Wednesday 11 May 2011

Go Away Seinfeld

I suppose it was only a matter of time after we had sent them Piers Morgan and now Cheryl Cole that America would retaliate and they sent us one of their overrated stars so we now have Jerry Seinfeld landing here. Cheers America, just how annoyed with us are you?
The first time i saw Jerry Seinfeld's sitcom i assumed that the joke was that Jerry was a really bad comedian but it turned out the short stand up routine at the start and end of the show was his actual act. I particularly enjoyed the last part because it meant the 30 minutes of god awful comedy was over.
I just never found his show funny and the BBC quickly found they had brought a pup because they shunted it off to late night BBC 2 pretty darned quickly.
It has been suggested that the humour was just too subtle for us Brits but many other American sitcoms have always gone down well over here. Shows like Cheers, Friends and Frasier were massive hits and American comedians such as Rich Hall are much in demand so i don't know why Seinfeld stunk the place out, we just didn't seem to warm to him. Too smug and too whining and his jokes were just not funny to my British ear.
A Jerry Seinfeld website i found contained the warning on the front page that: 'Reading Seinfeld quotes can seriously affect your sanity, and give you stomach cramps due to non-stop laughter'.
An example of the wit of the man is "I once had a leather jacket that got ruined in the rain. Why does moisture ruin leather? Aren't cows outside a lot of the time? When it's raining, do cows go up to the farmhouse, "Let us in! We're all wearing leather! Open the door! We're going to ruin the whole outfit here!'
Don't call us Jerry, we'll call you and with the ticket prices set at £100 a pop, don't hold your breath.
To misquote Tim Vine, one of Britain's best current comedians, 'Jerry Seinfeld, i have never seen anything so wooden, and I live in the New Forest'.

6 comments:

Cheezy said...

"To misquote Tim Vine, one of Britain's best current comedians"

Really? I suspect Jeremy is actually the funnier brother.

I admit stand-up comedy must be one of the tougher ways to make a living. I've nothing but admiration for people who do it for a living (apart from all the ones who I hate obviously e.g. Russell Howard, Michael McIntyre, Jack Whitehall, Russell Brand, Chris Addison, Stephen K Amos, Lee Evans, Lenny Henry, Andy Parsons, almost all female stand-ups (sorry!), Al Murray, etc, etc, etc... so many unfunny people in this world.

The best stand-ups I've seen lately: Stewart Lee (surreal genius), Doug Stanhope (real soul-baring stuff, a bit like Bill Hicks), and Jerry Sadowitz (utter filth and wrongness). All at the Leicester Square Theatre funnily enough. It's a venue to keep an eye on.

Oh, and as I think I've said before, I didn't mind Seinfeld (the show) at all. It always gets compared to Friends but I've never seen the similarity... However, I wouldn't pay half that much to watch just Jerry though, as I don't really care for his stand-up material, from what I've seen. Especially not at a cavernous venue like the O2. What a terrible place for comedy.

Cheezy said...

PS: I've just seen Cheryl Cole's new barnet, especially styled for her new gig, apparently...

What the hell is she thinking??? It's not 1987!!!

Lucy said...

I like the quick fire delivery of Tim Vine, i always prefer short shap jokes to long drawn out ones. Just seems more work goes into writing 200 one liners for a show than 10 meandering ones. I am with you on many of your list of comedians who should call it a day, especially Russell Howard, Lenny Henry and Al Murray.

I did see Cheryl Cole's hair. Not sure what look she was going for to impress the yanks. She should have done what she did here to make an impression and hit someone.

Anonymous said...

almost everyone I know liked seinfeld and my daughters watch the reruns...

q

Cheezy said...

I think the George Costanza character is a work of genius. He was such a cowardly, dishonest, neurotic, self-loathing little individual. I think that's why we all loved him the best.

Lucy said...

I quite liked Kramer but i think that was because he reminded me of the doc in Back to the Future films.