Jerry Seinfeld had 45 years of jokes on scraps of paper — so he put them into a book

Q23:44Jerry Seinfeld on his new book, 45 years of comedy and the stupidity of a ‘quick question’

This interview originally aired on Oct. 9, 2020.

For decades, Jerry Seinfeld has been a master of observing the awkward, mundane moments in life and finding humour in them. His hit TV show Seinfeld ran for nine seasons, and even though it's been called "a show about nothing," it changed everything.

Seinfeld made his way through New York City comedy clubs to become arguably the most influential comic of his generation. After Seinfeld, he went on to TV and movie projects, but through it all, there's been one constant: a yellow legal pad of paper.

For 45 years, Seinfeld has been carrying a yellow legal pad of paper around to work out his jokes. His book Is This Anything? is a collection of musings from those yellow pads of paper.

In an interview on Q with Tom Power, which has been edited for length and clarity, the comedian talked about his career, the legacy of Seinfeld, and whether there's an actual difference between day cereal and night cereal.

I want to talk about the beginning of the book, which starts with you in the mid-1960s…. You're staring at a comedian in a dark suit and tie on The Ed Sullivan Show. What is going through your mind at this time? 

Well, you know, in the '60s, there were a lot of magical things that happened. You know, there were magical people, like Muhammad Ali and John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., you know, Sean Connery. They were all magical — people that didn't seem real.

So standup comedians that I would see on Ed Sullivan, like George Carlin or Richard Pryor, Alan King, they were in that group of people that I saw as a child thinking maybe they were superheroes or something. It just didn't seem like part of the real world. And I wanted to be all of those people that I just mentioned, but it seemed like an impossibility.

The comedians, particularly, seemed like they were having the most fun life of anybody I could imagine. And so as I grew and I continued watching them, I learned about it, but very slowly. And you couldn't find out about these people and what they were doing or how they did it. It really wasn't until I was about 18 or 19 that a book came out called The Last Laugh, which was the first book completely about this world of standup comedy. And I dove into that book and that was really the doorway that I was looking for.

So how did it feel when you first started going into these Manhattan comedy clubs, these places that were sort of imaginary to you?

Terrified. Excited. I was just wildly in wonder of what was going on in these rooms and how these people were doing it. I didn't know how they did it, but man, it's funny. It's funny to look back on it now and for me to look back at my young self and realize I didn't know what was happening to me, but that I was being introduced to my calling. And that's a funny moment to look back on in your life because, you know, the naivete of the moment is very cute in retrospect.

Do you remember the first set?

I do remember the very first set, and it was so depressing, so discouraging, because when you watch comedy when you're young, it looks easy. I mean, it doesn't look easy, but it looks easier than it actually is.

I don't know if this is in the book, but the thing that you never can anticipate is when you go stand on a stage to make an audience laugh, you have no idea how quiet it is before you start talking, even as you're talking. There's no laughter going on in the room at all. 

All good creative work should be drudgery.- Jerry Seinfeld

You write in the book about how [comedy is] closer to sports than to arts. That it's actually a lot of — and I mean this in the best possible way — boring work, like, actually sitting down and writing jokes, even if it's not necessarily boring to you. And that seems like an interesting lesson to learn. 

Yeah, all good creative work should be drudgery. You don't find great things in large quantities — that's not part of human existence. If you can find some way to accept that life of pure drudgery, then you can live a long life in the arts. But if you find the drudgery is too painful, you'll have a short life in the arts.

Did things get immediately better when you discovered the drudgery? Like, did your act get better?

Yes, I suddenly started to find myself moving through levels. I was getting spots in shows and I was getting asked to be on TV, and then come back and come back. But I was ready.

By the time I got on TV, I had been working at learning how to work for five years, which isn't that long, but seemed like a long time to me. But I was ready for them because when they said, "That was good. Can you come back in three months and do it again?" I would say, yes, and I knew that I could.

Most comedians, they would say yes, I'll be back in three months, but they didn't have the material. The material is like one of those drip coffee makers. It just comes out really slow and there's no way to speed it up. You have to work hard and you have to be able to wait for the good material.

That doesn't mean sitting around waiting for the muse to hit. That means sitting down and just writing. When I read this book, I'm just watching you work it, you know, I'm imagining you writing down the word "horse" and going, "All right, where do we go with this horse? Where can we go?"

Well, I wouldn't start with something that basic, but I would go horseback riding. And, you know, anything that's not good is good. That's what you're looking for. The worse the experience, the more likely it's going to be something interesting to talk about…. If you're having a horrible experience, you're in a good place.

That's why success is the poison of comedy, which is something I've said many times, because success gives you the ability to spare yourself discomfort and difficulty. The more success you have, the more money you have, the more you can avoid unpleasantness in life — and unpleasantness is the gold. That's the gold mine. 

Seinfeld is still on TV everywhere…. What do you account for its longevity when we don't really watch All in the Family anymore and we don't watch, you know, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper anymore?

That is so wrong, because Hangin' with Mr. Cooper had some funny stuff.

I'll give you the Jackie Gleason answer because he was asked this question about The Honeymooners his entire life. People would always ask, "Why do you think these shows are still on?" And he had a two word answer: "they're funny."

Only through the lens of time is the distillation of something that's really funny and kind of funny — that's where you separate yourself from the pack. Everything else is of its time. You know, people talk about political comedy or comedy that's more of the moment. That's the easiest stuff. The hard stuff is [writing] something funny today that people are going to want to see in 20 years. Now you're doing something.

So I got two quick questions for you to close things off before you have to go —

What is a quick question, by the way? 

One that you might be able to do in, like, 45 seconds, not eight minutes, is maybe what I mean by that. It's also a way of getting you to think that I'm going to do this quickly. 

Yeah, people always say "quick question."

So quick question number one: you in the book say —

You know, that's something that makes me laugh that I will jot down now and see if I can hit that target. I'll put that target across the room with a bow and arrow, and say, "Let me see if I can get a laugh off of the stupidity of 'quick question.'"

I'll tell you another thing that attracts me to it: you got the "k" sound in the quick and the "k" sound in the question. When you have funny sounds, that's another good place to start comedy. 

Brief question. You say in the book, "I deeply love the endless, somewhat tortuous struggle of never quite feeling that you've got your act where you want it." As someone who makes records, I can make a record and then I'm done. It sounds excruciating, that torturous struggle of never quite feeling like you got it where you want it.

Well, I mean, if you make music, you know what I'm talking about. If you get up to perform that song — even if you've got a perfect recorded version of it — I'm sure at times you get up to perform it in front of an audience? Well, that's going to go a certain way, and most likely, you're going to go, "It wasn't quite as good as I wanted it to be."

And sometimes it'll be better than the recorded version and that kills you too. You think, "Gee, I wish I had that on tape." And so that's the pain of it. But it's so much a part of human existence in general. Things are always better or worse or just not quite right. And if you are aggravated and frustrated by those things, that energy is also part of the show. 

All right. Last rapid question.

There's nothing rapid about these questions! Look at how long it took us to answer your quick question.

Last sprightly question, Jerry. I was talking to my friend about this the other day, about cereal. You talk about cereal in your act, in your book and even in the new special. We were talking about the difference between your 8 a.m. cereal and your 10 p.m. cereal — the cereal you start with in the morning and the cereal you have as a treat. For me, it's Raisin Bran in the morning and then in the nighttime I'd have Cinnamon Toast Crunch. What's your 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. cereal? 

You know, in the morning, you're thinking positive. I try to think positive in the morning, let's try and make this a good day. So I almost always have oatmeal, which I like anyway. And it's a great cereal. It's good for you. And at night, it's Frosted Flakes. Raisin Bran Crunch, have you had that, Tom? 

No, I don't think we have that up here. 

Oh, that's so sad, but of course you do. Of course you do. Anything we have, you have. Please, please, I beg of you. You can get it. Because you like Raisin Bran, you have to try Raisin Bran Crunch. It is a finalist in greatest cereals of all time.

I'll also say I don't think oatmeal is cereal. 

It's in a bowl. 

So is soup.

I got a spoon. I got milk. I got brown sugar. 

All right. OK. Jerry, thanks so much for your time today. 

Thank you, Tom. It was really fun to talk to you. 

The full interview with Jerry Seinfeld is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Jerry Seinfeld produced by Catherine Stockhausen.