Jerry Before Seinfeld (2017)

Starring: Jerry Seinfeld
Grade: A-

If you just watched Seinfeld on a binge and are only tuning into this special to get more of the all-time comedian, don’t. After watching the show, wait six months to a year (at the minimum) before watching Jerry Before Seinfeld. You’ll thank me later for it. A good portion of the jokes from the actual stand-up of this Netflix special are taken directly from some of the opening credit bits of the show.

Summary

During this special, and his accompanying routine at the Comic Strip Live in New York, we see Jerry Seinfeld talk about how he got started and came to the realization of when he wanted to become a comedian. Accompanying his story are some cool edits showing his handwriting on the screen and when he talked about signing up for an audition at the Strip. Next, we cut to the actual paper where the guys who judged him wrote the word “Good” by his name. Following this, we start going into his old jokes that still hit, such as being left-handed and everything negative being associated with it, his parents not caring and his life growing up (with inserted flashback montages to accompany the joke), cereal, boredom as a kid, losing something as an adult versus a kid and how they react (super accurate, though most of Seinfeld’s observations are), the importance of the thermostat, starting out at the Comic Strip and his poor living arrangements, and one of my favorite jokes in which he talks about drugs at an airport.

This is where he talks about security asking if someone has drugs on them, with him hilariously questioning, “Is this an effective interrogation?”.

Then, he goes over stun guns, doing comedy in front of his parents and comparing it to coming out of the closet, not being able to talk one-on-one but being able to do stand-up in front of a large crowd, cotton balls, relationships, and flowers. This is where we get the great quote of “If there were no flowers, Earth would be populated by men and lesbians”. He also touches on topics such as being engaged, men working on things, deconstructing team sports, having a maid, visiting his parents in Florida (I still laugh with him quipping that once parents become old, they have to move to Florida, as it’s the law), moving things with his father, notaries, magicians, and the guy who catches bullets in his mouth as a stage act. He also manages to make fun of politics without being political, a seemingly impossible task to do. He talks about wanting to be president being attributed to being a crazy person and of course, the animal mascots of Republicans and Democrats which admittedly, never made any sense to me. Lastly, he finishes things off with some very funny bits about time and how twenty minutes means anything, pushing things to the side and having to deal with it later, and understanding complex movies.

My Thoughts:

Jerry Before Seinfeld is a stand-up special and documentary rolled into one. As we jump back and forth between the Comic Strip Live, the first place he ever performed at, to narration from Jerry, as well as him talking to the camera directly, the viewer is given some serious insight on the life and career of Jerry Seinfeld. Plus, he’s still funny while doing it. We hear about his upbringing, how he got started, the way he thinks as a comedian, and we get a full stand-up act all at the same time. It’s very well done. The only major gripe is that again, fans will recognize almost all of the jokes of his routine because it’s all from Seinfeld. Therefore, some people with great memories will not appreciate this special nearly as much as they would have, had they not watched the show in a while.

This special is really entertaining because of how much is packed into this one-hour special to make it more than just a stand-up act. Now, in terms of the actual stand-up, it definitely is funny. However, after he hits us with some new jokes, the rest of the stand-up consists of old bits throughout his career like I mentioned before. If you’re okay with Jerry Seinfeld’s known philosophy that once you “make it”, people just want to hear the same old routine, then you’ll enjoy this a lot more. If you read my review of Talking Funny, you know how much I hate the arrogance of this Seinfeld theory. With that being said, I can get give it more of a pass here because the point of this special was to travel back in time to his old act and to do the jokes over again that got him famous. This is what makes this special worth watching, the learning aspect. Seinfeld is this well-researched and takes his comedy this seriously, he knows EXACTLY the jokes that helped him get from his parents’ house and the Comedy Strip to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 5 years. So, in this case, it makes a lot of sense. For fans and historians of comedy, Jerry Before Seinfeld is worth watching because it feels like you’re watching history in the making. Actually, it brings in non-Seinfeld fans too just because of the documentary-like asides we delve into throughout. It’s absorbing regardless of what you may think of his style of humor.

Even so, the “powers that be” that made him famous were right. These selected jokes that helped him “make it” are still very funny.

After all of these years, we see why Jerry Seinfeld became the star he did. His observational humor is as timeless as it gets. It still works. How many times have we lost a sock in the dryer? Where the hell does that thing go? His humor is clean, can be used in any context, and is still ridiculously relatable. Seriously, my mom has actually used the EXACT same argument Seinfeld mentions about how people think having a gigantic mirror makes a room look bigger or look like there’s another room in general.

It never made sense to me either Jerry!

There’s also a lot of other stuff sprinkled in to separate this special from other Seinfeld specials. He actually fields questions from the crowd about some stage props, which he rarely does, and he has a small sit-down conversation with the guys from the Strip to add to the documentary style of this eventful hour. In addition, there’s this awesome image of Jerry sitting on a street with every single bit he has written down from 1975 (up until that very morning) surrounding him. Now, I imagine that most (if not all) of the papers are props because why would you lay that type of history and preparation on a random street, but this isn’t the point. The point is that Seinfeld in reality still has EVERY SINGLE BIT he has ever came up with still on paper! Though he plays the normal comedian for the public, he’s a low-key madman when it comes to comedy. This is where it starts to make sense as to why he has been so successful. Being funny is serious business. Stuff like this, and the special in general, is at its best when it shows us a look into the comic’s mind and process. In doing so, we gain respect for the dedication, the preparation, and hard work it takes to be as good as Seinfeld is, for as long as he has been. Though it would have extended the runtime a bit, I would’ve enjoyed a little more of that old footage of Jerry’s early stand-up work because of how rare it is. Then again, it probably would’ve ruined the perfect pacing of this special.

Since we’re on the subject though, I wouldn’t have minded this to be a full-on documentary about Seinfeld if it included more stuff like that. If anything, this production as a whole would be more significant had it went this route instead.

Jerry Before Seinfeld is a swift look at Jerry Seinfeld’s life and career through his own words, interspersed with classic stand-up jokes that helped shape his routine and helped make him become the star he is today. It was very engaging, still funny (even if you’ve heard the jokes already), and though we wish it was a little bit more in-depth on the non-stand-up parts just because we’ve seen so much of Seinfeld’s shtick already, it’s definitely a solid way to spend an hour of your day.