Believe it or not, the biggest TV show of the 90s wasn’t Friends. No sir. That crown belonged to Seinfeld. The sitcom, which centred around four horrible New Yorkers, which was ostensibly about nothing and everything, which introduced the world to the Soup Nazi and “yada, yada, yada”, was the first postmodern comedy since Monty Python.
Unlike Friends, or The Office, Seinfeld hasn’t really found its second wind. Most likely because of its scattered streaming rights – it’s on Hulu in the U.S., on Prime Video in the UK, and on Stan in Australia. Though all of that might change next year when the series will be available globally on Netflix for the first time.
Way back when, however, Seinfeld was appointment television. In its final season, the series would be watched by over 30 million American households in every week. These days, Sunday Night Football would be lucky to break 20 million.
But then, after nine seasons, just as he was at his peak, Jerry Seinfeld decided he was done. Turning down what was the most lucrative offer in television history, he walked away from both the series and a hundred million dollars.
Now the reason I bring this up (besides being a fascinating trip down memory lane) is because that one decision, to just stop, to know when to call it quits, is the very embodiment of what makes Jerry Seinfeld’s comedy so great.
Jerry Seinfeld is a comedian that truly understands his art. We know that comedy is all about timing. But it’s also very much about precision, proportion, and balance. It’s about the length of time between a setup and its punchline. It’s as much about using the right words for a joke as it is the right number of words. And here is a guy who knows exactly how much is too much.
23 Hours to Kill is a comedy special made by someone completely in control of his art. When the show opens – and after some unfortunately dated material about “going out” and being with annoying friends – Seinfeld asks the question we’re all asking.
“This is a made-up, bogus, hyped-up, not-necessary special event.” He then goes on. “You know what I’ve done. You know what I’ve made. You know how I live. You know, for a fact, I could be anywhere in the world right now. Now you be honest. If you were me, would you be up here hacking out another one of these?”
Probably not.
23 Hours to Kill is classic Seinfeld. He is still very much that cranky guy who is annoyed at everything. He’s being persnickety about smartphones and the doors on toilet stalls, and you’re just sitting there nodding your head and going: “He’s right, you know. The smartphone really is this tiny electronic dictator in my life”.
These days, Seinfeld is a little older, slightly greyer, and a bit doughier. He’s now got material about love, marriage, and kids. He’s got a few more dad jokes. (He was still unmarried when his last stand-up special aired in 1998.) And while some of it threatens to trip into trope, he manages to save it with with his meticulous craftsmanship. Yes, we’ve heard other comedians complain about married life, but few of them write it this well. With such clarity of prose. With such pristine imagery.
This may be simple comedy, but it sure isn’t basic.
Whether in his stand-up or on his show, Seinfeld always played a guy who was somewhat out of sync with the world. His perennial grumpiness, which begins with a rhetorical question before working up to a screeching falsetto, is an act he still pulls off incredibly well. Yes, it is his go-to. Yes, it is a performance that he’s fine tuned over the years. But it doesn’t feel tired. Seinfeld still manages to infuse a tiny zing of enthusiasm at the end of every joke.
Maybe he wanted one last hurrah. (Seinfeld recently told Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times that while he’ll continue to do live shows, this taped stand-up special feels like his last one.) Maybe Netflix needed something to prime new audiences for the TV series when it joins their catalogue next year. I don’t know what Seinfeld’s reasons were for “hacking out another one of these”, but in a time when everyone and his uncle has a Netflix comedy special, 23 Hours to Kill is a great reminder of what a real one of those looks and sounds like.
Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours to Kill
Netflix
60 minutes
Director: Joe DeMaio
Writer: Jerry Seinfeld
Cast: Jerry Seinfeld
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