Words about something A reason Jerry Seinfeld is brilliant

“Nothing really affects comedy. People always need it. They need it so badly and they don’t get it. It used to be, you would go home at the end of the day, most people would go, ‘Oh, Cheers is on. Oh, M.A.S.H. is on. Oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on. All in the Family is on.’ You just expected, there’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight.

“Well, guess what—where is it? This is the result of the extreme left and PC crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people. Now they’re going to see stand-up comics because we are not policed by anyone. The audience polices us. We know when we’re off track. We know instantly and we adjust to it instantly. But when you write a script and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups—‘Here’s our thought about this joke.’ Well, that’s the end of your comedy.”

—Jerry Seinfeld, last month

Jerry Seinfeld would make a good editorial writer. Or at least a good conservative editorial writer. He’s been in a lot of (media) trouble over the last month for some of his anti-PC words/thoughts/principles. We knew we liked the guy.

He went on some podcast or another last month, put the above quote out there, and was immediately raked over the coals. But we haven’t seen one of those non-apology apologies from him yet. You know the kind: “If anybody was offended, lemme explain why I said …” At least he’s sticking to his guns. We knew we liked the guy.

And to mention “All in the Family” these days? Publicly? Is he crazy? Just uttering the title of that sitcom might be enough to get you burned in effigy at Columbia U. We knew we liked the guy.

But his jibe against committee writing, now that’s where he stole our inky hearts. Paul Greenberg used to say that there were only two things ever written by committee that were worth reading: The King James Bible and the United States Constitution. Both were inspired by God. (And, he sometimes added to his editorial writers: God isn’t inspiring you to write about the local school system, kid, so get busy figuring out your own points.)

Committees aren’t as much interested in saying something as much as they are in consensus. And if it means not saying anything to get that consensus, well, look at the American editorial for results. It must be the same in comedy.

We’ve watched the wire over the last few weeks, and we’ve noted the anti-Seinfeld crowd—who knew there could ever be such a thing?—among the national columnists. They seem broken-hearted over his non-PC thinking.

We knew we liked the guy.