Jerry Seinfeld Gets Technical

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2018

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jerry Seinfeld talks with David Remnick about his Netflix special “Jerry Before Seinfeld,” which is part standup show, part memoir. They discuss his “coming out” to his parents as a funny person, the labor that goes into an effortless joke, how cursing undercuts comedic craft; why George Carlin in a suit and tie was just as good as George Carlin the hippie; and why he thinks we esteem actors and writers too highly. Seinfeld compares his work as a comedian to that of John McPhee, The New Yorker’s elder statesman of long-form reporting. “He makes things out of ordinary life moments and making you see them in a different way,” Seinfeld says. “When he does it, it’s an art, because it’s the goddam New Yorker. When I do it it’s just an airlines peanuts joke.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a real trade to bond.
0:03.0	The One World Observatory,
0:06.0	the straight of the block for West Boulevard and makes that right.
0:09.0	I basically just think it would be interesting to look at the emergence of a criminal economy.
0:14.0	And also, I'm always amazed that there aren't more profiles of her out there,
0:19.0	this really subversive, strange thing, in rap, especially,
0:22.4	and see what there was or like the website. From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is
0:29.6	The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:35.0	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Today's episode, I hope, is a little treat. A live interview I did at the New Yorker Festival in the fall with somebody I've admired for quite a long time. When I went out on stage to introduce him, though, I was almost at a loss for words, as you'll hear, because this guy, if you'll excuse the cliche, it happens to be
0:54.6	accurate, needs no introduction.
0:59.5	Welcome to the New Yorker Festival. I'm David Remnick. You know who that is. That's Terry
1:05.1	Seinfeld and no flash photography, no recording. Why not? You want them to flash your way?
1:12.0	All right.
1:12.6	You feel like Jackie Kennedy or something?
1:13.9	Yeah, it's okay, yeah.
1:14.5	All right, get it out of your system now.
1:17.3	So you've got this new special on Netflix, Jerry before Seinfeld, and one of the amazing
1:25.5	confessional parts of it is that you begin talking about the construction of a joke.
1:32.6	Your first joke, what made you think you could do this thing, be a comedian, just from being funny in the house?
1:41.8	I really didn't, the truth is I really didn't think that I could.
1:46.3	And I didn't really care whether I could or I couldn't.
1:52.1	I had, I just got to this point where I was so in love with it that I just decided,
	...

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