Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
When Jerry Seinfeld released the initial episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on Crackle in 2012, the success and enjoyability of the show seemed like a no-brainer. Who better to delve into the minds of our favorite comedians than Seinfeld, one of the greatest and most successful stand-up comics in the history of the form, and the man who, if his 2002 documentary Comedian is any indication, might just revere stand-up comedy and its practitioners more than anyone else on the planet.
But the show, now available for binge watching on Netflix after the service added 59 of its 60 episodes (the Jason Alexander as George Costanza segment is excluded) to its roster, with more new episodes promised for mid-2018, is so much more than that in what it reveals about Seinfeld, his cohorts, his profession and his passions.
The name of the show should be taken very seriously. For a show ostensively about comedy and the life of comedians, it would be a mistake to undersell its “cars” and “coffee” portions. These are not just part of a convenient structural framework for Seinfeld. As much as the comedy obsessive inside me gravitates to the interviews, the auto-agnostic in me was fascinated by how, for the first time ever, a show made me care about cars.
Seinfeld famously cares about cars an awful lot, and owns many – an 2016 auction of just part of his collection brought in over $22 million. As such, with each episode highlighting a car procured just for that episode – the cars often relate to the guests – Seinfeld’s pride and obsession becomes clear, as does his disgust for any car he feels is unworthy (not unlike his takes on comedy, for that matter).
As each episode begins, the camera pans lovingly over the details of that week’s car, flashing on the engine, the speedometer, or the tires, for example, all shot with a Robb Report-sheen meant to convey its magnificence while Seinfeld narrates the action in an admiring voiceover. In Seth Meyers’ episode, Seinfeld features the 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS (Porsches are, by far, Seinfeld’s favorite). With the camera lingering on details throughout, Seinfeld opens with a speech about how no one could possibly make a better car. “You can ask anybody who’s ever driven one,” he says.”There’s something about this car that feels perfect.” For a man who’s never been known for public displays of emotion, it is, after his worship of stand-up comedy, the closest we’ll ever come to hearing him express love.
Clever car casting allows us to hear Seinfeld’s more familiar expressions of contempt as well. For Jon Stewart’s episode, Seinfeld employed a 1978 AMC Gremlin, one of the worst cars ever produced, because it was Stewart’s first car. Seinfeld’s disgust at having to even discuss it, much less drive it, is hilarious. While he usually starts by describing a car’s notable features, his description of the Gremlin, in an exhausted, defeated tone, begins, “It has an interior, it has an engine, it has wheels. Oy.” He then gives a brief history lesson. “American Motors started producing them in 1970. By 1978, they went, alright, that’s enough. Let’s just stop.” He and Stewart share a laugh when Stewart sees the car – growing up, he says, it served as contraception – but once they start driving, Seinfeld can barely tolerate being inside it. After a few blocks, they switch it for AMC’s top of the line AMX.
The coffee portions are less obsessive and detail-oriented – Seinfeld doesn’t share his opinion about, say, Arabica vs. Robusta the way he does about a classic Porsche – but no less reverent. Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee takes its camera work seriously, and there are shots of coffee in the series so pretty they resemble fine art. The coffee portions are more ritualistic than celebratory; with close-up shots of the brewing process, slow motion pours, and gleaming final product, there’s a mandatory feel to this essential cog in the CICGC wheel, as if the conversation to follow couldn’t possibly occur without them.
But the main focus, of course, is comedians, and through a combination of casual conversation – rather than the usual talk show glamour, the tousle-haired guests often look like they’re taking a break from their daily chores to meet Seinfeld for a quick beverage – and deft editing, we get a glimpse of Seinfeld and his fellow famous in their natural habit. The picture that emerges – from the guests, sure, but mostly from the host – is one of extreme privilege, and a worldview that places comedy above all else.
Seinfeld is not only the wealthiest stand-up comedian in the world, but the world’s richest actor overall. He is clearly a man comfortable with his privilege, and it’s reflected in every minute of the show.
Talking with good friend Chris Rock, himself no slouch in that department, Rock tells how at this point, people in his life don’t even bother telling him a story when they ask him for money. Instead, they ask for $5,000 like you or I might ask a friend for a dollar. At the end of the episode, the pair are pulled over by a police officer – Seinfeld pushes the sports cars he drives to high speeds, which almost gave Ricky Gervais a heart attack in his episode – and while Seinfeld is amused by their predicament, Rock is scared. Of the two, only Rock can imagine the incident coming to a bad end. The wealthy, white Seinfeld can’t conceive that the moment could have real consequences. When Rock asks, “What do you think? Do we get a ticket?” Seinfeld answers, “You wanna bet $5,000?” He might as well have been asking to bet a dollar. After the cop lets them go, Rock says he was scared the whole time, and Seinfeld reacts like his friend just told him he’s frightened of UFOs. “C’mon,” he says, dismissing Rock’s sentiment. “It was fine.”
But binge-watching the series shows that Seinfeld’s entitlement might be as much about his profession as about his race or fortune. The most prominent sense the show conveys is that of the otherness of comedians, regarding them as almost a separate – and, in Seinfeld’s mind, superior – species than the rest of humanity.
This theme is consistent. Seinfeld takes special joy from an anecdote about the time he and Rock were both, separately, at the premiere party for the Broadway show The Color Purple, hosted by Oprah at the Four Seasons. Rock saw Seinfeld from across the room, rushed to him, grabbed him by the arms and said, with palpable relief, “Comedian!” Seinfeld also exhibits a rare sentimentality when Aziz Ansari tells him he hopes he can still perform and slay audiences at age 90. Seinfeld is clearly touched by this, replying, as if Ansari just announced he was dedicating his life to some noble cause, “It makes me feel good to hear that.”
Everything Seinfeld says conveys his feeling of comedians as “other.” Calling Stewart at the beginning of his episode – each segment begins with Seinfeld calling his guest and asking to meet for coffee, the only element of the show that comes off as superfluous – Stewart answers with a lilting “Hello” that causes Seinfeld to laugh. “That’s what I like about comedians,” he says. “They can’t even answer the phone normal.” In Stephen Colbert’s episode, Seinfeld says, “Stephen looks like a very conventional, functional person. But inside his head, he’s a madman.”
Throughout these conversations, Seinfeld revels in the complexity of comedians being, in a sense, both better and worse than “normal” people. In Tina Fey’s episode, he says at one point, “”The thing about stand-up, it’s a bit of a brutality you have to have.” Jay Leno, talking about what makes someone a comedian, tells him, “Before you’re a comic, you’re just a horrible idiot.”
Jim Carrey, in his episode, says to Seinfeld, “A laugh is actually a feeling of superiority to something.”
“There has to be a childlike fun to it,” Seinfeld replies, expressing his view of the audience’s perspective. “You can be angry and smarter than us, but make it fun for us.” This “smarter” comment is reinforced when Norm Macdonald asks him, “If you don’t like a guy’s act, any chance you’d like him?” It takes Seinfeld ten seconds of thought to answer “No,” but astute viewers could have named that tune in one or two.
The most revealing conversation in the episodes I watched came in the John Oliver episode. As the two men discuss how their wives react to jokes about them, Seinfeld says to Oliver, “Does [your wife] understand that these are meaningless thoughts and words? My wife, 16 years we’ve been married, she finally understands, I don’t mean any of this…we will put any words together…she understands now, I don’t know what I’m saying.” Oliver then sums it up. “They were a sequence of words you know had a laugh at the end of them. So you said them.” “That’s right,” Seinfeld replies. “You just described my entire brain.”
Given the accelerated debates in recent years over the place of comedy in society and how certain attitudes are dismissed, rightly or wrongly, as “jokes,” this “literally anything for a laugh” ethos is important to note. Is there a nobility in comedy’s tendency to morph reality for its own purposes? Seinfeld clearly believes so, and it’s worth keeping in mind when taking offense to comedy. Is it still “Fake News” when it’s openly intended to be fake in the first place?
Later, Oliver says, “The internal logic of comedy is really hard for anyone to understand from the outside.” When Seinfeld asks what that logic is, Oliver says, “That you’ll do anything for a laugh. Like a sociopath.” Seinfeld replies, “That’s right. That’s right.”
At the end of the episode, Seinfeld asks Oliver if he enjoyed their conversation. Oliver says he had a great time. “There’s nothing that makes me happier than this. Nothing,” he says. “I’m at ten. This is as comfortable as I get.” Clearly, Seinfeld feels the exact same way.
Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. His greatest wish is to see Stefon enjoy a cheeseburger at John Belushi’s diner. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.
