeld. So they're like, alright. I mean, the audience is not big yet for this. It wouldn't be big for a while. But there's something happening here, and and there is something universal to this show. It's not just New York where this is playing. Yep.
01:25:05 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
So end of the summer rolls around, and now the decision has to be made at the network. What is the fall lineup gonna be? What are the new shows that NBC is gonna pick up? And, Warren has a a quote that's in his memoir, which is great. He says, I walked up to the scheduling board and grabbed the magnetic card that said Seinfeld. I took it off the fringes of the board where we had our backup shows, and I put it right smack at the center. This is our future. Rick Ludwin smiled. Now that's the way, it's in the memoir. [01:25:42] S0: Success has many [01:25:43] S1: fathers. The reality is, I think probably because of all the internal politicking and horse trading for the schedule for the fall of the new season, they end up only picking up Seinfeld as a midseason replacement. So half a season. We'll give you 13 episodes, not a full season order of 22 plus episodes. We're not gonna run it in the fall, but we will slot you in when we inevitably cancel one of the other shows in the spring. It's a half hearted pickup.
01:25:43 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:25:43] S1: fathers. The reality is, I think probably because of all the internal politicking and horse trading for the schedule for the fall of the new season, they end up only picking up Seinfeld as a midseason replacement. So half a season. We'll give you 13 episodes, not a full season order of 22 plus episodes. We're not gonna run it in the fall, but we will slot you in when we inevitably cancel one of the other shows in the spring. It's a half hearted pickup. [01:26:14] S0: So NBC comes to Jerry into Castle Rock and says, great. Here's a 13 episode order. Larry goes to Jerry and goes, I don't accept this. I'm out of material. Yeah. Like, what what what else could we possibly do? I've already put... I've I've mined my entire life for all the best crazy situations that we could possibly put into these five episodes. I'm basically scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Yes. Yes. Obviously, that wasn't true because there was way, way, way more material that Larry would go on to create. But it is illustrative of, okay. They they gotta bring in some fresh talent because these guys are not out experiencing the world anymore. They're heads down writing a TV show. They need writers who are out observing the minutiae of the world to come and work with them.
01:26:14 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[01:26:14] S0: So NBC comes to Jerry into Castle Rock and says, great. Here's a 13 episode order. Larry goes to Jerry and goes, I don't accept this. I'm out of material. Yeah. Like, what what what else could we possibly do? I've already put... I've I've mined my entire life for all the best crazy situations that we could possibly put into these five episodes. I'm basically scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Yes. Yes. Obviously, that wasn't true because there was way, way, way more material that Larry would go on to create. But it is illustrative of, okay. They they gotta bring in some fresh talent because these guys are not out experiencing the world anymore. They're heads down writing a TV show. They need writers who are out observing the minutiae of the world to come and work with them. [01:27:05] S1: Yes. Totally. It's also unbelievably unlikely that this happened. By the time Seinfeld gets picked up for this first half season order, it's over eighteen months since they made the pilot. Right. And over a year since the pilot aired. But because of the way it came up in NBC and through the specials department and the belief that these guys had in it to keep metering out little chances to it, it broke through. Yep. So after they get the pickup, Littlefield and Ludwin already kinda have a sense from Larry and Jerry that they aren't gonna take any more notes from NBC. So they make another NBC executive do it for them. They draft another guy to come be the be the hatchet man, essentially.
01:27:05 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:27:05] S1: Yes. Totally. It's also unbelievably unlikely that this happened. By the time Seinfeld gets picked up for this first half season order, it's over eighteen months since they made the pilot. Right. And over a year since the pilot aired. But because of the way it came up in NBC and through the specials department and the belief that these guys had in it to keep metering out little chances to it, it broke through. Yep. So after they get the pickup, Littlefield and Ludwin already kinda have a sense from Larry and Jerry that they aren't gonna take any more notes from NBC. So they make another NBC executive do it for them. They draft another guy to come be the be the hatchet man, essentially. [01:27:58] S0: To give notes that you know are not gonna be taken. It's a giant waste of time. [01:28:01] S1: Yes. A guy named Perry Simon, and Perry has a great quote in in in Warren's memoir about this. Larry and Jerry came into my office, and Rick Ludwin was there too. I tried to wing typical network notes. Hey. You know, we need a little more story. A little more of this, a little more of that. Larry and Jerry were incredibly gracious. Let us work on this. We'll come back to you. And then they walked out the door, and I knew that they were just like, f that. As in, we're not listening to a word that those guys are gonna tell us ever again. Perry continues. And now I think, thank God, whatever they were doing, they were doing it right. It's a good thing they didn't listen. Incredible.
01:28:01 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[01:28:01] S1: Yes. A guy named Perry Simon, and Perry has a great quote in in in Warren's memoir about this. Larry and Jerry came into my office, and Rick Ludwin was there too. I tried to wing typical network notes. Hey. You know, we need a little more story. A little more of this, a little more of that. Larry and Jerry were incredibly gracious. Let us work on this. We'll come back to you. And then they walked out the door, and I knew that they were just like, f that. As in, we're not listening to a word that those guys are gonna tell us ever again. Perry continues. And now I think, thank God, whatever they were doing, they were doing it right. It's a good thing they didn't listen. Incredible. [01:28:41] S0: Alright. So what were these sort of early episodes? What what did season two have in it? [01:28:45] S1: There's some good stuff in there. They do the revenge where George quits his job and then comes back the next day like nothing happened. [01:28:51] S0: I guess Larry found some more stuff, in his life to mine for material. Yes. [01:28:57] S1: They do the jacket, which is one of my personal favorites. Oh, where Jerry has [01:29:01] S0: to flip the suede jacket inside out to go out in the rain. And then [01:29:04] S1: With Elaine's terrifying father. Yeah. Won't walk with him. Another episode that happened to Larry in real life. [01:29:11] S0: Because Larry was dating Richard Yates' daughter. Yes. And the character is based on Richard Yates. [01:29:17] S1: Yes. Just like Elaine's dad in the TV show. [01:29:19] S0: I see.