Jerry Seinfeld vents that political correctness has ruined the sitcom
Written by ABC Audio. All rights reserved. on April 30, 2024
Jerry Seinfeld, whose eponymous sitcom is always listed among the all-time TV greats, is lamenting the loss of television comedy. He tells The New Yorker Radio, “People always need [comedy]. They need it so badly and they don’t get it.”
Jerry continues, “It used to be that you’d go home at the end of the day, most people would go, “Oh, Cheers is on. Oh, M.A.S.H. is on. Oh, [The] Mary Tyler Moore [Show]’ is on, All in the Family is on.’ You just expected [there will] be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight.”
“Well, guess what? Where is it? Where is it?” the Unfrosted director asks rhetorically, venting, “This is the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap and people worrying so much about offending other people.”
He adds, “When you write a script, and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups – ‘Here’s our thought about this joke’ – well, that’s the end of your comedy.”
Incidentally, Jerry mentions Curb Your Enthusiasm, former Seinfeld co-creator Larry David‘s recently-wrapped show, was immune to that interference, noting, “He’s old enough [to say], ‘I don’t have to observe those rules, because I started before you made those rules.'”
Jerry notes that to get their fix of comedy, audiences are turning to stand-up comics “because [comedians] are not policed by anyone. The audience polices us. We know when we’re off track. We know instantly. And we adjust to it instantly.”
“With certain comedians now, people are having fun with them stepping over the line, and us all laughing about it,” he continues, adding if it “doesn’t go down well … He or she can take all the blame.”
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