Tag: Seinfeld

Seinfeld’s Unfrosted was … Not Bad

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Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted was … not bad. Screech! Spit coffee! Swear word! Screams! Car Crash! It is shocking, I know, to hear that coming from a Jerry Seinfeld fanatic. If you’ve read any of the articles on this site, you know how often I source him as one of the greatest comedic minds alive today. I consider him one of the best standup comedians of his generation, and his observations on what makes us weird have had a huge influence on this site. The show Seinfeld was my favorite sitcom of all time, I loved Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, and I even enjoyed his Bee Movie. I didn’t love it, but I really liked it for what it was. Oh, and I laughed so hard during one of his standup shows that Jerry Seinfeld looked over at me with a look that suggested he was comedically concerned about my health. If the difference between fanatic and fan is excessive and intense, uncritical devotion, I am a fanatic. I never wrote to him, collected dolls, scripts, or took tours, but if there’s a hip term I don’t know for a passive fanatic, that’s me. I’m probably his idea of the perfect fan, a guy who quietly buys and watches anything to which he attaches his name. Which is why it pains me to write these five words: “Unfrosted is not as funny as I thought it would be.”

Watching the movie reminded me how we all want more of everything we love. We want more from our favorite artists, athletes, politicians, and plumbers, until they give us so much that we realize it probably would’ve been better if they left us in a state of wanting more. That’s the advice seasoned entertainers often leave young upstarts, “Always leave them wanting more.”  

And Seinfeld warned us, numerous times, that more is not always better. He’s said it in relation to why he decided to prematurely end his show Seinfeld, but he’s applied that principle to his career too. He’s informed us on so many days, and in so many ways, in the numerous interviews he’s done throughout his career, that he’s learned that he’s best when he stays in his lane, his lane being standup. He’s learned what he’s good at, and what he’s not, and he has proven to be the opposite of what makes some comedians so great, in the sense that he’s not daring, risky, or experimental.

If I were to pitch him a project, I would say he and Larry David should develop a sketch comedy in the Mr. Show vein, but we can only guess that he’s had hundreds of similar pitches from friends, fellow writers, and corporate execs, and he’s turned them all down. Some of those projects may have proved embarrassing, some may have been so far out of his lane that he didn’t even consider them, but we have to guess that some projects that were so close that he had a tough time turning them down. He did it all, because he knows who he is, what he’s good at and what he’s not, and he’s learned how to stay in his own lane.   

On the greatest sitcom of all time, Jerry Seinfeld surprisingly (to me anyway) credited the three actors (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Michael Richards, and Jason Alexander) for making the show so brilliant. He does not shy away from the idea that the writing on the show, of which he played a huge role, was great, but he admits that the actors brought that writing to the next level.  

“I did get caught in a beautiful, cyclonic weather event,” he said in an interview. “The actors, Larry David, the thirteen phenomenal comedy writers, and everyone on both sides of the camera was a killer. You know when you’re a part of it, but you know it’s not you. You’re a part of it, but if you’re smart, you know it’s not you. It’s not all you.”   

On Seinfeld, Jerry played the Alex Rieger of Taxi, the Sam Malone of Cheers, the center of the storm. He’s always been great at adding that final comment, lifting that eyebrow to exaggerated levels, and saying, “ALL RIGHT!” at the end of another character’s hilarious rant. He knows how to put a cherry atop the pie in other words. As long as that pie, or the acting required to nuance it, was filled in by someone else. He can write funny, he can deliver a short, crisp line deliver as well as anyone, but the nuances in the acting craft required to build to Seinfeld’s punctuation were always best left to others. I heard him say this so many times that I saw it, until I accepted it, but I always thought there was a bit of humility attached to it. Some of us were so blinded by enthusiasm that we never learned how to curb it completely.

When he decided to end Seinfeld after the ninth season, it felt similar to an athlete retiring at the downside of their peak, not the prolonged, sad tail end, just the other side of the peak. There were hints in seasons eight and nine, after Larry David left, that the show was on the downside of its peak, but it was still the best show on TV. Why would an athlete, or a successful showrunner, quit prematurely? I understand not wanting to outstay your welcome, or allowing us to see glaring levels of diminishment and not wanting to go out like that, but if you’re lucky, you might still have forty years on this planet. What are you going to do in the rest of your life to top that? Some of them, I think, are too worried about what we think. They don’t want us to see their downside, or because they love the game so much that they can’t bear playing at anything less than their peak. They can’t bear someone saying, “If you just called it quits after season nine, it would’ve been a great show beginning to end. Season ten was probably one season too many.” They, some of them, don’t want us to remember them as someone who stayed around too long.

When we were kids, we ached for another Star Wars movie, then we got one later, much later, and it ruined the legacy of Star Wars. After the second trilogy was complete, the almost unanimous opinion among those I know is they probably should’ve left us wanting. As Led Zeppelin did. Zeppelin broke up after the untimely death of their drummer John Bonham, in 1980. We spent our teens and early twenties talking about the possibility of a reunion and another Zep album. I understand they said it wouldn’t feel the same without Bonham, but the remaining band members were still in their early-to-mid thirties when they broke up. How do you leave a juggernaut like Led Zeppelin in your early thirties? The Beatles were in their twenties when they broke up. As Theodore Roosevelt said of being president so young, “The worst thing about being president of the United States so young, is that there’s nothing you can do to top that for the rest of your life.” Led Zeppelin left us wanting, and it was probably for the best. What could they have done to top those first six albums? They most likely, and in all probability, would’ve only disappointed.

In a career studded with comedy gold, Gold Jerry! Gold! Unfrosted has the feel of a sequel. It’s not a sequel, but how many of us walked out of a killer comedy, talking about how that movie just screams out for a sequel. We didn’t talk about how great that comedy was, we instantly wanted more. Then, when the sequel came out, it was, “That wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as the first one.” That was the impression Unfrosted left on me. It felt like all the players were trying to recapture something that used to be really funny, and we were all prepared with our preparatory smiles on our faces, until the smiles slowly faded away.  

The characters have this feel of trying to repeat something that worked before, but it just doesn’t for all the mysterious reasons that some movies work and some just don’t. The jokes have a feel about them that suggests to us that they’re brilliant, but they’ve been done so many times before that we no longer need to figure them out. As someone who doesn’t know one-one hundredths of the knowledge Jerry Seinfeld has about comedy, I think the figuring out part is the reward of comedy. 

Unfrosted seeks the opposite tact. It goes for familiarity, and we all love familiarity. Familiarity with actors, themes, concepts, and all that. Unfrosted displays this level of familiarity in the beginning, to establish a through line to the audience, but it never branches out into that unique spin that kind of shocks us into laughter. The setting of the movie is the 60s, and what a foolish time that was, and even though this has been a million times before, we still think it could be great in the minds of geniuses.

It’s a mystery to us why some movies don’t work, because we don’t make movies, but you’ll often hear moviemakers, actors, and all the other players say, in interviews, that they don’t know why either. “We thought it was funny, but we had no idea how huge it would get.” We don’t often hear the players involved say, “We thought it would be huge, but we had no idea people would consider it a little boring.” What works and what doesn’t is a mystery to us, and it’s a mystery to them. Generally speaking, dramas and action movies are probably a lot easier to predict for those involved, especially when the star actor signs on to the vehicle. Comedies and horror have a super secret formula that even those involved in the finer details of the production involved don’t know whether it will hit or not.  

Unfrosted gave us all a be-careful-what-you-wish-for feel, because you just might get it. As much as we cried out for a movie, or any project, from Jerry Seinfeld, we walked away from it thinking that Unfrosted, unfortunately, should never have been made. What could they have done to make you feel better about it? “I don’t know, I don’t make movies, but they probably should’ve left me wanting more instead of giving it to me.”

Watching Unfrosted, reminds us of that elite athlete who retired on the downside of a peak, not the bottom, just the downside, and we clamored for his return. How can he retire at 37? He still had what two-to-three years left? If he lives to eighty, he’ll spend the next 43 years reminiscing and thinking he should’ve played two-to-three more years at least. Then he comes back, and we see how much his skills have declined. He didn’t do it for the money, I can tell you that much. He did it, because he loves the game, and what’s wrong with that?

The point some people make on various websites is that athletes and entertainers run the risk of ruining their legacy by staying too long. This line right here makes me almost fighting mad. So, you’re telling me that the athlete who made so much money for the league, the city, and the franchise shouldn’t be able to sell his wares to anyone who will take them? He shouldn’t try to get another paycheck for the punishment he put his body through for your entertainment, because you want to remember him the way you want to remember him? Isn’t that a bit myopic, even selfish? He wanted to get paid for his efforts, of course, but he didn’t necessarily do it for the money? Seinfeld, and most modern athletes, have so much money that that’s not why they’re doing it. They’re doing it for the love the game so much that they want to play at least two more years? What’s wrong with that, and what’s wrong with you for wanting to deny him that?

Did Seinfeld ruin his legacy by doing Unfrosted? No, first of all, it wasn’t that bad, but, then again, I never expected to say that a Seinfeld project “wasn’t that bad”. I don’t remember any of the elite athletes who “stayed one year too long” for those latter years, and I don’t begrudge them for taking as many paychecks as they could before they called it a career. I also don’t begrudge them the idea that they loved the game so much that they couldn’t walk away, until it was obvious to them that they truly couldn’t play the game anymore. I actually respect it, as I say it was for the love of the game. I respect the fact that Seinfeld’s friend pitched him on the idea of Unfrosted, and not only did he like the idea, but he didn’t think he was done yet. He thought he had one more big project in him, because he loves doing the things he does so much that he wanted to try it at least one more time. Good for you, Mr. Seinfeld, I say, and if he feels like doing another project, or projects, I’ll be there on the first day it’s released.  

Jerry Seinfeld has admitted that he doesn’t expect to be remembered after he’s gone, and he’s even gone so far as to say he doesn’t care, or that’s not his driving force. I’ll remember Jerry Seinfeld as a great, almost perfect standup comedian, the cocreator of one of the greatest sitcoms in TV history, and as a gifted natural when it comes to observational humor, but Unfrosted doesn’t do much to either lift or damage his legacy. It was just a marginally entertaining movie that they probably won’t list in his very lengthy resume when that final wave off arrives.

Rilalities XII

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Story, Harrowing Story

“Our son overdosed on Tylenol,” a mom and dad said entering a hospital’s emergency department. When they were directed to a room, they informed the nurse that the family experienced a dispute in their home. Their teenage son didn’t deal with it well. “He overdosed to teach us a lesson,” the parents informed the nurse. The argument, it turned out, was based on a huge misunderstanding. After emotions subsided, the three put the missing puzzle pieces back in place and realized what happened. (The author doesn’t know the particulars.) The parents and their son concluded their Q&A with the nurse by telling her they were in the emergency room that day to get their son’s stomach pumped.

“Okay,” the nurse said after the parents explained what happened in their home. “When did he take the Tylenol, and how much?”

“It’s been a couple days,” the mother said, “and he took almost an entire bottle.” She had the near empty bottle with her, and she informed the nurse that it was full before the incident. The mother finished that explanation with a compassionate smile directed at her son, and she mouthed, ‘It’s okay,’ to him.

The nurse made a mental note that she later shared with the doctor “that the three appeared almost happy, or maybe relieved in some odd way.”

The doctor agreed, and he said, “I think they were relieved that the heated argument was over, and they were just happy to have their son back.” 

 

“The treatment for an acetaminophen overdose is a drug called acetylcysteine,” the doctor informed them when he sat in the emergency room, about a half an hour after the nurse left, “but it only shows maximum effectiveness within an eight hour window of the overdose. We will use acetylcysteine, and we will also perform a gastric lavage or nasogastric tube suction, or what you call a stomach pump, but there are similar time constraints on the maximum effectiveness of those procedures too. The problem with ingesting so much acetaminophen and leaving it in the system for so long, is that it has been absorbed by the liver.”

“So, so, what does that mean?” the family asked.

“Our medical team is going to do everything at our disposal today,” the doctor said, “but my job is to make sure you are well aware of the facts of the situation here.”

“And the facts are?” the mother asked.

The doctor had sympathy for the patient and his parents inability to grasp the severity of the matter, and he tried to describe the ramifications as delicately and with as much sympathy as he could. He chose his words carefully while repeating everything he said about the effectiveness of acetylcysteine and stomach pumps after a couple of days, and he repeated what he said about the medical team at that hospital doing everything they could do to help their son, “But if your son took as much Tylenol as you’ve described here today, this is going to be as difficult a situation as you can imagine.”

We can only imagine how difficult this was for the doctor, and we can imagine that the parents put the doctor through it over and over in excruciating detail, asking questions we might regard as obtuse, but what was, in fact, a couple of parents and a son having a difficult time digesting the grim reality of the situation. We have to imagine that they interrogated the doctor, until he finally broke down and said, “In cases such as these, the normal life expectancy is around two-three-days.”

After the initial hysteria broke down, we can also imagine that the parents and their child enjoyed their final moments together. The reports suggest that this is a painful way to die, but if the son was able to manage the pain to a certain degree, we can imagine that the three of them did everything they could to celebrate his last days on earth. 

The team of medical professionals tried acetylcysteine, they performed the stomach pump, and anything and everything at their disposal. The teenage boy died two days later. 

I heard this story decades ago, and it still haunts me. It’s the da Vinci of stories. It doesn’t matter the angle, or perspective, it stares back at you as hard as you stare at it. How could the parents not know their child overdosed? For a couple of days? Was the argument so intense that they were not on speaking terms? I don’t know much about overdoses of this nature, but how was he not showing concerning symptoms, concerning to him in particular? We can only imagine that the parents have dreams where they spot something and do something sooner.

As much as the parents probably went through, and still go through, we have to imagine that no one involved in this situation will ever forget it. Everyone from the nurse, to the doctor, to anyone else involved still have nightmares about it. It’s also a harrowing reminder that no matter how bad the fight, or how profound the disagreement, get it out, get it all out, speak to the ones you love, and straighten it all out before it’s too late. 

Heart Attack

Those who were there know that I had a rocky relationship with my dad. We were two stubborn, ornery, Irish roosters butting heads. He kept me in check by threatening to kick me out of the house. I didn’t want to leave my home, and I didn’t want to be known as the kid who got kicked out of the home. My plan, once I got out on my own, was to never forgive him and never forget what he did to me. Years into the plan, my dad had a massive heart attack. His chances of survival were slim. I visited him and saw him hooked up to a variety of machines, and I realized that no matter how awful he was to me, he was the last parent I had left in life. He survived, barely.

We spent the next eleven years rectifying everything that happened during my youth. During these eleven years, I thanked him for assuming the role of step-father for me when I was two-years-old. That was so hard. It was difficult to avoid qualifying it, and placing “But you did this to me” type of asterisks. I left it as a standalone thank you. 

It was the best thing I ever did. I wish he would’ve lived for another ten to twenty years, but he didn’t. When he eventually passed away, however, I said goodbye to him with a heart free of anger, without the need for some sort of retribution, and hatred. If he died after the first heart attack, I would’ve been an absolute wreck. The moral of the story is, no matter how bad the fight between you and your loved ones is, get it out, speak to one another, and straighten it out before it’s too late.

Why I Write

Ever drive down the road and see a bumper sticker with exclamatory statements on their car? How about that guy who wears a T-shirt, in public, that says something meaningful? And what about that guy we all know who debates his friends on a variety of topics, with a palpable sense of frustration. “No one will listen to me,” he shouts. Everyone who talks to that guy feels his underlying sense of frustration, and they know how angry he is. We begin to interact with him less and less, because we know he can turn everything from a discussion on geopolitics to whether or not the snap pea is a delicious food into an uncomfortably confrontational argument. Every time I meet that guy, I’m so glad I’m not him anymore. That guy has no venue. He needs to express himself all over you. Whether you deem the material I discuss valuable or not, I found my venue. 

I always valued friendship over the temporary feelings one can derive through defeating another in an argument, but I felt a certain sense of frustration when no one would agree with me. When I expressed some anger and frustration, people would give me that extra look. If you’ve seen that look, you know it. That look follows you, and it says something uncomfortably revealing about you. It’s a double-take that precedes most rational, sane people just walking away. Others, who care about you, say, “Maybe you need some counseling.” Tried it, didn’t work for me. I wouldn’t say the counselor was stupid, or I am more intelligent, but she didn’t understand me. I didn’t understand me, until I found an outlet. I wouldn’t say I was complex, or anything extra ordinary, but there was no question that I needed to do something to get everything that was in me, out. 

“Music sets the sick ones free,” Andrew Wood, lead singer of Mother Love Bone, once wrote. That was me. I didn’t just love music, I needed it. I could drop the cliché that I needed music, like some people need oxygen, but it wasn’t that severe. I prefer to think of my need for music to help balance my mental stability as one might view a farmer living out on the prairie with little-to-no law enforcement. I needed music the way those farmers need to be armed to protect their land, their livestock, and their family. The only issue was I never wanted to be anything more than a music listener. I didn’t know how to play an instrument, and I didn’t have the patience to learn one. Yet, I was in desperate need of some form of self-expression in some sort of artistic manner. 

If “Music sets the sick ones free,” and I believe it does, writing was directed neurological therapy for me. Music was equivalent to a neurologist prescribing necessary over the counter pain medication. Writing, would prove the directed neurotherapy a neurologist might prescribe after repeated visits and extensive study of my reactions to everything prior.  

I was never ill, compromised, or depressed in any substantial manner, but I had an internal itch that ruined days. Writing felt substantial to me. I wanted it all, but when it didn’t come, I kept writing. I was no prodigy. I wrote some awful stuff, but I loved it, needed it, and I kept wanting to do it no matter what. Writing anything and everything I could think up is what has led me to the definition of sanity I now know.

No Hugging and No Learning

When I watched Seinfeld, I had no idea why it appealed to me so much. It was funny, of course, but there were dozens of situation comedies on the air at the time, and hundreds of them throughout history. Seinfeld was special to me, and I had no idea why. When I learned that the writer’s room had a “no hugging and no learning” thematic approach, I said, “That’s it” to myself.

Seinfeld was special, because it wasn’t “special”. Everyone from the creators, writers, on down to the actors made no effort to be special, nor did they add special ingredients into the mix. The special ingredients for most writers on most situation comedies involved the “very special episodes”. These episodes made special connections to the audience through special issues. A character, in their narrative, discovers that they’ve been so wrong for so long that they now question their foundation, and the audience understands, agrees, cries, hugs, and leaps to their feet in “clapture”. Clapture is a framing technique used by comedy writers to get the (Emmy!) audience to clap with laughter, or to agree with them more than laugh. I didn’t realize, until Seinfeld, how cringeworthy those special, meaningful messages were. The Seinfeld writers maintained that there would be no hugging, no learning, and if I might add, no special understandings in their show. They just tried to be funny. When we watch such shows, we always wonder if they reflect our values, or if we begin to reflect theirs. I think Seinfeld, more than any other sitcom I’ve watched, reflects my values. I prefer a good steak with very little seasoning and nothing else! Unless steak sauce is used to cover up the quality of the meat, I want nothing else on my steak. If you’re going to come at me and tell me what you really think of me, I prefer that you come bold with no qualifiers. I also prefer music that is complicated, fun, interesting, creative, relatively brilliant, unique, and utterly meaningless. Don’t tell me what you think of the domestic economy of Istanbul, the mating habits of the emu, or anything else that you wished you put in your college thesis. Just write lyrics that fit the music and be done with it. Seinfeld, in my opinion, met all of those standards.