Seinfeld: Running with the Egg

what's the divorce right now 60% 60 or six weeks okay that's if you're married so what must the failure rate be for just a relationship 99.9% yeah that would mean you'd have to date roughly a thousand people to meet someone you're gonna stay with well it's all very encouraging there's something what's with you I think this is it what's it I saw Ciara again Vienna today's date in the crayon [Laughter] discussed toilet paper toilet paper yeah I told that a toilet paper hasn't changed in my lifetime and probably wouldn't change for the next 50 thousand years about toilet papers change your sheets parole comes in a wide variety of colors it's changed it's not really the point [Music] the journey of someone coming in the room with an idea for something and then saying yeah that sounds good let's let's do that and then the it going into an outline form and then a script form and then a read-through and then a rewrite and then a rehearsal and then more rewrite more rehearsal than a shoot night and then an editing process and then finally going on the air is essentially an off-road egg race where you carry the egg in a spoon and it's it's broken terrain and it's hills and is ruts and that's that's the race to see and you have to run because you've only got the four days to shoot it and the editing is just as maddening and hectic as the writing was as the rehearsal was as the shoot night was as every process along the way there's never a chance to go hmm what do you think perhaps we could do something a little more tender you know that net you don't have any of those moments it's it's literally running with an egg on a spoon I would go through my day now all of a sudden I'm programmed to now only think in terms of this show so I started to write down whatever thoughts and ideas I had into a little notebook remember Larry having a book notebook with this funny thing this funny thing this funny thing this funny thing is saying okay I can take from page 12 and this and that and it looks it becomes of a piece and I think a lot of the ideas actually predated the show and the show is just a vehicle for him for those ideas to get out of the notebook what made a successful episode was how funny the idea was it's just these things from your life that was just so funny that you could get you could see three scenes in it right away we would come in the first day of a new season and hopefully come in with a list of ideas that would be two or three sentences max and they could tell immediately like yes that's an so they knew they were talking to odd guys you know Larry and I were odd guys so they wouldn't come in they you know I mean they would come in and pitch and obviously some things would hit and some things would miss but they never thought this is too crazy for these guys nobody would think that because clearly we were capable of just about anything is it could is could he have save the whale George where these two bagging up the rising air and there's nothing holding me in place I didn't get a Christmas card Jerry got one Rhema got one I thought we were good friends I don't get a Christmas cut I don't get it you want a Christmas card you want a Christmas card all right here there was a tone we set with the writing staff that Larry said that it had to be original it had to be unique it had to be something very funny and very fresh pitching stuff to Larry was always an experience because he had a little pen which you would have in his hand and he would sort of roll it and then he would just you'd be pitching he would sort of look at you and just shake his head like this like this was like literally you were speaking the gibberish and I've been good gibberish not even interesting gibberish we had this thing where Jerry was dating this very exotic South American woman who worked at the UN keep saying you know and he could never he could never spend time because like oh there's a big mess on the floor of the UN I have to run over there and turned-out you it's the cleaning lady at the UN and we tried so hard to sell them on this dirty I just think you're gonna see it coming yeah we pitched one thing to him and I remember he just sort of returned and kind of just walked over he never said yes or no he just kind of went I think the note was implied yeah I remember somebody coming in and pitching me an idea at one time and and I'm saying no no I don't think so and and and and the writer said to me but we've done this so many times before and I went that is not a point in its favor there would be times when you would go in and you'd like have a bunch of ideas and you pitch him and they didn't really go for him but then you would just tell it's um something that actually happened to you or an anecdote like we talked about a guy we knew at college who it is Snickers prayer with a knife and fork and Larry said oh you should put that in the show it was best to get the two of them together because every once in again Larry David would say I like that and after a week of work Jerry for the first time would hear an idea saying haven't we done a variation of that and inevitably Larry might say yeah I guess you're right forget that Larry and I just had that great cross filter if both of us kind of related to it in some way it seemed to work the greatest feeling was when you're pitching to Larry that every once in a while Larry would put his finger up and go or or and then you would just sort of sit back because a lot of times just getting him invested in the idea and as soon as he hooked into it then he could see where it was going before you could a lot of times we couldn't wait to like pits and stuff and we'd be sucked the first day like well maybe we tell Larry this will make it funnier and he always did you needed Larry to finally approve all four stories then the trick is once you've gotten those stories approved is turning those four stories which are really just the germs of stories into a script they would try and get going on a script so you know we knew we could we had five or six going at one time everyone was in their own little rooms and it was like a whole bunch of people doing a whole bunch of individual studies and everyone would sort of wander around it was like a hospital for comedy stories and how's your patient doing how's your patient doing how's your patient doing you sort of talked about I don't know I've got a first act I think the second act is dead and if we could deliver a pretty good first draft you know they were happy and then from the first draft Larry and Jerry would would go in and work on it Larry and Jerry shut the door for like three days when they decide they're gonna do an episode and they sort of do their rewrite of it they would sit in the room and they would act it out and read it I knew that Larry and and and Jerry were behind every script that was written Larry and Jerry working together and really working out the script took place behind closed doors we weren't privy to that but every so often we'd get a buzz on the phone it would be okay to come in and get more pages and I'd say probably one of my just biggest internal thrills of typing the first draft or the the rewrite so Seinfeld was when something would just catch me funny and caused me to laugh out loud and Larry and Jerry would just bolt out of their room because they wanted to know exactly what would make the writers laughs usually we would film two shows in a row and then get a week off the first week we would film on Tuesday night the Tuesday schedule was great for our show from a rewriting point of view because you really can use your weekend effectively then we'd have Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday to write a show cast the show and get set started in order to film the following Wednesday they would run down the entire episode scene-by-scene I would find out what was required how many people were in a sets if their entrances and exits sometimes we had 15 or 20 sets some of them were just one wall or two wall sets nevertheless they had to be pulled together I would go away design the set go up and knock on Jerry and Larry's door to show them what was going on they were relatively interested but they were more interested in the writing and they just looked at it and said yeah I think that's gonna work we were all about writing we didn't really want to hear from anybody talk to anybody it was just writing and and and rehearsing the casting was quick editing was quick everything else we did very quickly but we labored over the writing characters were always inserted into the show for whatever fit comedic ly it's not like I want to put Jerry's parents into this show let's get some parents and then come up with an idea for the parents first first the idea comes and then you cast from the idea and when I look back on some of the guest stars you know that jumped to starring their own TV series it's remarkable the Courtney Cox she played in the episode called the wife the Virgin that was played by Jane Leeves teri hatcher she was in the implant Jami Gertz she was in an episode called the stall we had Michael Chiklis David James Elliot Bryan Cranston who played Whitely the dentist Peter Krause from the limo Six Feet Under we saw these people and saw that potential so that was hugely exciting those casting sessions the typical casting session would happen either the same day that we got the script or the next morning I was the sixth one in and I was sitting near the door where I heard all the women before me screaming like banshees the actors would sign in they'd have about 15 minutes with the material and then they'd have to go into the room and perform the first sight and sound I heard relaxed me and that sight and sound was Jerry sitting at his desk we read through it and he started laughing and that's the indicator you know if you can make him laugh and you've got a good shot of being on the show I knew that from having to watch the show that they respond to you know something different quirkiness choices usually it's the people who who make us laugh the most Larry came out and said yeah then you got the part can you work in 30 minutes and I said yeah absolutely when someone walked in that had that funny thing about them you know it was like okay let's just get him and we'll and we'll make it work you go from not having a job to knowing you're on the number one show and you know such a short amount of time this is such an exciting feeling well table readings for sitcoms are just the greatest experience because everybody's excited about a brand new episode the writers are there there's anticipation that new the new cast is in their supporting cast is there and it's just a way to start anew I sit down and we all start going around in the read you could see everybody was in character almost immediately because of the words and then you know it was only gonna get better as the days went by that was just a cool thing to already see the creative process going just from being at the table read they were very loose and easy and nobody stopped anybody it was just everybody laughed like hell I paid in my face you painted your face yeah why well you know support the team hey you got a little moisture out there it's a playoffs Sheldon did something get to the table that was not funny and if it wasn't exactly what it needed to be it would be exactly what it needed to be by shoe tonight it was a show that got better as you went not worse I started to get very comfortable knowing that whatever problems we had at that table read if the script was weak it got fixed to me Seinfeld is Seinfeld because of those scripts they got the scripts got the ball you know the ten feet of the goal and then we would run it into the end zone when we first get to the floor with the scripts in our hands and start blocking we knew our characters so well that we could walk and find our place in Jerry's apartment or whatever set were into quite quickly let's move on to the set and the four of us I'll kick it around you know this line might actually be funny around Elaine because it'd be more unexpected and vice-versa and sometimes we would also say you know if if Mike did one of his his things here you know we'd get a laugh that we're not gettin so we were looking for opportunities for each other and taking care of each other when Tom stron has left us and the Akron came in it's replaced him as director I of course was a little concerned about something new in the middle of it you know don't fix what isn't broken he had to fit in well with the cast he had to fit in well with Larry and he was so seamless in his ability to blend in with everybody let everybody kind of do what they wanted to do and but just gently always steer everything in a good direction a lot of times we didn't have the sets ready so we would just rough it out sometimes we put tape on the floor too to figure out what the sets might be like it would do some staging blocking accordingly Jerry's apartment was a small set and there weren't a lot of options you know I mean you came in and you come in through the front door and there was what we called the alley of power and then you know you could be there and do your business you could stand at the counter and sort of use it as a podium in a sense so it's like this is the area for big information that's what the alia power seemed like to me I was so fascinated to sit in the bleachers and watch the four of them work well let's try this let's try that there was also an energy thing Jason has a very crisp energy and it's very dense it's very explosive Michael has a lot of energy - it's very different and then Julia's energy and mine they're all kind of different highs and lows but they really balanced off very well they could really pull a lot of humor out of places that none of us saw we would have a run through two days in really just to let the writers see what we're doing and we were always surprised that first run-through what they had done with the with the script Larry would come down and take a look and see what needed help we didn't really get very many notes unless the scene was completely going the wrong way and he and Jerry would go back and do another pass sometimes after a run-through I would see Larry run back to his office he would run you know to do the rewrites and then Jerry would come back and they would you know work into the night and rewrite every script the hardest part was to rehearse all day and then right after that revisions would start coming in the different colored pages and so the script every day got altered if you were trying something in rehearsal and it wasn't in the script Larry would have to approve it you'd want Larry to think it was funny to keep it in when the notes were being given the heads were kind of focused on him he was solely focused on making a funny show so that was what he saw and zeroed in on all week and if things got in the way he would bat them away ferociously he would come in right on you and just say here's here's the line no no try just a little differently if you write in on you and you realize the intensity he just saw in his head he would stand there and watch something ago that's funny that's good that's funny that's good that's funny that's good okay wait that's not funny take wait delay yourself three seconds all right try it okay now it's funny you know anything let's move on okay let's go do you know and he would just he would it was like a machine actually Jerry had to concentrate on what he was doing you know but Jerry's I also was there I mean Jerry wouldn't miss the thing between Jerry and him back and forth back well they had the same they had one sense of humor that was parallel it was very interesting felt like sort of the inmates running the asylum to a certain extent I mean you know there was always this feeling like we get away with this the network pretty much stayed out of it they let Larry and Jerry do the show they wanted to do later on in the life of the Seinfeld series we never really had advertiser issues or real content issues the show's audience was so supportive of the material that I think it was that was the reason we sort of worked the censors the way a the way a coach works the referee and in that we'd make a big stink about stuff to get them to give in on other things that we really wanted so you know eventually it was it's like and I'm having these erotic conversations with sensors on the telephone I'm going I want I need the five breasts and well I can't give you five breasts I can only give you three breasts you know well ha what about the penis as well I could give you one penis you know and so what you know and I'm beginning to have like sexual fantasies now about the censor who I'm conversing with every week about this kind of material just one little problem sexual I've never really felt confident in one particular aspect below the equator yeah nobody does up until Seinfeld came around you had many shows with 10 or 12 scenes basic sets a couple of swing sets even to this day a lot of shows do that but at the time when when Seinfeld started cranking out 30 scenes and 20 swing sets and the massive amounts of exterior shooting that went on and stunts it really was cutting edge very frequently we would read it and decide to make it a block and shoot show we're no longer for camera operation we're now a single camera film shoot and we would abandon the audience the template for Seinfeld was short quick scenes very few scenes lasted more than three to three pages so the scenes were constantly changing the same episode we'd be shooting New York Street we'd be shooting scenes in New York with the second unit we'd be shooting off lot we'd be shooting on two or three stages on the lot we did a lot of blue screen where with a lot of digital effects of car driving scenes and we did trucks and planes and all kinds of different blue screen scenes that takes a lot of work to set up six different scenes that are not on stage Plus do a stage show in front of an audience it's a production issue that the average fan wasn't aware but I think they appreciated it gave the show of vitality and a an expansiveness when it was your script you got to go on the floor with Larry you've got to sit in the editing room with Larry you've got to go to the sound mix with Larry it was just an extra pair of eyes to catch continuity thing to somebody who knew the story pretty well because also you know before one of our shows was being produced that week that was really all we had to do Jerry and Larry also had the next show and the show they were editing in their heads so we got experienced that most to come writers on most sitcoms don't get at all for the actors on this show it was it was a very easy job horrendous to be a writer on the ship but for an actor it was it was great that we worked eight months out of the year we would have two weeks on one week off we had major holidays off whenever we would go in on a Wednesday and the script didn't work and we were let go it was like oh my god I get to go home and see my boys so I always saw my kids I was home at night I had weekends I had the same vacations with them it was it was it was actually great ok ladies and gentlemen playing the part of Kramer please welcome Michael's richer [Applause] my very favorite part of doing the show was that every week before the show would start Jerry would warm up the audience just before the the warm-up guy would announce the the cast we came running out and say hi everybody we somehow performed this thing that we call the the circle of power oh yes the circle of power the circle of power was when the cast would get together before every show it was the four of us behind Jerry's bathroom door and we just kind of huddle up we put our hands on top of each other and go like that it was a ritual we never didn't do it I don't know what it meant I don't know if or how it helped there was a superstition about it just made us feel like like an ensemble the true force of an ensemble about ready to unleash this story for that week a lot of times doing stuff in from an audience you would just get amazing performances when the lights came on they just pushed it up to the Mount Everest Michael especially Michael was five the Seinfeld taping this definitely has a different pace to it than other sitcoms I've worked on we would have managed to have about a third of the show left when we would bring in the audience on a Wednesday night more times than not we would pre shoot without an audience probably outside on Monday and Tuesday and then we'd have the audience on Wednesdays and usually what we called our walk and talks where the guys would be walking down York Street and having a dialogue we would perform that literally the guys were walking from the audience back and forth on stage and reenact the scene that way or when they're in a car driving we would just set up a couple folding chairs and the actors would have at it and then we would play back scenes that were filmed if if the editor was able to cut them in time to get a real true audience reaction all that pre shooting a lot of times because there was an audience present there was no room left for laughs they would often miss a joke that's underneath a laugh that that is profoundly irritating it was frustrating hearing these tremendous laughs we were giving but not being able to use the month you know there we would pretty much do two takes of each thing maybe a pickup and then move on because there was so many scenes to shoot that it was just like boom balloon balloon changes a continuous right up and filled shooting even when you're taping they're still making changes one of the other things that you have to get used to is working on the show and there's an audience of 400 people there and there's a joke and it doesn't work and you walk onto the stage you walk onto the coffee shop set and you talk to Jerry and Michael or Jason and you sort of have a minute maybe less to come up with a new joke then you turn around and you realize there's 400 people watching you work like that and then you go back and you sit in front the modern you hope that this one works it was constant listening and seeing if things were right and changing them all the time they got that audience in they shot the show and then they caught the audience out and it was a really fast paced fast-moving show just the way the show plays on TV we would always go back to the office at the end of each shoot night drink brandy smoke cigars pat yourself on the back Larry I had had a big board a bulletin board that listed every episode and then there would be a ceremonial crossing out of the episode on the board so at the beginning of the season you know that's like 22 episodes and it's a long way oh my god we have 21 more episodes after the first one you know each one of these seasons was such an arduous journey and you would felt like well you're a little closer to getting through it we would always after the shows go to Jerry's deli which is down the street from the studio Jerry's deli on Ventura Boulevard to go there had to get the egg cream we would drink and eat and it was very celebratory there was the same table was a round table out in front ultimately that table was named after us there was a plaque put up at that table Jason I always when Jerry and Larry and a lot of the writers most of the writers will come that we would usually trash each other and the guests of the week and you know rehash funny little moments the main thing was everybody going around the table talking about what was their biggest regret of that episode everything was kind of dark and it was really the only socializing we did Michael sometimes came and he sometimes didn't I never went to those I was too tired and wanted to get my beauty rest they'd be sitting up at night you know I know there was a circle there but everybody knew that if I wasn't there that was part of the circle we developed a ritual of ordering from the menu as if we were upping the ante at a poker game everybody was like I'll see your turkey pastrami and raise you you know walks eggs and onions the order had a sound good the criteria was it had a sound good when you say it and how to make the rest of the table go whoa didn't see that on the menu people would be ordering just indigestible stuff considering we were starting at 1:00 1:00 or 1:30 in the morning I do remember Jason ordering the Reuben a lot of times and walking out real slow that that Reuben would put a hurtin on him and I ate this thing and I remember driving home and racing Jerry he's in a portion I'm gonna Toyota racing Jerry and as we were going over the hill I could feel my heart giving out it just it couldn't move this stupid ritual it's gonna actually kill me and then a lot of times Larry Charles and I would risk our lives on Laurel Canyon afterwards I don't know why I would give him a head start I always had my Porsche and I knew Laurel Canyon I knew every pebble on Laurel Canyon because I would go over it back and forth and back and forth every day every day every day and I was quite expert at driving it at an insane rate of speed and he had a Saab and which is a good car but it was wasn't as fast as the Porsche and I would give him like a three minute head start and then I would drive I would risk the entire series my whole life for what reason I don't know and he would see those taillights coming behind him and I would catch him by Sunset Boulevard from Ventura to Sunset and I would run him down like a madman and for some reason that was a way that I guess I got some of the guts got some of the energy out of that weak and poor Larry and you know I would say go ahead drive as fast as you can but I'm gonna catch you we would shoot these shows and the guiding principle was shoot everything because you never know what's gonna be really juicy and good and then you know the stuff that doesn't work we'll take out they would wind up having to take out you know five six seven eight and nine minutes of material in any given episode that's pretty tough to edit that much time out of out of a show and usually I would think I'm just gonna call NBC and see if I can get some extra time but you know you never could they don't have any time to give I was in every room from the writing room to the stage to the editing room to the rewrite and I knew what the original intent always was and we always used to joke I mean you would really kill yourself twice you would you would just batter yourself to come up with all of this material to build a twenty nine minute show and then you'd sit in the Edit room going God how are we gonna cut all of this good stuff down to twenty-two and a half minutes so you just had to get the shows down to time or make it an hour show but usually you can you know if you work hard enough you could do it the show lived and died by the stories because in the end when you're cutting for 29 minutes to 22 and a half minutes you're cutting a lot of the jokes anyway the editing process can be a very painful process for an actor and a writer too and so that was always a bit of an ouch I can't recall though a specific instance where I really felt like we had compromised an episode I mean we were trying obviously not to do that but I mean there is so many there's so much good stuff that hit the floor I used to say that each season as a transatlantic submarine voyage that you would load up the sub with all the supplies you know we would do pre-production we would come up with outlines and story ideas and get as much stuff as we could in advance but once that we shoved off and we were out into the ocean you just you quickly went through your supplies about a third of the way and then you were just started eating each other to get through the season there's always part of you that's thinking what am i doing you know for the money you could go do any other show that and be home with your kids at 7:00 at night and I was working number of times you know I'd be in my same clothes after working all night sitting at my desk wondering like is this worth it and and ultimately you know you keep coming back to the same thing yes it's worth it there were times I was I was completely overwhelmed but there you know working with Larry and Jerry you don't have the ability to say that's it you basically just keep going if they're doing it you're doing it each time you got over each hurdle when you get the the idea from the writers things you how about this to it being in the script and it reads funny and then you take it to the read-through and that's that's a hurdle and it's funny at the read-through and then you put it up on stage and it's funny and and you know things would fall out at any one of these points all the time and it was always heartbreaking you could get it all the way to the Edit and it and and and it falls apart you've got it all that way and right before it's in the Justice it goes in the show you go that's not the right angle and it's not funny at all now and even though you had it all that way and and then just at the last moment you just up you drop the egg splat [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: SeinfeldisLife

Views: 1,482,035

Keywords: Behind the Scenes, Television, Making of

Id: NxcPPnqc9HA

Length: 33min 25sec (2005 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 20 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/mk72206]

It's funny to recognize a bunch of these writers from bit parts they've had throughout the series.

[u/mohs04]

Jerry was on Ellen the other day and she asked if they would ever bring back Seinfeld.... he didn’t say no! With all these reboots coming back I think Seinfeld would still have the stuff, look at Curb... it’s amazing. Seinfeld on HBO, an hour long... amazing! With all of you guys in this sub I think a lot of ideas would work perfect... it would be the new “notebook”

[u/andrewwhited]

Really interesting!

[u/Squire420]

At least 6.5 min was cut from each episode?! Release the uncut versions and make all the money!

[u/TitleJones]

Really well done. Thank you for posting!