Seinfeld is now using the Uno reverse card on those comments explaining to Tom Papa, “If you’re Lindsey Vonn, if you’re a champion skier, you can put the gates anywhere you want on the mountain. She’s going to make the gate. That’s comedy. Whatever the culture is, we make the gate. You don’t make the gate, you’re out of the game. The game is, where is the gate? How do I make the gate and get down the hill the way I want to?”
This doesn’t read as a cop out to me. He is acknowledging that he has trouble hitting certain audiences because things have changed, and now realized he needs to change to meet the game and appeal to the more modern audiences.
And that makes perfect sense. Seinfeld’s comedy is already a part of our cultural DNA. He needs to evolve to remain relevant.
I never liked him. I have always felt that other comedians did observational comedy better. I think it’s not just that times have changed but that people have wisened up (in this one specific regard).
Seinfeld treated comedy like math.
A joke can be perfected, whittled down to a perfect and easily repeated core. And once you have enough of those, you can just juggle them.
He didnt hang out and get high and drunk with the other comics, he went home and studied the Tonight Show.
I think his greatest weakness is that he can’t read a room very well. That isn’t a skill he prioritized.
Also rehearsing a joke to death the way Seinfeld does makes it seem like you’re listening to something memorized rather than spontaneous.
I saw him live a few years ago. He wasn’t my favorite but I’m glad I went.