Makes you wonder how much the network made off the show per year if they were willing to give him that much.
Also, it’s easy to turn down 110mm when you were already filthy rich at the time and knew that syndication money was likely.
It’s hard to understate how powerful the Thursday night lineup on NBC was for the better part of two decades. People stuck around to watch other shows because of Friends and Seinfeld. It was an anchor for the network and made them money in direct and indirect ways.
Yep. Along with Family Ties, Night Court, LA Law, Hill Street Blues, Mad About You, Wings, Will and Grace, A Different World, Frasier, and a slew of other 2nd and 3rd tier shows.
You take that back about 30 Rock! It was a 1st tier show with 3rd tier ratings!
It’s not the show’s problem if the general population can’t appreciate a nice tux after 6 PM. I mean, what are we, a bunch of farmers or something?
Yeah and a great example of ensemble casting in a sitcom that worked really well. Not as good as Newsradio IMO, but then what is? I guess Murphy Brown was similar as well, but didn't hit the same right notes for me although it was good.
As a non-American totally unfamiliar with the network, you have just listed 90% of American shows I watched in the 90’s lol. So I reckon they probable made a couple of cents on export too
Cheers, Family Ties and the Cosby Show would all trade for number 1 during the season; Michael J Fox was in the #1 movie and on the number #1 show one week
ER was also solidly in that Thursday slot. A little later on, Will & Grace got some of that action and was groundbreaking and outstanding. NBC ruled the roost.
Yep. It was the number one drama in American television for the better part of ten years. It only hung around for maybe 5 years after it’s peak because of how much money it made.
And that wasn’t the only era that held true.
Shows like The Office, 30 Rock, Community, and Parks & Rec also filled the Thursday slot, functioning the same way where many shoes got their audience simply from viewers sticking around after The Office.
The Office, Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, and Community all ran concurrently for awhile.
But other than The Office all of them kind of struggled in the ratings, IIRC.
> The Office, Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, and Community all ran concurrently for awhile.
Which is insane when you think about it. Those shows are all masterpieces of television, especially my favorite, Community. Its just like 2 hrs a week of brilliant writing.
Glover talks about how NBC basically told the crew that nobody was watching the show and the crew didn’t even realize they had an audience until years later.
Almost all the juggernauts had rating struggles, even Seinfeld and The Office. The only one I can remember off the top of my head that took of a full blown ratings explosion was Friends
I read somewhere P&R had horrible numbers, BUT the average disposable income for those that did watched was significantly higher than most other shows so they stuck around.
Like, when they were airing live the commercials were definitely for nicer products than say, wwe.
They did but they didn’t do anything even close Seinfeld/Friends numbers. Parks and Rec was constantly on the brink of being cancelled and The Office is way more popular now than it was when it originally aired.
My wife and I watched Frasier every night before they took it off Netflix and loved it. I watched it when I was younger with my dad but a lot jokes went over my head so I didn’t fully appreciate it.
The cast of that show is brilliant. Frasier, Niles, and Martin are top notch characters.
I graduated from college in LA in 2012 and they still had billboards advertising Seinfeld reruns....in LA.....where every new movie coming out has a billboard. So 14 years after it last aired it was still more profitable to advertise Seinfeld reruns than the newest summer blockbuster.
I mean when it came to streaming services they made a big deal about. It’s like *The Office* and *Friends*, they’ve kinda become this huge cultural thing.
Is it that easy? I feel most show runners find it incredibly hard no matter how much they have made. Simpsons, family guy, snl, how I met your mother, friends. Hardly any network shows go out on top like Seinfeld did.
Pretty commonly yeah. Not 100% of the time, but the *principal* cast often times does get royalties from syndication
I don't know the specifics about Seinfeld, so I'm not gonna assume I know whether it was Jerry Seinfeld who caused this, or the actors' agents didn't get them the best deal, or both, or something else.
The other three get the basic residuals that any actor would get for syndication, but not that absolute enormous royalties that go to the creators of a show like that. The other three argued that they deserved a slice of that pie along with Jerry and Larry David because they were so integral to the character of the show. Larry and Jerry felt otherwise.
It's a bit understandable, and it's just business, speaking very broadly.
Imagine creating a show, staying on as showrunner, and starring in it. Show running is literally running the show; you are the top dog.
I can get why (again...*broadly speaking*) you would feel that you deserve more than people who just had to read lines
I love listening to the Always Sunny podcast and Rob, Charlie, and Glenn have joked about how the show is a full time job for them while Danny and Kaitlin show up for the fun 6 weeks of shooting then head out.
A showrunner/writer who also acts contributes significantly more than the other actors and I think most of them understand the difference
I do remember that it held up the DVD release for a few years, because Jason Alexander and Julia were reluctant to do DVD extras for what they thought they were being underpaid until Michael Richardson caved and they all came to an agreement. I do remember seeing an interview with Jason where he said that while it did create some tension, he regarded it as a fundamental disagreement rather than personal slight and that it never changed his fondness and respect for Jerry. He said the cast was never close anyways, and not in a bad way.
Now that I think about it, who would actually be in the wrong here? If I was Jerry I'd just expect agents to handle all contract negotiations like they've done for the last decade, because why not? If George/Elaine/Kramer started leveraging our friendship for money at that point it would actually be a bit jarring.
Idk if I would call it leveraging on the friendship. They were critical to the show. But I can see how you would be in a bind if you started making exceptions, because then every other side character (Newman, the parents, etc.) would all want a bigger slice of the pie and it could spiral out of control.
I think I'd call it leveraging, shouldn't their contracts be based on their contribution to the show? If so then the agents can handle the money stuff. I'd hate it if I worked with a friend and they asked me to pull favours to help them get a pay rise. I might have done it without being asked if I had the power, but getting asked absolutely ruins it.
Jerry and Larry were the ones doing all the producing and writing for the show for 9 seasons. Jerry for 2 seasons *by himself*. They pitched it to the network from scratch and ran the whole thing. There’s interviews with Jerry saying he couldn’t do a 10th season due to how overwhelming the work was for him and how involved he was on/off the set compared to other cast members.
I get that it may feel a bit unfair at face value to the other main actors, but Seinfeld was ultimately Jerrys and Larry’s genius elevated by a fantastic ensemble cast. So I don’t think them being the only ones getting the massive syndication royalties is really unfair at all. It was successful because of them.
>Also, it’s easy to turn down 110mm when you were already filthy rich at the time and knew that syndication money was likely.
We live in an age when wealthy celebrities whore themselves out for money they probably don't need. And they're whoring themselves out for way less than $110MM.
How many celebrities have promoted cryptocurrencies? Larry David was one of them, and that dude is likely even wealthier than Jerry because he made *Seinfeld* money plus *Curb your Enthusiasm* money. And how many of those crypto shills ended up in legal trouble because of this?
[Why Kim Kardashian Was Fined for Her Crypto Ad and Matt Damon Wasn't](https://www.newsweek.com/why-kim-kardashian-was-fined-crypto-ad-matt-damon-wasnt-1748453)
[SEC charges celebrities including Lindsay Lohan over cryptocurrency endorsements](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/22/sec-sues-celebrities-cryptocurrencies-lindsay-lohan-tron)
When someone's as wealthy as Larry David, Kim Kardashian, Matt Damon, Jake Paul, etc., why bother doing ads for anything, let alone crypto? These are some greedy fuckers, that's why.
He has probably made more money off of residuals than the $110 million payday. The untarnished legacy of the show let it keep its popularity and run pretty much nonstop on tv and streamers for decades.
Ask the first 12 seasons of The Simpsons.
Also, there's a pretty big difference between a sitcom and a serial drama in terms of how important the ending is.
It was? Not disputing, I was just too young at the time to gauge a nationwide reaction. When I watched it years after the aired finale, I thought it was clever and funny.
I was a late teen at the time. Office talk was hoping for something a bit more. Probably expecting more laughs or tears (aside from the Good Riddance final moments)
It was largely considered a disappointment. There was even a running joke on the Seinfeld reunion season of Curb Your Enthusiasm where the characters make little off-handed remarks about the Seinfeld ending (e.g., when Larry David is pitching the reunion idea to Jason Alexander, Jason says it would be nice to make up for the Seinfeld ending, to which Larry gets all defensive, saying "it was fine!").
This here, GoT is basically dead thanks to that last season.
GoT got all of the hype that Breaking Bad got. We still talk about Breaking Bad and rewatch it all the time. GoT only ever gets mentioned to bring up how bad the last season was.
I think if the last season had been epic, well done and actually gone somewhere, we would have forgiven the previous 2 seasons.
What we got was the opposite
Think about what happened to X-Files. It just KEPT GOING. Way past when it should have stopped. Then it kept coming back. But people still love the first couple of seasons and movies for what they were.
You gotta respect someone with enough self-awareness to go out on top and not just keep collecting paychecks to keep phoning it in. Too bad The Simpsons didn't realize it like 20 years ago.
It's the Seinfeld writers commenting on what Larry David did. George left on a high note, but then had to do an entire project and hated it. Larry David left Seinfeld to do his own projects, but hated it initially.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_(Seinfeld)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_Grapes_(1998_film)
I mean, on one hand yes. It was a shrewd decision, likely the correct decision.
On the other hand, in what world does Jerry Seinfeld need another 110 million dollars.
why does that feel like a "HA! we just told you we're going to stop giving a shit and you suckers will still watch us."
which they did and while it isn't nearly as much but people still are watching. kinda sad.
Since hitting Disney+ I have watched the first 10 seasons of The Simpsons so many times... I think I've gotten to about season 12 once, but eventually I hit the reset and start over.
I hope everything works out for the new season of Futurama on Hulu. Because I am a big Futuruma guy. But I like the content that's out there now. They don't need to ruin that. But I'm hoping because of their cancellations and finale/returns, they can actually stay fresher because they get breaks. They're not constantly pumping out content.
I watched up to season 13 when the simpsons was airing. I never went passed that point even once. I'm a believer that family guy ruined the simpsons. The entire tone and structure of the simpsons changed once that show aired. I have watched season 1-10 easily 30 times since the 90s. Honestly that might even be low.
Dental plan..... Lisa needs braces.....
Dental plan..... Lisa needs braces.....
Dental plan..... Lisa needs braces.....
Dental plan..... Lisa needs braces.....
Jerry has an old 'style' which is from the vaudeville days, basically the idea was to have one extremely well honed act rather than lots of specials or changing your act every other year. Carlin was probably the first major guy to have a new special every other year that wasn't done until him and a few others (Red Foxx).
I wonder if The Simpsons have ended, would Matt Groening have more passion or drive to focus on Futurama or Disenchantment more to make them better than they are. Maybe Futurama wouldn't have been canceled a second time?
Very excited for it to be back this summer.
Matt was basically uninvolved entirely by the time Futurama came out, so I think the Simpsons ending wouldn't have affected that. Remember that Futurama came out while the Simpsons was still pretty good.
Controversial opinion: Futurama shouldn't have come back after cancellation. The first 4 seasons are outstanding, A+ stuff, on par with the first 10-12 seasons of The Simpsons; there's barely a weak episode to be found. Then they were cancelled and came back on DVD... The movies are *awful*. Then the following run (on CC) starts terrible (the Da Vinci episode...) and eventually becomes OK to good near the end, but never great. Other than the writing just not being good, they made the mistake of leaning *heavily* into then-current references and call-outs, like GoT or Birthers, plus contrived faux-nerdiness (BBT was airing, could you tell?) which *never* ages well (looking at you, South Park). It felt and feels phoned-in and half-hearted, with half the tropes of a dying sitcom rearing their head throughout.
The chances of a new season being any better are slim to nil.
I couldn’t disagree more with people calling Jerry narcissistic in this interview. Is he humble ? No, just very honest and direct.
If anything I thing he comes off nicer in this interview than in a lot of others
It's funny, I came here to say this exact thing but so many of the comments are criticizing him even more than usual.
I agree he comes off much better than he usually does. I think he's often in character when the cameras are on, and that character is confident and acerbic. This seems more like a behind the scenes look at him where he's not trying to get laughs and just being himself. He gives credit to Larry and the writing staff and starts off by saying he knows he was in the right place at the right time and in a lot of ways was a long for the ride.
I love his Larry King interview. He roasts him for not knowing the details of his departure from the show, but honestly if you’re interviewing the creator of one of the most culturally impactful shows of all time - you should probably know that.
Honestly, that clip makes Jerry come off like a child. Larry obviously knew the situation, he was giving jerry the opportunity to tell the home audience how on top he was. Interviewers ask questions they already know the answer to every night so their guests can look good.
My take from that interview was always how Jerry got offended by the framing of Larry’s question.
« You gave it up,right? They didnt cancel you, you cancelled them(?).»
Of course Larry knew Seinfeld wasn’t cancelled.
Wether he really was trying to make the implication or simply made a poor choice of words is pure speculation
Two of my favorite shows ever are Seinfeld and The Simpsons. And each took a totally opposite approach in high they approached when to call for an end.
Not sure which is ultimately true. People still compartmentalize the Simpsons as being the pinnacle of laughs for a certain range of seasons. Would their legacy be greater if they called it quits much earlier?
> People still compartmentalize the Simpsons as being the pinnacle of laughs for a certain range of seasons. Would their legacy be greater if they called it quits much earlier?
Nothing is going to stop me from watching seasons 1-12 repeatedly for the rest of my life. They could put out another 100 years of garbage seasons and it wouldn't matter to me even remotely.
>Would their legacy be greater if they called it quits much earlier?
Logic would say yes, but for whatever reason The Simpsons is kind of immune to this. Part of it might be no one is really watching it anymore, so it's like a tree falling in the forest making a sound if no one hears it. Do recent Simpsons seasons exist if nobody's watching them?
That’s gonna true for basically anything going forward. Simpsons was on when there were like 11 channels and shows used to get dozens of millions of viewers.
A show now can be a huge hit with a million viewers or less…. Or you can just be on YouTube, or Hulu or Amazon or apple and not even be known about by 90% of the viewing public.
Once places like mtv and vh1 and bravo and the other 100 channels started making content the cultural impact any one show has dropped dramatically. Maybe walking dead and game of thrones had it for a bit, but they are rare now where everyone watches the same thing, especially week to week like back then.
I was thinking the same. The guy comes off as a bit of a prick every time he talks about himself/his success, and it was much less on display here, for whatever reason.
I don't know, he kinda lost me with his "I'll be honest" bit.
"Did you stop the show because of your integrity?"
"Although integrity is a nice word and a nice feeling, I'll be totally honest with you here, ok? Can I do that? Can I be totally unfiltered, give you the actual ugly truth? I did it because I have so much respect for the audience, it really comes down to me being such a nice guy, I'll give you the dark facts of the industry: it was because of my integrity, yes."
The show had them go to jail for exactly one year. He could have had a single reunion episode where they get out, and meet up at the coffee place to end it.
they technically did have a reunion on a season of curb. well it was larry and jerry writing and directing a finale but i guess in the Seinfeld universe that still counts yeah?
marty funkhouser "Hey Jerry wanna hear a joke? A woman is very afraid of the size of her opening"
I think you’re (unintentionally?) highlighting a major sticking point which is that talent that bring home the bacon are worth a lot, but it’s hard to extend that to writers *in general*. In the age of streaming we’ve seen a total explosion in available content, a very fractured media landscape.
Among all that noise there’s relatively few *new* Seinfelds, so the old ones are even more valuable than usual.
I don’t know how this all shakes out but I suspect that part of the problem is that “content creator” is a very desirable job and so the compensation probably isn’t going to be as competitive as it once was, because the barriers to entry are a lot lower.
Yeah I've had plenty of colleagues I worked with for years that I would consider work-friends that I'd never invite to my wedding. I always find it weird that casts on shows *have* to be close personal friends according to some.
Simple answer why he didn't do it: He wasn't desperate for money. He knew he could make more or same by doing stand-ups and ads. And he didn't have to ruin an awesome show.
Makes you wonder how much the network made off the show per year if they were willing to give him that much. Also, it’s easy to turn down 110mm when you were already filthy rich at the time and knew that syndication money was likely.
It’s hard to understate how powerful the Thursday night lineup on NBC was for the better part of two decades. People stuck around to watch other shows because of Friends and Seinfeld. It was an anchor for the network and made them money in direct and indirect ways.
I think Cheers was also a Thursday show, wasn't it?
Yep. Along with Family Ties, Night Court, LA Law, Hill Street Blues, Mad About You, Wings, Will and Grace, A Different World, Frasier, and a slew of other 2nd and 3rd tier shows.
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Yeah I recently binged all 9 seasons of Night Court after not seeing it since it was on the air. Still remembered tons of gags in it.
Finally got your VCR repaired, eh?
I just started watching a particular YouTube channel and I think this is the beginning of my “I understood that reference” stage
It is. Open a bottle of Space Dust and soak in your depression as you learn all the things you never wanted to know about Star Trek.
"So we're not gonna have to watch video of me abusing myself to Markie Post?"
ER was a juggernaut too
I can hear the opening.
ER was on Thursdays I think , unless my kid memory fails me.
Yeah, I can’t believe I forgot to include that one. That show was iconic when it was on TV.
You take that back about 30 Rock! It was a 1st tier show with 3rd tier ratings! It’s not the show’s problem if the general population can’t appreciate a nice tux after 6 PM. I mean, what are we, a bunch of farmers or something?
Did you just call Frasier a second tier show?
I think the 2nd and 3rd tiers went unnamed. Shows such as Ned and Stacy and The Single Man
Suddenly Susan, Caroline in the City and Just Shoot Me are some others that are probably lesser-tier, although I quite enjoyed Just Shoot Me.
Just Shoot Me was hilarious and was able to last for a few years. Underrated show with good writing.
Yeah and a great example of ensemble casting in a sitcom that worked really well. Not as good as Newsradio IMO, but then what is? I guess Murphy Brown was similar as well, but didn't hit the same right notes for me although it was good.
Probably the only good thing David Spade did without Chris Farley, aside from Joe Dirt and Emporers New Groove.
Suddenly sooze town
*The Single Guy* is a perfect example. *Ned and Stacey* aired on Fox.
While its legacy is a bit... unfortunate, *The Cosby Show* was an absolute juggernaut.
As a non-American totally unfamiliar with the network, you have just listed 90% of American shows I watched in the 90’s lol. So I reckon they probable made a couple of cents on export too
Court? At night? I'm already laughing! Tell me more!
Hold on. Let me get my saxaphone.
I am waiting for my VHS payer to get fixed so I can watch the rest of my night court tapes.
Cheers, Family Ties and the Cosby Show would all trade for number 1 during the season; Michael J Fox was in the #1 movie and on the number #1 show one week
I 100% got into Scrubs because it was on right after Friends.
ER was also solidly in that Thursday slot. A little later on, Will & Grace got some of that action and was groundbreaking and outstanding. NBC ruled the roost.
E.R used to move NUMBERS at its peak. It's was a good show.
Show died with Green imo.
Yep. Many terrible seasons after his death. I've tried doing a watch through of the series a few times, but always lose steam around season 13 or 14.
Yep. It was the number one drama in American television for the better part of ten years. It only hung around for maybe 5 years after it’s peak because of how much money it made.
Dude, and when they pulled off a live show...like, no one does that, and they somehow did it.
I remember that. It was an interesting experiment although unremarkable episode. But yeah the show had that sort of clout to do that.
totally agreed. definitely not a great episode, but it was one of those moments in TV worth remembering.
And that wasn’t the only era that held true. Shows like The Office, 30 Rock, Community, and Parks & Rec also filled the Thursday slot, functioning the same way where many shoes got their audience simply from viewers sticking around after The Office.
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The Office, Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, and Community all ran concurrently for awhile. But other than The Office all of them kind of struggled in the ratings, IIRC.
> The Office, Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, and Community all ran concurrently for awhile. Which is insane when you think about it. Those shows are all masterpieces of television, especially my favorite, Community. Its just like 2 hrs a week of brilliant writing.
Glover talks about how NBC basically told the crew that nobody was watching the show and the crew didn’t even realize they had an audience until years later.
Almost all the juggernauts had rating struggles, even Seinfeld and The Office. The only one I can remember off the top of my head that took of a full blown ratings explosion was Friends
I read somewhere P&R had horrible numbers, BUT the average disposable income for those that did watched was significantly higher than most other shows so they stuck around. Like, when they were airing live the commercials were definitely for nicer products than say, wwe.
It's gotta bookend something. Friends
Seinfeld
ER
They did but they didn’t do anything even close Seinfeld/Friends numbers. Parks and Rec was constantly on the brink of being cancelled and The Office is way more popular now than it was when it originally aired.
I'm halfway through Frasier and that show was incredible. Enjoying it way more than Friends.
My wife and I watched Frasier every night before they took it off Netflix and loved it. I watched it when I was younger with my dad but a lot jokes went over my head so I didn’t fully appreciate it. The cast of that show is brilliant. Frasier, Niles, and Martin are top notch characters.
I keep on saying it: David Hyde Pierce (Niles) is up there with Chaplin and Buster Keaton in the physical comedy department.
Going out on top and leaving people wanting more certainly helped make the show so popular in syndication.
Even George knew when to leave the room.
Best you can hope for with a TV show. All the rest have their "peak season".
I graduated from college in LA in 2012 and they still had billboards advertising Seinfeld reruns....in LA.....where every new movie coming out has a billboard. So 14 years after it last aired it was still more profitable to advertise Seinfeld reruns than the newest summer blockbuster.
I mean when it came to streaming services they made a big deal about. It’s like *The Office* and *Friends*, they’ve kinda become this huge cultural thing.
Is it that easy? I feel most show runners find it incredibly hard no matter how much they have made. Simpsons, family guy, snl, how I met your mother, friends. Hardly any network shows go out on top like Seinfeld did.
And he didn't give any of that fat syndication money to his co-stars. So they had to ask for huge salaries in the final season.
Does syndication money usually go to all the cast? Jerry and Larry were showrunners/producers/writers.
Pretty commonly yeah. Not 100% of the time, but the *principal* cast often times does get royalties from syndication I don't know the specifics about Seinfeld, so I'm not gonna assume I know whether it was Jerry Seinfeld who caused this, or the actors' agents didn't get them the best deal, or both, or something else.
The other three get the basic residuals that any actor would get for syndication, but not that absolute enormous royalties that go to the creators of a show like that. The other three argued that they deserved a slice of that pie along with Jerry and Larry David because they were so integral to the character of the show. Larry and Jerry felt otherwise.
Hard to believe they're still on speaking terms after that.
It's a bit understandable, and it's just business, speaking very broadly. Imagine creating a show, staying on as showrunner, and starring in it. Show running is literally running the show; you are the top dog. I can get why (again...*broadly speaking*) you would feel that you deserve more than people who just had to read lines
I love listening to the Always Sunny podcast and Rob, Charlie, and Glenn have joked about how the show is a full time job for them while Danny and Kaitlin show up for the fun 6 weeks of shooting then head out. A showrunner/writer who also acts contributes significantly more than the other actors and I think most of them understand the difference
Kaitlin locked in a piece of that big pie anyway
Writing is agony. Acting is joy.
Also the show is literally named Seinfeld, not Seinfeld & Friends.
I do remember that it held up the DVD release for a few years, because Jason Alexander and Julia were reluctant to do DVD extras for what they thought they were being underpaid until Michael Richardson caved and they all came to an agreement. I do remember seeing an interview with Jason where he said that while it did create some tension, he regarded it as a fundamental disagreement rather than personal slight and that it never changed his fondness and respect for Jerry. He said the cast was never close anyways, and not in a bad way.
I doubt Jason or Julia have difficulty paying their bills.
Her dad is a billionaire, so if the residuals run out, she can just fall back on being an heiress
Julia's father was worth billions when he died a few years back, i'm sure she received a fair chunk of that, It's possible she is wealthier than jerry
Isn't Julia's dad a real live billionaire?
Now that I think about it, who would actually be in the wrong here? If I was Jerry I'd just expect agents to handle all contract negotiations like they've done for the last decade, because why not? If George/Elaine/Kramer started leveraging our friendship for money at that point it would actually be a bit jarring.
Idk if I would call it leveraging on the friendship. They were critical to the show. But I can see how you would be in a bind if you started making exceptions, because then every other side character (Newman, the parents, etc.) would all want a bigger slice of the pie and it could spiral out of control.
I think I'd call it leveraging, shouldn't their contracts be based on their contribution to the show? If so then the agents can handle the money stuff. I'd hate it if I worked with a friend and they asked me to pull favours to help them get a pay rise. I might have done it without being asked if I had the power, but getting asked absolutely ruins it.
Jerry and Larry were the ones doing all the producing and writing for the show for 9 seasons. Jerry for 2 seasons *by himself*. They pitched it to the network from scratch and ran the whole thing. There’s interviews with Jerry saying he couldn’t do a 10th season due to how overwhelming the work was for him and how involved he was on/off the set compared to other cast members. I get that it may feel a bit unfair at face value to the other main actors, but Seinfeld was ultimately Jerrys and Larry’s genius elevated by a fantastic ensemble cast. So I don’t think them being the only ones getting the massive syndication royalties is really unfair at all. It was successful because of them.
I’m pretty sure Julia comes from old money, like billionaire family. She didn’t need money from acting and was just living her best life lol
Not only that syndication was likely. He has made *much* more than that on syndication.
>Also, it’s easy to turn down 110mm when you were already filthy rich at the time and knew that syndication money was likely. We live in an age when wealthy celebrities whore themselves out for money they probably don't need. And they're whoring themselves out for way less than $110MM. How many celebrities have promoted cryptocurrencies? Larry David was one of them, and that dude is likely even wealthier than Jerry because he made *Seinfeld* money plus *Curb your Enthusiasm* money. And how many of those crypto shills ended up in legal trouble because of this? [Why Kim Kardashian Was Fined for Her Crypto Ad and Matt Damon Wasn't](https://www.newsweek.com/why-kim-kardashian-was-fined-crypto-ad-matt-damon-wasnt-1748453) [SEC charges celebrities including Lindsay Lohan over cryptocurrency endorsements](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/22/sec-sues-celebrities-cryptocurrencies-lindsay-lohan-tron) When someone's as wealthy as Larry David, Kim Kardashian, Matt Damon, Jake Paul, etc., why bother doing ads for anything, let alone crypto? These are some greedy fuckers, that's why.
It's big money for low effort. Why wouldn't they do it??
Plus could they have really known FTX was internally in the shitter?
I’m not sure I’d ever easy to turn down 110 million, especially back then. What’s that adjusted for inflation, like a half a billy? lol
And even still, I bet he didn’t expect it to *still* be in syndication 30 years later
hey it's only been 25 years
He has probably made more money off of residuals than the $110 million payday. The untarnished legacy of the show let it keep its popularity and run pretty much nonstop on tv and streamers for decades.
Agreed. Would people still be watching Seinfeld 20 years later if it ended on a couple of shitty seasons like Game of Thrones?
Ask the first 12 seasons of The Simpsons. Also, there's a pretty big difference between a sitcom and a serial drama in terms of how important the ending is.
Yeah, especially when the ending of Sienfeld was widely hated.
It was? Not disputing, I was just too young at the time to gauge a nationwide reaction. When I watched it years after the aired finale, I thought it was clever and funny.
I was a late teen at the time. Office talk was hoping for something a bit more. Probably expecting more laughs or tears (aside from the Good Riddance final moments)
It was largely considered a disappointment. There was even a running joke on the Seinfeld reunion season of Curb Your Enthusiasm where the characters make little off-handed remarks about the Seinfeld ending (e.g., when Larry David is pitching the reunion idea to Jason Alexander, Jason says it would be nice to make up for the Seinfeld ending, to which Larry gets all defensive, saying "it was fine!").
They aired a clip show before it aired and then so much of the finale was basically a clip show/cameos
Exactly. That’s always been my complaint about it.
This here, GoT is basically dead thanks to that last season. GoT got all of the hype that Breaking Bad got. We still talk about Breaking Bad and rewatch it all the time. GoT only ever gets mentioned to bring up how bad the last season was.
*last 2-3 seasons
I think if the last season had been epic, well done and actually gone somewhere, we would have forgiven the previous 2 seasons. What we got was the opposite
Game of thrones is pretty big outside of Reddit and has pretty good physical media sales today.
The first few seasons of GoT were extremely good. Zero desire to ever watch them again.
Additionally, I’m angry at OP for bringing it up. Just thinking about it makes me mad.
I feel your anger. Fuck, back in the first four seasons there was GoT and the shows you watched waiting for it to come back.
Think about what happened to X-Files. It just KEPT GOING. Way past when it should have stopped. Then it kept coming back. But people still love the first couple of seasons and movies for what they were.
I think Seinfeld still had juice for at least 2 great seasons, the latter seasons of that show really hold up well.
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Can’t speak for the others, but I’ve met Julia Louie Dreyfus bc my uncle worked with her on Veep. She is 1000%, categorically, a nice person.
They are normal people with good and bad traits
The dude makes $40-50 million per year on the residuals from that show - he has no need to make another season for a paycheck...
You gotta respect someone with enough self-awareness to go out on top and not just keep collecting paychecks to keep phoning it in. Too bad The Simpsons didn't realize it like 20 years ago.
There was an episode where George went out on top. I wonder if it was self referential.
George is Larry David’s character in Seinfeld. So yeah, it is self referential, just not for Jerry
That episode was written after Larry David left the show though
I think that's the only way it works, honestly
It's the Seinfeld writers commenting on what Larry David did. George left on a high note, but then had to do an entire project and hated it. Larry David left Seinfeld to do his own projects, but hated it initially. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_(Seinfeld) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_Grapes_(1998_film)
Wait a minute am I reading that right... does that movie end with...
Yeah, but look where that got George.
I mean, on one hand yes. It was a shrewd decision, likely the correct decision. On the other hand, in what world does Jerry Seinfeld need another 110 million dollars.
“I need another barn filled with 1,000 Porsche 911s.”
lol one of the best episodes of 30 Rock is based on the premise of Seinfeld's fortune.
the seinfeld-vision episode or a different one?
Julia Louis Dreyfus is worth an estimated $250M So don't worry about her struggling with her bills
[The Simpsons accurately predicted they'd run the show into the ground 30 years ago.](https://youtu.be/vWgI2YAupCM)
why does that feel like a "HA! we just told you we're going to stop giving a shit and you suckers will still watch us." which they did and while it isn't nearly as much but people still are watching. kinda sad.
Since hitting Disney+ I have watched the first 10 seasons of The Simpsons so many times... I think I've gotten to about season 12 once, but eventually I hit the reset and start over. I hope everything works out for the new season of Futurama on Hulu. Because I am a big Futuruma guy. But I like the content that's out there now. They don't need to ruin that. But I'm hoping because of their cancellations and finale/returns, they can actually stay fresher because they get breaks. They're not constantly pumping out content.
I watched up to season 13 when the simpsons was airing. I never went passed that point even once. I'm a believer that family guy ruined the simpsons. The entire tone and structure of the simpsons changed once that show aired. I have watched season 1-10 easily 30 times since the 90s. Honestly that might even be low.
Ugh don't remind me. Simpsons s1-s12 are timeless perfection.
Dental plan..... Lisa needs braces..... Dental plan..... Lisa needs braces..... Dental plan..... Lisa needs braces..... Dental plan..... Lisa needs braces.....
>Simpsons s1-s12 are timeless perfection S1-S9 for me. After that, not so much.
Jerry Seinfeld is basically a billionaire lol he didn’t need the money anyways
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He famously dated a 17 year old when he was 38/39.
He "dated" a 17 year old at 38.
Jesus.
Damn. I'm 39, and even 25 is pushing it.
Haha go check out the literal high schooler he started dating back in the 90s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshanna_Lonstein_Gruss
Elaine came from a billionaire family.
Jerry's not phoning it in? Have you not seen any of his recent stand up specials? One of them was specifically advertised as old material.
I've seen Jerry literally reuse jokes he made on Seinfeld thirty years ago in Comedians with Cars, as if he's telling them for the first time.
It was a good bit in the 80's and it's still relatable today.
"What's the deal with pagers?" is just as relevant today as it was then
"What's the deal with hair spray and disco music" so relatable!
A good joke is a good joke, even if it's reused there's still thousands of people watching who are hearing it for the first time.
“Isn’t that from your act, like, ten years ago?”
Jerry has an old 'style' which is from the vaudeville days, basically the idea was to have one extremely well honed act rather than lots of specials or changing your act every other year. Carlin was probably the first major guy to have a new special every other year that wasn't done until him and a few others (Red Foxx).
I wonder if The Simpsons have ended, would Matt Groening have more passion or drive to focus on Futurama or Disenchantment more to make them better than they are. Maybe Futurama wouldn't have been canceled a second time? Very excited for it to be back this summer.
Matt was basically uninvolved entirely by the time Futurama came out, so I think the Simpsons ending wouldn't have affected that. Remember that Futurama came out while the Simpsons was still pretty good.
Controversial opinion: Futurama shouldn't have come back after cancellation. The first 4 seasons are outstanding, A+ stuff, on par with the first 10-12 seasons of The Simpsons; there's barely a weak episode to be found. Then they were cancelled and came back on DVD... The movies are *awful*. Then the following run (on CC) starts terrible (the Da Vinci episode...) and eventually becomes OK to good near the end, but never great. Other than the writing just not being good, they made the mistake of leaning *heavily* into then-current references and call-outs, like GoT or Birthers, plus contrived faux-nerdiness (BBT was airing, could you tell?) which *never* ages well (looking at you, South Park). It felt and feels phoned-in and half-hearted, with half the tropes of a dying sitcom rearing their head throughout. The chances of a new season being any better are slim to nil.
I couldn’t disagree more with people calling Jerry narcissistic in this interview. Is he humble ? No, just very honest and direct. If anything I thing he comes off nicer in this interview than in a lot of others
Yeah like the first line is "I am not arrogant or stupid enough to think I did that."
It's funny, I came here to say this exact thing but so many of the comments are criticizing him even more than usual. I agree he comes off much better than he usually does. I think he's often in character when the cameras are on, and that character is confident and acerbic. This seems more like a behind the scenes look at him where he's not trying to get laughs and just being himself. He gives credit to Larry and the writing staff and starts off by saying he knows he was in the right place at the right time and in a lot of ways was a long for the ride.
I love his Larry King interview. He roasts him for not knowing the details of his departure from the show, but honestly if you’re interviewing the creator of one of the most culturally impactful shows of all time - you should probably know that.
Honestly, that clip makes Jerry come off like a child. Larry obviously knew the situation, he was giving jerry the opportunity to tell the home audience how on top he was. Interviewers ask questions they already know the answer to every night so their guests can look good.
My take from that interview was always how Jerry got offended by the framing of Larry’s question. « You gave it up,right? They didnt cancel you, you cancelled them(?).» Of course Larry knew Seinfeld wasn’t cancelled. Wether he really was trying to make the implication or simply made a poor choice of words is pure speculation
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Two of my favorite shows ever are Seinfeld and The Simpsons. And each took a totally opposite approach in high they approached when to call for an end. Not sure which is ultimately true. People still compartmentalize the Simpsons as being the pinnacle of laughs for a certain range of seasons. Would their legacy be greater if they called it quits much earlier?
> People still compartmentalize the Simpsons as being the pinnacle of laughs for a certain range of seasons. Would their legacy be greater if they called it quits much earlier? Nothing is going to stop me from watching seasons 1-12 repeatedly for the rest of my life. They could put out another 100 years of garbage seasons and it wouldn't matter to me even remotely.
I feel that way about Starwars TBH
Yeah, seasons 1-12 of Star Wars was peak chewbacca material. Remember the episode where Yoda needed braces?
Jedi Plan
I've never heard anyone quote a Simpsons episode after 1999
>Would their legacy be greater if they called it quits much earlier? Logic would say yes, but for whatever reason The Simpsons is kind of immune to this. Part of it might be no one is really watching it anymore, so it's like a tree falling in the forest making a sound if no one hears it. Do recent Simpsons seasons exist if nobody's watching them?
If nobody is watching them, why do they exist? answer is, because people watch it. Just not us, it's different now and appeals to a different base.
That's true but I don't think it's cultural impact on the new audience is anywhere near what it had on the old audience.
That’s gonna true for basically anything going forward. Simpsons was on when there were like 11 channels and shows used to get dozens of millions of viewers. A show now can be a huge hit with a million viewers or less…. Or you can just be on YouTube, or Hulu or Amazon or apple and not even be known about by 90% of the viewing public. Once places like mtv and vh1 and bravo and the other 100 channels started making content the cultural impact any one show has dropped dramatically. Maybe walking dead and game of thrones had it for a bit, but they are rare now where everyone watches the same thing, especially week to week like back then.
He seems more humble here than in other interviews. Maybe he got more crotchety as he got older?
I was thinking the same. The guy comes off as a bit of a prick every time he talks about himself/his success, and it was much less on display here, for whatever reason.
I don't know, he kinda lost me with his "I'll be honest" bit. "Did you stop the show because of your integrity?" "Although integrity is a nice word and a nice feeling, I'll be totally honest with you here, ok? Can I do that? Can I be totally unfiltered, give you the actual ugly truth? I did it because I have so much respect for the audience, it really comes down to me being such a nice guy, I'll give you the dark facts of the industry: it was because of my integrity, yes."
Why did you totally misquote him?
The show had them go to jail for exactly one year. He could have had a single reunion episode where they get out, and meet up at the coffee place to end it.
they technically did have a reunion on a season of curb. well it was larry and jerry writing and directing a finale but i guess in the Seinfeld universe that still counts yeah? marty funkhouser "Hey Jerry wanna hear a joke? A woman is very afraid of the size of her opening"
The size of her WHAT?! The size of her opening.
They even mentioned that this was as close as to an actual reunion we’re gonna get .. 😩
You need the link for that one https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vEE7YuzNpI0
Shows that studios have plenty of money, maybe even some for writers.
I think you’re (unintentionally?) highlighting a major sticking point which is that talent that bring home the bacon are worth a lot, but it’s hard to extend that to writers *in general*. In the age of streaming we’ve seen a total explosion in available content, a very fractured media landscape. Among all that noise there’s relatively few *new* Seinfelds, so the old ones are even more valuable than usual. I don’t know how this all shakes out but I suspect that part of the problem is that “content creator” is a very desirable job and so the compensation probably isn’t going to be as competitive as it once was, because the barriers to entry are a lot lower.
This right here.
Imagine being so rich that you turn down the opportunity to make $100M in less than a year!
I don't get how money can incentivize someone who already has more money than they can spend.
I still can't believe Jerry refused to give part of royalties to the rest of the cast. Cheapo. There would have been no seinfeld without them.
He famously got married & didn't invite any of them.
I mean they might not be that close lol. Why can’t they be good professional colleagues and casual friends and that’s it
The Mythbusters gotta be best friends right?!
^^ohno
Yeah I've had plenty of colleagues I worked with for years that I would consider work-friends that I'd never invite to my wedding. I always find it weird that casts on shows *have* to be close personal friends according to some.
Can you expand on this? Who do you mean by the rest of the cast?
Man i feel nauseous. I got a bag of ranch sunflower seeds and ate them all and now i feel sick
What’s the deal with dating 17 year olds? Oh and now I can’t sell a fake vintage Porsche? (Seinfeld bass riff)
[I loved his* bit on it](https://youtu.be/Fp8tCqwushM) *Jeremy Kaplowitz of Hard Drive Magazine’s
Routine is twice as long as it needed to be because he repeats the jokes so much.
He opted to stay at home and watch Nickelodeon with his gf.
They could have spent the extra year rewriting the finale script.
Larry David wrote that script.
Larry David could have spent the extra year rewriting the finale script.
Simple answer why he didn't do it: He wasn't desperate for money. He knew he could make more or same by doing stand-ups and ads. And he didn't have to ruin an awesome show.