Jerry Seinfeld’s web series returns for a seven-episode fifth season on Nov. 6. (Photo: David Shankbone)
Jerry Seinfeld’s sitcom may have been about nothing, but there’s definitely something to his web series, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”
It’s a lean sort of something, with each episode being shorter than a half-hour sitcom.
Comedian Bill Maher, on his own “Real Time” HBO series, recently told Seinfeld: “You have found a way, as you always do, to take out the chaff. You edit.”
Maher said he wishes he could do the same with his show; alas, it is live.
“You are a boiler-downer, aren’t you?” he said to Seinfeld.
“I am a reductionist,” Seinfeld said. “I feel, what is the good part of this whole thing? Just give me that.”
Yet each episode tells a story, or more accurately, stories: about a featured car, about his guest, about comedy in general, only a little about coffee. It is a case of less being more, because each episode seems longer than it actually is.
I think this is a philosophy that applies to much in life. The “Gettysburg Address,” the greatest presidential speech, numbers fewer than 300 words; “The Great Gatsby,” arguably the Great American Novel, checks in at 180 pages. Brevity is the soul of wit, Shakespeare said.
Leave them wanting more
Even baseball — at least the Atlantic League — has figured out that it’s OK to leave them wanting more. It certainly applies to the field of public relations, as noted in this blog post.
“Comedians in Cars” segments don’t have embed codes, so the best I can do is link to some of my favorites episodes.
Sarah Jessica Parker: For Parker, purchasing a 1976 Ford Country Squire station wagon was a drive down memory lane. Hearing and then seeing the ice cream man prompts her to note: “That’s a sound that coincides with this car. But here’s the difference: just the other neighborhood kids had it. Not us. Not the Parker kids.”
“No ice cream?” Seinfeld says.
“A half-gallon of Breyers maybe once every two to three months.”
Speaking of leaving them wanting more.
Louis C.K.: The star of this segment isn’t a car but rather C.K.’s yacht. He relates the story of having run aground in Harlem, on his maiden trip with his girls on board. The tale is made all the richer for the use of animation to tell it.
David Letterman: Seinfeld drives Letterman’s car, which he acquired through Paul Newman. It’s a 1995 Volvo 960 station wagon with a racing engine. (Newman came into the grocery store where I worked during high school; he bought wine and grapes and drove off in a Volvo). On one stretch of Interstate 84 in Connecticut, Seinfeld puts petal to metal.
“God bless, Paul,” says a bemused Letterman. “That did my heart good. Wow.”
Repurpose content
A final thought on “Comedians in Cars”: For those of us who create content such as blog posts for a living, it takes time and effort to be good at it. One way to maximize that effort is to repurpose content, as explained well in this article.
Seinfeld’s program has done a nice job of slicing and dicing the episodes, turning them into themed “Single Shots,” on topics such as “New York Life,” “Marriage,” and “Donuts.”
Less is more, indeed. And that’s something.
