Jerry Seinfeld has been showing up everywhere the last few weeks in an attempt to hype his new movie Unfrosted, which hit Netflix this weekend. Unfortunately, much of the public conversation after these interviews has been about the director and star’s comments about modern comedy and less about the film itself. So, in an effort to get things back on track, Seinfeld decided to do yet another press appearance, this time on Saturday Night Live to poke fun at the press tour itself.
The sitcom legend was a surprise guest on Weekend Update, and not surprisingly, he received a huge pop from the crowd after Colin Jost introduced him as “a man who did too much press.” What followed was a seemingly beleaguered Seinfeld talking about how many journalists he’s talked to and finally offering some funny advice to Ryan Gosling, who has also been everywhere for what feels like a year. You can watch the video below…
Now, what’s interesting here is Seinfeld very specifically did not address the substance of his comments. Saturday Night Live is not the forum to have some in-depth discussion to clarify what you said or defend yourself or apologize, but a lot of times performers at least vaguely reference what happened. For example: Ayo Edebiri was on earlier this year and addressed the comments she made about Jennifer Lopez during a seemingly unrelated sketch when she said sometimes you run your mouth on podcasts because you’re twenty-four and stupid. Conversely, the implication of Seinfeld’s comments are much more along the lines of this is the danger of doing 25 press opportunities in quick succession.
The Seinfeld comments in question, at least the ones that went super viral, were made to The New Yorker. In the interview, he blamed the lack of funny TV comedies on “the extreme left” and “PC crap” and said people are too worried about offending other people. He also talked about how the modern scripting process often involves many different people reading, which can lead to jokes getting neutered down. His comments were posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, and were criticized by many fans who pointed to shows like It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, South Park and of course, Curb Your Enthusiasm as evidence you can still make edgy material.
Personally, I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. You can definitely still push the boundaries and create material that jokes about anything and everything. Nothing is off limits on the right show with the right creators and the right network supporting it, but I also think it’s probably fair to say that modern viewers are more easily offended and some of the networks do try to stay away from anything that could be interpreted as mean-spirited or offensive.
As for Unfrosted, the film tells the story of the invention of Pop-Tarts. It stars Seinfeld and an army of famous comedians including Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, Max Greenfield and Hugh Grant, among many others. Reviews have been very mixed. We gushed about it and gave it four stars here at CinemaBlend, as did quite a few other outlets, but some have gone very negative. You can fire it up on Netflix and decide for yourself.