Acquired
00:10:17 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:10:17] S0: Which is the common experience in television. [00:10:20] S1: Yep. But this becomes very, very important to Jerry and to the eventual show, Seinfeld, because despite this disappointment with Benson, during that first brief stint that Jerry has in LA, he performs in local comedy clubs, perform stand up on the nights and weekends around LA, where one night, he gets spotted by the legendary talent manager George Shapiro, who, along with Shapiro's partner, Howard West, were, like, the most legendary comedian talent managers slash agents in the business. They had gotten Andy Kaufman, the recurring role on Taxi, that sitcom that was a huge hit. They were placing their comics on The Tonight Show, which was filming out there in LA at the time with Johnny Carson, getting them exposure nationally. It was all this flywheel between stand up and TV that was happening. [00:11:16] S0: And what Jerry is watching here is, oh, that's how you become successful as a comic to make money. And it's kinda like the next rung in the ladder. But it's not like what he wants is to be in sitcoms. His calling is stand up, and sitcoms are the thing that the industry sort of has for you.
00:11:16 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:11:16] S0: And what Jerry is watching here is, oh, that's how you become successful as a comic to make money. And it's kinda like the next rung in the ladder. But it's not like what he wants is to be in sitcoms. His calling is stand up, and sitcoms are the thing that the industry sort of has for you. [00:11:37] S1: Yep. Well, it also becomes a self reinforcing flywheel for your stand up act because once you're on TV, whether it's sitcoms or, like, a regular spot on the tonight show, you get national exposure, then you can tour with your stand up routine. And people in cities all across America will know you. They'll buy tickets to your shows. Like, that's the way you hit it big in stand up. So once Jerry is signed with Shapiro and West, they get him the big break, a spot on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. So Jerry talks about this. He trains like he's training for the Olympics to go on for, I think it was five minutes, a five minute set. [00:12:16] S0: And he always talks about how you're taking most of the best material out of your forty minute set to create that idealized six minutes to just put your absolute best foot forward.
00:12:16 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:12:16] S0: And he always talks about how you're taking most of the best material out of your forty minute set to create that idealized six minutes to just put your absolute best foot forward. [00:12:27] S1: Yep. So he goes around to clubs, and he'll do, like, the five minute set as he's practicing for months just to get it down. Go on stage for five minutes. He does it, like, 200 times in clubs, come off, get the next guy on. He starts jogging to get in shape. He's playing the Superman theme on his Walkman. So in 1981, the appearance happens, and it's a hit. Johnny loves him. Famously, while Jerry is performing, Johnny flashes him an okay sign from the desk so everybody knows it's going well. And that leads to regular bookings on tonight show. And then that leads to Letterman wanting to book Jerry and other variety shows and all sorts of opportunities.
00:13:07 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:13:07] S0: And this is where Jerry learns discipline. Because if you spend five years creating your forty minute act, and then you get six minutes on Carson, you do your six minutes, then you get invited back pretty quick. The next six minutes in your act, they're not your best six minutes. They're your second best. Right. Then your third, then your fourth. And he said he remembers watching other comedians just kinda churn out. Once they got through their material, they stopped being invited back on the show. And so he picked up this discipline of writing for hours a day, keeping steno pads or these yellow legal pads where he would write everything all the time, everything he was observing in the world so that he could avoid that horrible fate of irrelevancy, of stop being invited back. If you always are developing material and you kinda always do need to be on this treadmill of developing material, then you keep getting the opportunity. [00:13:58] S1: And you can see how this, you know, leads into Seinfeld eventually. Yep. But, yeah, this is the big difference between stand up comics and, like, musical acts. We're all [00:14:06] S0: happy to go to a concert and hear Taylor Swift shake it off again and again and again every tour. That's, like, exactly what the fans want is to play the hits. You don't wanna go see stand up and see them tell the same joke again. You kinda get it once, and then it's over.
00:14:06 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:14:06] S0: happy to go to a concert and hear Taylor Swift shake it off again and again and again every tour. That's, like, exactly what the fans want is to play the hits. You don't wanna go see stand up and see them tell the same joke again. You kinda get it once, and then it's over. [00:14:19] S1: So eventually, this leads to Jerry getting another sitcom opportunity. He gets considered for the lead in a pilot show for ABC called Past Imperfect. Yep. And there's a new production company. It's a hot ticket. Things are looking promising for this show. Ultimately, the production company decides to go with somebody else because Jerry doesn't have enough sitcom acting experience. Just acting experience, period. Being a stand up is not at all the same thing as being a great actor on a sitcom. These are two very different skill sets, even though the same people are doing it a lot at this point in time. Yep. But losing the show doesn't matter that much to Jerry, because his stand up act is killing it, thanks to all this exposure he's getting on the late night shows. So he's touring basically every week, and he was so popular that he was making on average about $25,000 a week from the clubs that he was playing Wow. Across the country. So call it, like, a million dollars a year that Jerry's making just from his stand up touring here in the mid eighties.
00:14:19 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[00:14:19] S1: So eventually, this leads to Jerry getting another sitcom opportunity. He gets considered for the lead in a pilot show for ABC called Past Imperfect. Yep. And there's a new production company. It's a hot ticket. Things are looking promising for this show. Ultimately, the production company decides to go with somebody else because Jerry doesn't have enough sitcom acting experience. Just acting experience, period. Being a stand up is not at all the same thing as being a great actor on a sitcom. These are two very different skill sets, even though the same people are doing it a lot at this point in time. Yep. But losing the show doesn't matter that much to Jerry, because his stand up act is killing it, thanks to all this exposure he's getting on the late night shows. So he's touring basically every week, and he was so popular that he was making on average about $25,000 a week from the clubs that he was playing Wow. Across the country. So call it, like, a million dollars a year that Jerry's making just from his stand up touring here in the mid eighties. [00:15:29] S0: Didn't realize that before the show. Because the life of a stand up when you're playing in comedy clubs, you get paid in stage time. They're like, you should be grateful to get an audience to test your material. When you go on Carson, I don't think you get paid, at least not anything material. [00:15:43] S1: Significant. Yep.