I don’t usually reprint press releases here.
Come to think of it, I NEVER reprint press releases. But this one is too good to ignore.
The basic background: “Seinfeld”(shown here in its wonderful Chinese-restaurant episode – which is, of course, the best comedy in television history – will move to Netflix on Oct. 1. Instead of sendig a standard release, Netflix dispatched the following:
Hollywood, CA — Netflix will launch 180 episodes of a situational comedy called ‘Seinfeld,’ created by rising New York comedian Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, who wrote for Saturday Night Live for a single season.
The show completed production in May (of 1998) and is slated for release on the Netflix platform in its entirety on October 1, 2021.
Bookended by Seinfeld’s stand-up material, the 180 episodes of the sitcom explore the minutiae of the comic’s everyday life as he navigates his relationships with a talented ensemble cast, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Troll, Family Ties), Michael Richards (UHF, Fridays) and Jason Alexander (Pretty Woman).
“This is the first time we’ve taken a risk of this nature, going all in on 9 seasons at the jump,” said Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos. “But Jerry has created something special with this sitcom that nobody has ever done. I truly think he and Mr. David have enormous futures ahead of them and I’m thrilled Netflix could be the home for them to grow their fanbases.”
“Larry and I are enormously grateful to Netflix for taking this chance on us. It takes a lot of guts to trust two schmucks who literally had zero experience in television when we made this thing,” said Seinfeld. “We really got carried away, I guess. I didn’t realize we made so many of them. Hope to recoup god knows how many millions it must have taken to do. But worth all the work if people like it. Crazy project.”