Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

If you don’t watch a lot of television, you may have forgotten the "Must See TV" Thursday night lineup of the early 90s that included Friends, Mad About You, and Seinfeld. Although my Manhattan experience was very different from any portrayed on TV, I watched with everyone else and chatted about it the following day (and was always entertained that the actor who played Joey on Friends attended my high school). This New York Times bestseller looks at the creators of the show, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, comedians who did not really expect their sitcom to take off, the actors, and a varied group of writers who came up with trivial incidents that became memorable episodes and cultural phenomena.

I hadn’t thought much about Seinfeld in recent years but came across this book and found it very entertaining. The relationship of the four actors, Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Michael Richards, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who was my favorite character, and how they played off against each other was a key part of the show’s success. I did not know that Louis-Dreyfus and Larry David had worked at SNL together, which helped her decide to accept the offer to join what was expected to be a four-episode special series. What I liked best about the book was reading about some of the more famous episodes I remembered, such as the Soup Nazi (who was located near my office), the nail salon episode where Elaine is sure everyone is talking about her, an episode involving Jerry and Elaine flying to NY while George and Kramer try to pick them up, and one involving a Junior Mint falling into a surgical procedure (written by a former Harvard Lampoon editor). The show’s writers were sometimes very surprised by the popularity of some episodes!

Jerry Seinfeld’s book SeinLanguage (1993) was a big bestseller, and for several years all we New York publishers tried to come up with something similar. When I was at Penguin, we were pitched a memoir by the actor, Kelsey Grammer, who played Dr. Frasier Crane, first on Cheers and then on his own show, Frasier. My colleague Audrey did not own a TV so I remember recording an episode of Frasier and bringing it to work so she could see who he was before we overpaid for his book. When the manuscript came in, it was completely inadequate – less than 100 pages, if I recall correctly. Either Grammer was too busy or he was completely unable to produce the humorous memoir we expected. But the Dutton imprint had to produce a book, so Audrey flew out to Los Angeles and followed Grammer around with a tape recorder, trying to collect enough material to augment the manuscript. There was also a ghostwriter involved who insisted his name be on the cover but he died unexpectedly before the book came out and the publisher, Elaine Koster, took advantage of this and quickly removed his name. I remember thinking the widow should have made a huge fuss but she wouldn’t have known until the book came out and it was too late. The book was not very successful, as I recall.

Several years later, I was working at Avon Books when it published a book we all secretly thought was extremely lame but was meant to tap into the popularity of these celebrity humor books. It was called Letters from a Nut, and consisted of nonsensical letters to customer service departments, government agencies, hotels, and public figures, and the polite form letters the author received in response (the juxtaposition was supposed to be funny). The only thing the book had going for it was an introduction by Jerry Seinfeld and it was published in the hope that Seinfeld would do publicity. It was our custom at Avon to have cake and champagne when our authors came to town and somehow our publisher got the author (who was using the pseudonym Ted Nancy) to come to the office with Seinfeld. Of course, everyone totally ignored the author and gathered around Seinfeld, a much slighter figure than expected. He didn’t seem overjoyed to be with us but made a few funny remarks, at which we all laughed sycophantically. Our president, Mike Greenstein, was a huge fan and could not contain his excitement that Seinfeld was in our office! And I think Letterman was eventually persuaded to have the author on his show so it did sell some copies despite, as I said, being a very silly book.  Eventually, it got a sequel!

Title: Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything
Author: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
Publication: Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 2016
Genre: Nonfiction
Source: Library

Reading Seinfeldia contributed to this challenge:

• Nonfiction November