Jennifer Armstrong: Episode 29

Transcript

[0:00:13] Charlie Hoehn: You’re listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. I’m Charlie Hoehn. Today’s episode is with Jennifer Armstrong. Author of Seinfeldia. Why was Seinfeld so universally loved? Apart from being a hilarious sitcom, what made it so special that 40 million Americans tuned in every week and that millions of us are still watching it nearly 20 years later. That’s what Jennifer’s book is about. She learned what made the show truly pop and what Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld figured out that elevated their comedic writing to a cultural phenomenon. In this episode, Jenifer shares what she learned from studying the show. Interviewing the writers and observing the legacy that Seinfeld imprinted on our culture. If you’re the type of person who watches Seinfeld reruns on TBS or Hulu, this episode is definitely for you. Now, here’s our conversation with Jennifer Armstrong.

[0:01:33] Jennifer Armstrong: You write this book, how was it received? How was – this was your first book.

[0:01:39] Charlie Hoehn: It wasn’t really my first book, you know how this goes, sometimes it’s complicated. It’s like you want that to be because it would be an easier story. There were like these two others before but this is the first one that is of the like Jennifer Armstrong era of like, this is what I’m doing. It was really great actually because I had other books too, I do know the difference. While it was not a bestseller by any stretch, it was really well received. It had great reviews, that was really heartening. I felt like people, once they read it, they got it, they got what I was doing. It still is and definitely a couple of years ago definitely it was, a little bit of an uphill climb with books about TV. Traditionally we have not had a lot of sophisticated books about television. We have not taken our TV very seriously before, now we’re in like the Golden Age of television and we’re all into that now. It’s still taking a while to get to that point where people understand, that no I didn’t compile a bunch of trivia and list it in a book. That’s not what this is and I hate that it sounds so snooty but I felt like people didn’t really understand what this was going to be. So it’s weird because on the one hand, writing about popular television shows is great, it’s better than writing a novel in terms of marketing you know? At least there’s a built in fan base out there. On the other hand you kind of have this uphill slog of like, people don’t’ really get what this book is going to be and then once they would read it, they’d be like, “Oh this is really cool.” I had some people even say, “You know, I read this” – like people who got it in the media or something – “Well, this got sent to me so I started reading it.” And they’d be like, “I never even watched the show” and like they went back and watched the show because they read the book which to me is the ultimate, like that’s what I – I try to write these books even though I’m not stupid, I know that this isn’t going to happen most of the time, but I try to write them so that they would be interesting to read as a story even if you’ve never seen the show.

[0:03:44] Jennifer Armstrong: Yeah, I mean, I really resonate with what you said about people not taking TV seriously up until recently. In college, my favorite class was Culture in Television and we would just watch stuff like the Sopranos, which have just come out, Six Feet Under, Dexter. And we would analyze what they were saying about the culture and we’d write essays about it. My friends thought it was kind of tedious to write essays but I just loved it. I was obsessed with it. Yeah, there is all these deeper things that you get such an appreciation for. It’s not just mindless entertainment, it’s really rich, deep, literature. That gives you a broader appreciation for your world.

[0:04:41] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, exactly, I mean, it can be anyway. I mean, of course like The Facts of Life was not like that but though. I’ve been threatening lately, maybe someone wants to steal this idea if I say it out loud but I’ve been threatening lately to start like a parody website that’s like – takes everything seriously. The great-socio economic under pinning’s of The Facts of Life because we have – some of our pieces have really kind of gone overboard lately but yeah. I think that there’s a lot that is literature, certainly, the Sopranos kind of help to start that idea and anything I’ve ever written a book about. It has to have that element for me because otherwise I’m not going to be able to do it. That’s not to say that other shows aren’t fun to talk about even if they’re stupid. You know, I want there to be a little bit there to analyze and I also think that the cool thing about TV is that you’re making it pretty contemporaneously. Whatever’s going on in that show really is a little time capsule of our culture, even if it’s set in a different time. Mad Men says a lot about the 2000’s and it was just like the way we refracted that time back to us. It’s like suddenly, we were really interested in things like the sexism and the racism when in fact, if you made a show about that time during that time, there’s no way that stuff would have been in there. It shows you that we are interested in you know? The sexism and racism of the past versus what was going on then per se. Certainly, things like – if something is as wildly popular as Seinfeld and also you know, recognized as a piece of art which took a little while. But I do think it had a lot of artistic qualities. You know, that’s like – it says a lot about the 90’s to look at Seinfeld. It’s really very, of its time, even though it also transcends that and it’s still fun to watch now.

[0:06:34] Jennifer Armstrong: Yeah, definitely. Now that we have covered the artistic merits of television, let’s get into your book, Seinfeldia. If you had to choose like the one favorite story that readers bring up from your book. Or like, what is the number one thing that you would impart to listeners to say like, “You will remember this if you are a Seinfeld fan. It’s awesome.”

[0:07:01] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:07:02] Jennifer Armstrong: There’s several but I’m just going with the one that came to my mind first. Because I think it’s indicative of what was interesting to me about writing the book and also, it’s kind of even like, behind the title Seinfeldia, this is sort of the quintessential Seinfeldia story, as supposed to just the Seinfeld story. I got really interested first of all in the sort of ongoing fan culture in general. I think that that’s really interesting that there’s such a vibrant fandom for the show. It’s almost like it never went off the air because people are still so into it. One of the things that I was really interested in was the soup Nazi. Specifically, there’s this really interesting back and forth between reality and fiction effect that goes on there that’s very indicative of Seinfeld overall. There’s a lot of things in Seinfeld that ended up having this kind of weird, you don’t even know what’s fiction and what’s real anymore effect. The guy who played the soup Nazi, Larry Thomas, still makes his living going around playing the soup Nazi which I think is extraordinary. 20 years after playing a character on one episode of a television show. This character actor is still running around – like people pay him to go all over the world and put on his white coat and show up places and say “No soup for you” to people. Everybody’s so excited because he says “No soup for you” to them and like signs soup ladles and takes pictures with people and everyone is just thrilled. He has to keep his mustache and now, I don’t know that this is true but in my head, I imagine him like opening his closet and there’s just nothing but those white coats in there and he has to just pick the right now. You know, this is what he does and it’s like – that is so indicative of the ongoing thirst for interaction with this show right? It was 20 years ago, people don’t often – are often surprised to even hear like, they think he was on more than one episode because he’s so iconic. He was on one episode besides the finale when everybody came back. That’s so crazy, this guy went in to audition for this dumb part, he was going to do once and then 20 years later, he’s still doing it. I really pressed him on this, I was like, “This must drive you bananas on some level, you know, you’re an actor, you think you’re going to do Shakespeare, you think you’re going to – then you end up just saying “No soup for you” for like 20 years.” Here’s like, “No, no, no.” He’s kind of made a bargain, he didn’t have to do it you know? He could say no. He just decided, you know, this pays my bills and this way I can take the roles I want to take instead of doing dumb one time roles to pay my bills. This is kind of the bargain he’s made and he’s very well adjusted about it., which is funny since he’s playing like a crazy man you know? On top of which, there’s also this other side of the story which is that, the soup Nazi is based on a real guy with a soup stand in New York City. They just declared bankruptcy unfortunately which is very sad but you know, this guy, El Yugana who was the basis for the soup Nazi. Everybody knew the minute they saw this storyline, if you had been to his store, it’s like, everyone in New York is like, “I know that guy.” You know, he was a huge media sensation because of this and like, he hated it. He hated the show, he hated that he was on it, he does not like – he is that guy and he doesn’t need a bunch of news trucks coming to his soup store and messing it up. He just wants to make soup and sell it in an orderly fashion and instead, he had to deal with years of people coming to him and saying “No soup for you.” He despised it, really did not want to embrace this at all despite the obvious upside for his business. He did not like being called a Nazi also which is fair you know? That’s understandable. He kind of struggled with this for like 20 years, you could sort of see the struggle in the business. They did come out with a line of frozen soups, you know, they called themselves like, I think he ended up calling himself ‘The Original Soup Man’ which is sort of like his best effort of being like you know, from Seinfeld, not going to call myself a Nazi. They did actually – a couple of years ago, they finally hired Larry Thomas to be their spokesman which I thought was genius. Maybe it was too little too late to save the business but you know, this was probably what they could have done the whole time but understandably, he’s like, he just wanted to be left alone. It’s like – he didn’t ask for this and he’s like, “Ah just stop.” I think everybody thought it would die down eventually and it just doesn’t seem like it has.

[0:11:46] Charlie Hoehn: He didn’t know it.

[0:11:47] Jennifer Armstrong: It’s almost in a weird way, Larry could tell you precisely, I’m sure he can really tell. But it feels to me like it’s only getting stronger. I see him all the time doing stuff. I start the book at a minor league baseball league in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Cyclones where they now have a yearly Seinfeld night. Where they’ll have like you know… I’m trying to remember, they had so many crazy – it’s like junior men tossing contest, definitely a line dance contest, marble rye fishing contest. They had like wall to wall – because the team, I don’t know how they’re doing now but that year, it was a terrible game. I mean, they lost like 16 to 2 or something. Everybody stayed and it sold out because it was like, constant Seinfeld activity and of course, who’s there? Larry Thomas, soup Nazi giving out soup. He and the real Kramer, the guy who inspired the character of Kramer, his name is Kenny Kramer and he is a New Yorker, still lives here, still lives in the building where he met Larry David and it inspired Kramer, he lived across the hall from Larry David, the co-creator of Seinfeld. Still makes a lot of his living kind of being the inspiration for Kramer. That’s his deal, he gives a bus tour of Seinfeld sites in New York City as like “Hey, I’m the guy, I’m the real Kramer.” To me, that’s fascinating too. Just like, he wasn’t even on the show. He’s a guy who knew a guy like who’s kind of like a character. He got really lucky that they gave this the same name you know? At least then we can believe him but he’s kind of got this whole calling card which is “I’m the real Kramer” and that’s how he sort of goes through life and makes things happen. You know, that’s extraordinary to me, that 20 years later, the guy who inspired a character and the guy who was on once are like massive figures. They’re public famous figures who can make their living just by their association with the show.

[0:13:54] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, that’s unreal. What do you wish – after studying the show so intensively, what do you wish people knew about Seinfeld?

[0:14:08] Jennifer Armstrong: I mean, I do think people take it pretty seriously these days. I don’t think that’s a huge problem but I do think – I see a lot of – as we were talking about before, kind of artistic flourishes here that maybe get overlooked. It’s so easy because a lot of people who are fans, it’s like part of the deal with being a Seinfeld fan is that you just keep watching, re-watching over and over again. A lot of people just stay with that TBS kind of rerun cycle and watch before they go to bed. So many people have told me that on book tour.

[0:14:44] Charlie Hoehn: Why is that? I know it’s hilarious but no other show really has that sticking power where you can watch it over and over again and it never gets old.

[0:14:56] Jennifer Armstrong: I do think that – I think it’s kind of related to the artistic side of the show to some extent. It’s weird because I think it also numbs us to it, if you just keep watching it over and over again. What you don’t realize, the reason it’s so stimulating essentially is that you know, you’ve got 22 minutes to make sitcom on television with commercial breaks and they really perfected over time. They did not do this initially, but over time, they really perfected kind of really unpacking that thing, more than any other show had before. Most shows have an A plot and a B plot. Often not related, it’s just like, one person is like, the big thing is they have to go to their college interview but then the B plot is like, you know, Rudy on the Cosby Show also has a loose tooth you know? That’s kind of it for the show, like that’s how traditional sitcom would be. Whereas, they decided on Seinfeld that they would have really almost all the time an A, B, C and D plot. so each character had to have a thing. I mean, they were varying levels but like, each character had to have a thing, all four. In fact, when they really got going, the deal was that if you were a writer on the show, you had to pitch plotlines for each character and get each of them approved before you could even start writing. Getting four plot lines, one for each character, is not that easy especially when you are pitching to Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld because they were tough. You might go in and pitch four and get two on the first try and then you’re still like okay, I still need like an Elaine and a Kramer for this thing. You had to have that and then once you had that, you’d sort of start to put it together. The other big thing that Seinfeld did that’s pretty incredible is that they would often bring together at least two, if not, all four at the end in a very unexpected way. Because they didn’t pitch these four plotlines to be together, you know what I mean? Part of the joy was, they were totally unrelated, they were just having their own things. The funny thing was you sort of watched the first time, it became as once you realize this. I can remember watching it the first time through and being like, how are they going to do this one? How are they going to bring together Kramer hitting golf balls… and that’s my favorite.

[0:17:28] Charlie Hoehn: I was just thinking that.

[0:17:29] Jennifer Armstrong: That’s my favorite one.

[0:17:31] Charlie Hoehn: It’s the best surprise ending ever.

[0:17:33] Jennifer Armstrong: Kramer hitting golf balls and George pretending to be a marine biologist on a date. Like how on earth? I remember, this is like a TV nerd thing but for me, that episode was like a breakthrough in TV nerdery for me because I mean, I’m watching, I think I’m in college or something at the time. I can remember and be like, “Oh my god, that was amazing. Now I get why the show is so cool. That was so incredible.” That was really the thing that you were watching for. Is how they’re going to kind of bring all of this stuff together. The other thing that the writers told me, I spent a lot of time with the writers and the book spends a lot of time with the writers because I was – of course, I’m always interested in the writers, it’s not a surprise right? It’s so interesting to me, every time I do one of these books, it’s not just because I’m a writer I don’t think. There’s a lot of untold stories in those writers rooms for some reason. I think everybody focuses on the actors so much that then when you go to talk to the writer, so many of the writers said to me like, “No one’s talked to us about this.”

[0:20:14] Charlie Hoehn: What?

[0:20:15] Jennifer Armstrong: I think that’s an exaggeration, like someone’s talked to them.

[0:20:17] Charlie Hoehn: That’s crazy. Well sure, yeah, but they’re the brains.

[0:20:22] Jennifer Armstrong: That’s the thing.

[0:20:24] Charlie Hoehn: The writers are the most fascinating people.

[0:20:27] Jennifer Armstrong: With Seinfeld and this is very common honestly, like, it’s funny because I feel like when I talk about this, it makes it sound like it’s super special and other people talk about it this way too but like, it’s extremely common on sitcoms, any shows really. That they would of course, pull from their own lives. They were a little extra hardcore about this on Seinfeld because they knew they were going to spin so out of control with the plots by the end. Ideally, Larry wanted them to start in something that really happen to someone. Because he felt like at least, if we start with that, that relatable, that’s why people love it. It’s those relatable dumb things that happen in everyday life. To me, that’s a huge reason why people love this show and still love this show too is just that it’s about the irritations of the most mundane aspects of life. Most shows are about like Grey’s Anatomy, you know? No one’s life is like that, no one’s life is that dramatic. Even doctors, their lives are not that dramatic. There’s not constant like – I have to operate on my mother who I hate or there’s also a shooter in the building and there’s a bomb in the body that we’re operating. It’s never, life isn’t like that. Seinfeld is about – what happens when you reserve a rental car and they do not – as they say, they made the reservation, but they didn’t hold the reservation. You know, these dumb little things that happen – what happens when you can’t find your car in a parking garage you know? Then they would sort of spin it out of control from there. That’s why the writers are so fun, they have – they can tell you the real stories that inspired the stories you see on the show and that’s really fun. They can also tell you how they kind of put it together to make it into what we saw. There’s just, you know, there was a lot to work with their – plus the fact that they had a really interesting writing process on the show. I think it’s interesting even to non-writers. I mean, writing process just sounds so blah. But it was hard to write for the show. You know, as I was talking about that sort of density of plot and one of the interesting things they told me is they would often write their first draft – they’ve got their four stories, they write their first draft, turn a day in and Jerry and Larry would be like – “This is great. For the first act.” They’d sort of like smash it down essentially and be like you know, you thought you had your 22 minutes, no you have like a good solid seven you know? Then they really packed it essentially. The figured out these ways to like “No, you don’t need to have a whole scene where that happens, we can just say the next scene that that already happened.” And then done, boom. You know, you have more room. They would just sort of like –

[0:23:06] Charlie Hoehn: Intense editing. Yeah.

[0:23:07] Jennifer Armstrong: Pack these things in and it made it really dense and so much happens in some of these Seinfeld episodes in 22 minutes that it’s crazy. One of my favorite things in talking about the book in the show and being out there talking to people, is this phenomenon of like, when people try to tell you their favorite Seinfeld episode, they sound like crazy people. Because especially if you like, you had never seen it. It doesn’t make – they try to explain it and if you’ve seen it, it makes sense but if you just wrote down their words, they sound nuts. Because they’re like – well see, he’s hitting golf balls but then that’s a problem and so like – George is a marine biologist but he’s not and it’s just hilarious because you just have to sit there and listen to them do the whole thing. They take such great joy in telling you and you’re just like “Ah ha.” initially, I do remember when the show was in its first run, because we did not have DVR’s and things you could occasionally miss an episode because you had a life. Then you’d come to work or school the next day and everybody will be just like talking this gibberish to you about last night’s episode and you’d be like, “I didn’t see it, I don’t know what you’re saying, I don’t know about the soup Nazi.” “Why are you saying “No soup for you” and laughing at each other all day long?” It just makes people into lunatics because it’s so much fun but they’re so much in there that it’s so disjointed even though they bring it together at the end. It’s really just hard to explain why it’s great in the moment. It’s very funny.

[0:24:43] Charlie Hoehn: I love that. I think they’re kind of like the M. Night Shamalan’s of comedy.

[0:24:50] Jennifer Armstrong: Do not disparage them that way. Sorry. I’m sorry M. Night, I’m sure you’re lovely.

[0:24:57] Charlie Hoehn: You’re totally right to come down on me on that but I’m trying to think… They have the nice surprise twist at the end where they bring everything together, they stick with reality. And I’ve been reading – I just finished reading a book called Secrets of Story where this Hollywood writer breaks down the most common mistake that writers make is not having a character that is identifiable. The temptation is to write characters that are larger than life but he says, with East Bound and Down for instance. Kenny Powers, Danny McBride wrote that character based on himself because he was in this situation where he was trying to make it as a Hollywood screen writer, he had to take a job as a substitute teacher. He said, he just found himself telling these kids, his students that you know, one of these days he was going to be this great Hollywood screenwriter, he was just taking this job as temporary and he was so deeply embarrassed that he was saying that. These kids don’t even care.

[0:26:03] Jennifer Armstrong: They’re like “Aha, okay.”

[0:26:06] Charlie Hoehn: Right. He took that and he made it just bigger, he just made it in to this bigger character. So I think that’s great advice for comedy writers or for any writer stick with reality and then be intense about your editing, be with people who bring it down. Are there other things that you learned from the writers of the show that yields great comedy? I mean, I think of a rest – the last season of Arrested Development, to me, was like – there was too many jokes.

[0:26:40] Jennifer Armstrong: Yes.

[0:26:41] Charlie Hoehn: I was like overwhelmed with how much was going on. How did they find the balance of the perfect amount of fun?

[0:26:48] Jennifer Armstrong: I mean, my guess is it’s intuition to some extent because they were packing it you know? But it also did feel digestible you know? I would say one of my favorite things also about just this book and by which I mean, kind of having a story to tell about a show. This was perfect and it also was really fun to me, like artistically, creatively. The beginning of Seinfeld, like the first two seasons or so are like – if you watch those in order, I think you learn, like everything you need to know about not that – kind of okay funny versus really great and funny and special. You actually see them figure it out over those episodes. If you go back and watch the first episode ever, the pilot. Which by the way, there’s certain episodes to like – aren’t as heavy rotation in the reruns. I mean, you don’t have to really watch them in order, doesn’t really matter anyway. Some of the episodes just don’t show up as much in reruns because no one likes them. You know, The Puerto Rican Day Parade was taken out of rotation for a long time because of…

[0:27:56] Charlie Hoehn: Little risky.

[0:27:57] Jennifer Armstrong: It was offensive. But I’m pretty sure, this is like an – I’m going by intuition on this but I don’t think you see the pilot very often.

[0:28:05] Charlie Hoehn: It’s not that good. Like a lot of pilots.

[0:28:07] Jennifer Armstrong: It’s not that great, it’s actually that weird. It’s one of my favorite games to play in a way, it’s like, watch pilots of shows that end up being classics. A lot of the times, I mean, The Mary Tyler Moore Show is one of the greatest pilots of all time, it’s all there, from the beginning, it looks like they know exactly what they’re doing, they know exactly where the show is going. But if you watch like an old Will and Grace, this also happens. The characters aren’t even there, like Karen’s not doing the Karen voice. It’s creepy. It’s almost like being in like Bizarreo world to use a Seinfeld term. The Seinfeld pilot is like Bizarreo world of Seinfeld, it’s super slow and quiet, that’s the best way I can explain it, it’s just real slow.

[0:29:36] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, there’s like dramatic pauses.

[0:29:38] Jennifer Armstrong: It’s weird, it’s really weird. I mean, they’re at a different diner which that, I mean, that’s a common thing in a pilot because they’ll shoot in a different place than where they end up. Then, George is giving girl advice to Jerry? Like in a serious way. Not in a joking way. Like think about that. That’s crazy. Jerry’s like, ‘What do I do about this girl?” Which is first of all crazy. George is like, “Let me tell you some things about women Jerry Seinfeld” and you’re like, this is bizarre. Kramer, for the first season or two is a shut in, that’s part of his character, they decided like, that was his thing so he’s like always in his robe and stuff and he never leaves the apartment. It’s why he’s not in The Chinese Restaurant episode because like, he doesn’t go out at that time. Which is crazy to me because like, I think Kramer is like man of the town. That’s his whole deal, that he has all these other friends that we don’t know. He’s Bob Sacamano who we like never even get to meet you know? He’s supposed to be hitting golf balls and they clearly figured that out. But in this first episode like he’s in a robe, he knocks before he comes into Jerry’s apartment, that’s weird. And then he just walks in like a normal person. He has a dog we never see again. It’s just really – and of course Elaine isn’t even there. It’s just – it’s funny because one of the favorite stories about the show is how it tested so badly with audiences. People love these stories, this also happened in the Mary Tyler Moore Show and that’s a better example of this but people love these stories that like, the testing went so badly and then it became this great show of our time. That clearly shows how dumb audience testing is. Audience testing may or may not be dumb but this is not a story about that in my opinion. The fact that this pilot did not test well is not a story about how dumb audience testing is because it’s not a great pilot. You know, I don’t blame that audience. They said perfectly reasonable things like “Why are they spending so much time at the laundromat? Why should I care about these people?” That was the kind of thing – it was like “Good question, I don’t know.” You could see that funny people were making it clearly but you know, in terms of what the show became, it’s actually really the most interesting thing about this pilot is to think, “My god, I can’t believe they went from this to what they ended up making.” That you get to watch their creative evolution. You can literally see when they discover different aspects of their show and I think that that’s really cool.

[0:32:19] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, so what were the – just because I love nerding out about this. What were the aspects, the big ones that they figured out, that tilted them into classic comedy writing?

[0:32:30] Jennifer Armstrong: The biggest one, the one you actually watch happen quite literally is the episode, The Bus Boy is when Larry David figures out this idea of bringing together two disparate plot lines in a surprising way. I love this story because to me, this story is all about creativity and how it happens. He’s writing the script and literally, he’s writing the script and he realizes, “Oh that’s weird.“ The way I have written the script is that in this moment, the bus boy who – George got fired accidentally and he is trying to help him with his life and Elaine had a boyfriend visiting and then she wanted to get rid of him – and when he is writing the script, these two people happen, in the script writing process, to be going through the hallway of Jerry’s apartment at the same time. And he realizes this and he thinks like, “Oh wouldn’t it be funny if they got into a fight and that screwed up everything else that we had going right for these people?” And that’s what happened and that was the first time. It was like the Elaine plot was not supposed to be have anything to do with the bus boy plot. Then they accidentally in Larry David’s imagination these two characters met in the hallway and he was like, “What it something happened and that threw everything off?” Like we thought, “Oh George finally fixed this guy’s life” or whatever it was and this way, it made it so that he discovered that and he liked it so much. He decided it was a rule and they were going to do it all the time. Then from there, you can see overtime they start to really pack more in and all of those. I think once they figured out, the secret to the show which was a huge one. Start with real life stuff, give every single main character a plot line and bring them together in surprising ways. Once you have that as their franchise, then they’re off to the races and they start to refine that process and pack more and more into the episodes. Also this made me think of another thing that I really liked. There’s a couple of turning points, the next big turning point is the Chinese restaurant where the plot is they go to wait for a table at a Chinese restaurant, they don’t get it, they leave. That’s really it, if you wrote the TV guide summary, that’s what happens. Big deal for the show because this is one of the few times the network was like, “No, how are we supposed to promo that?” Like, “You don’t believe what happens when they don’t get a table. They walk out and go to the movies.” That’s not a show and like I said, what do you put in the TV guide description? So they were like, “Nope, this goes too far. We can’t do this.” Larry David did his Larry David thing and so like, “If you don’t get this you don’t get the show” blah-blah-blah. He was always threatening to leave and that was one of his great super powers is that he seemed to not care if this job continues.

[0:35:38] Charlie Hoehn: He didn’t care yeah.

[0:35:40] Jennifer Armstrong: So it really worked. Every time they said something he’d be like, “I am leaving then” and they’d be like, “Okay fine, come back.” So they decided once again the show was not widely watched right away. So they could take a little chance. They were like, “Alright you’re on thin ice here though with this Chinese restaurant business and if you start going down in the ratings you’re toast.” Instead critics lost their minds because it’s like waiting for a good dough kind of vibe to the whole thing. Suddenly we have Becket on television because it is about nothing but it really isn’t about nothing and it’s very philosophical. So that is the next big moment for the show is where it realizes that to me, the show is a lot about being stuck together. It’s the ways that city life, urban life sort of makes you – you know these four people are stuck with each other and they’re often stuck in these situations in places where they’re like they are little fiefdoms. Like The Chinese Restaurant, people makes the rules in The Chinese Restaurant and there’s nothing these four people can do to surmount these rules. They can’t have food unless they get a table and these people won’t give them a table and they can’t figure out how to get a table. So they’re stuck and The Parking Garage is very similar. It’s like, “We can’t leave unless we find our car. We can’t find our car and there’s no system for finding the car and so we have to wonder this purgatory until we find it”. And a bunch of vaguely philosophical things happen. So that’s when it gained its philosophical bent I think a little more and they got more and they got more into this idea of the show about nothing which really means it’s a show about quotidian difficulties. So there is these big moments where you really can actually see them. It’s funny because right after The Chinese Restaurant, you also get The Parking Garage and I think a few others where they become very interested in being stuck in locations. Which actually carries through all the way until The Puerto Rico Day Parade where they are stuck in traffic literary and can’t move and they just have to stay at the parade. So this is another big theme for the show that they just discover overtime. Then they just figure out that there’s a point at which they start to become more and more popular and then they realize they can do anything and so you start seeing The Contest which is about an entire episode about masturbation.

[0:38:08] Charlie Hoehn: Which was their inflection point, right? That’s when they really tipped over.

[0:38:12] Jennifer Armstrong: Yeah, huge deal. That’s where everybody came in the next day saying, “Master by domain”.

[0:38:18] Charlie Hoehn: I can’t believe this is on TV, yeah.

[0:38:19] Jennifer Armstrong: King of the castle, lord of the manor, you know all of that stuff. That was a really, really big deal and it’s the reason that’s a great episode is because they don’t say the word “maturation” or whatever. It would be disgusting if they just walked around saying “masturbation” the whole time. But because they don’t and they gave us a way to talk about this thing in polite company, that’s another big thing that they do a lot. You know shrinkage, not that there is anything wrong with that, sponge worthy, those are all things that didn’t have words for them and further more were probably not going to be talked about explicitly in polite company until Seinfeld gave us a funny way of talking about them. So then they start to invent their own language, every week there is a new catch phrase and then yeah, we’re completely off to the races after that and we end up with absolutely insane things like The Junior Mint. Or The Bubble Boy, one of my favorite little stories in the book is about the writer who wrote The Junior Mint episode. He was so traumatized, he hates that episode. He hated that episode, he wrote it, he hated it, he was sure he had ruined the entire show with it. He still seems like legit traumatized. When he talked about it again, he was like, “No it was really upsetting to me because I just was like this is stupid” and there was a philosophical divide on the staff about how far to take these stories. There’s a camp that really liked staying pretty rooted in things that could really happen and then things started to fly more and more off the handle and he just hated this idea that would obviously never happen. They can’t be in the operating room eating junior mints and drop one into a body. That’s not a thing. He was so mad. It was a thing that he said to Larry David and Larry David loved it and then Larry David made him write it. He was like, “No, no, no I do not want to write this” and he’s like, “No it’s going to be really funny. People are going to love it”. So the funny thing about that guy too is that he was super traumatized by that. He did write for a while after that but went back for it. He actually quit the end of that season. He was so traumatized and then he came back later with a writing partner, did pretty well and wrote several of the classics and was there until the end. But he eventually quit the business and went to med school and became a doctor. He’s a doctor now.

[0:40:38] Charlie Hoehn: Oh my gosh.

[0:40:39] Jennifer Armstrong: It’s one of my favorite stories from the book.

[0:40:43] Charlie Hoehn: Wow. That just blew my mind like I’m just – wow.

[0:40:48] Jennifer Armstrong: Yeah, Andy Robbins. He was definitely one of my favorite. What I do for research is stalk people at the beginning. I just make a huge list and it’s actually one of my favorite because it’s like being a detective and it’s very reportery. It makes me feel like a real reporter. So I Google stocking people as being a real reporter apparently but you can find a lot of information and he was one where I found at first that I was like, “But this is a doctor in the North East”. Like that doesn’t make any sense to me, this is a doctor in Rhode Island. Usually I’ll be looking for somebody who worked on a show 20 years ago. I will find someone with their name and they’ll be in Santa Monica and I’d be like, “That’s probably them” because that makes sense, you know? Where with this it’s like I am not going to contact this guy yet because it doesn’t make sense. Then I kept Googling and found an article that I think the Brown University. I think that’s where he went for med school. Somebody like that did a little piece. It’s like, “Fun Fact: This guy who just got his degree here used to be a writer for Seinfeld.” I was like, “Alright, well…” and he was one of my best sources. The nice thing about him was that he was extra forthcoming because he doesn’t care about his future in the TV business. He is not protecting anything so he was extremely forthcoming. He didn’t mind talking at all about the fact that he hated that episode and that he did not want to write it and he still hates it. Now that he’s a doctor it upsets him even more because it’s like this unsanitary condition or surgery. It’s very stressful for me. I just can’t look at it. I always am like, “How many hands does God give with in this situation?” where he went to Harvard, he’s super funny. He was the pinnacle of comedy writers. He was at Seinfeld at its high, he is good looking and now he’s just a doctor too? Okay, good for you. I’m glad you got everything. That’s fantastic.

[0:42:48] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, no kidding. That unbelievable.

[0:42:52] Jennifer Armstrong: I would love the idea of going through a doctor and he’s like, “Oh yeah I can mix a joke” it’s like, “Yeah, I used to write for Seinfeld, no big deal”.

[0:42:59] Charlie Hoehn: Right, like one of the most classic episodes, “I wrote that, yeah.” Unreal. Well I mean we have to start wrapping up unfortunately. I can talk about this for at least three more hours, no joke, very comfortably. But what have been some of your favorites – like the people who have read your book – what have been your favorite responses or reactions to the book?

[0:43:23] Jennifer Armstrong: Well the most common thing that people say is, “This made me want to watch the show all over again.” To me, that’s what I want. I love that. By the way, what happens is that you become a really annoying person to watch the show with. I have done this with other books., I’ll put a plug in, a friend of mine has a book coming out called, I’ll Have What She’s Having. My friend, Erin Carlson wrote this book about the Nora Ephron Romantic Comedies of the 90’s. So When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle. My mom and I were re-watching When Harry Met Sally for the nine billionth time and I was the most annoying person because I would just be like, “You know actually when they shot this scene what happened was…” so that’s who you become when you read my books but I am okay with that.

[0:44:10] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, I am that person for movies.

[0:44:13] Jennifer Armstrong: Yeah, you know I like it. It’s like having the director’s commentary track right next to you.

[0:44:17] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, I mean do you pretty much live in IMDB Trivia?

[0:44:23] Jennifer Armstrong: Kind of, yeah. I mean what I can tell you that’s just made me think of something, which is that it’s funny because when I am promoting books it’s like, so I have been talking about Seinfeld here for a year now and the funny part is that during most of this year and certainly right now, I have been working on my next book and my next book is about Sex and the City. So there’s this very weird disconnect where I’m actually at the heights of my Sex and the City knowledge right now while I am talking about Seinfeld. And next year, I’ll be talking to everybody about Sex and the City while writing I don’t know what yet but probably steeped in some other completely different thing. So right now all I do is watch Sex and the City. I go anywhere with the dumbest things. Like I was at the Oyster Bar at the Grand Central Station yesterday with a friend having drinks and I looked around and there’s this beautiful big old school New York thing and it’s like, “It’s weird they never shot Sex and the City here”. Why is that even an interesting thing to even say? It’s just that every single thing – I could look at a paper and be like, “What does that have to do with Sex and the City?” I will come up with something. It’s all I think about right now. So it’s a weird particularly because of the exact niche I have chosen which is to focus on one thing, it becomes very weird and so I was really good at Seinfeld like two years ago. When no one was asking me about Seinfeld.

[0:45:53] Charlie Hoehn: Right, so you’ve written it sounds like four books, right?

[0:45:57] Jennifer Armstrong: Something like that, yeah that sounds right.

[0:45:58] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, give or take.

[0:46:01] Jennifer Armstrong: Yeah, four that have been out. I get really confused but I’ve written four that have been out just so I am not being weird and mysterious about this. The other two, my very first one ever was about the 1950’s Mickey Mouse Club. I know you’re all very excited about that. Yeah, it was one of those weird – the reason I just say don’t worry about that one is because it was lovely, it was a fine experience. I learned everything I know about writing books from that experience. You have no idea, you sign on to write a book and then you’re like, “Oh my god, what now?” There’s not really – I know there are sort of books out there about writing books especially non-fiction, there’s not a ton. There is not a step by step guide. So you are like, “Okay I’m going to figure this out now” and so it was actually the first one. It gave me the idea that you could focus on a show. It was a work for hire. A publisher had an idea that he wanted a book about the 1950’s Mickey Mouse Club because he was a big fan. They found me.

[0:46:56] Charlie Hoehn: So it was for him?

[0:46:58] Jennifer Armstrong: Yeah.

[0:46:59] Charlie Hoehn: Why did a publisher would have that idea like knowing that the market is essentially not there?

[0:47:07] Jennifer Armstrong: They seemed to think it was there at the time.

[0:47:10] Charlie Hoehn: Really?

[0:47:10] Jennifer Armstrong: Yeah, really. They thought this was going to be great and who am I? I am sitting there, minding my own business over there at Entertainment Weekly and I had a written a lot about current Disney stars. It was kind of like the Miley Cyrus era. So I have written a lot of Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus and all those guys and super interesting. I find child stardom interesting so I’m cool with that. So I wrote a lot about teen shows and tween shows at the time and it was a tween explosion time. So I was doing that and they were like, “Well that makes sense. That’s some level of expertise and you’re a reporter, you know how to do this.” And who am I to say no to Grand Central Publishing when they come calling and giving me money to do this? It seems like to me, it was up to them to figure out whether there was a market for this and I assumed that they thought there was one.

[0:48:05] Charlie Hoehn: A marketable one.

[0:48:06] Jennifer Armstrong: I didn’t have to write a proposal is the point. Where in a proposal you have to prove that there is this market and this makes sense.

[0:48:14] Charlie Hoehn: And by the way, I’ve never really heard of that. Which I wonder how viable a strategy that is for authors of, “Why don’t you talk to the publisher and ask them what they want to publish?”

[0:48:26] Jennifer Armstrong: It is interesting. I mean that is interesting in the sense that and here’s the insight I can offer because I know this podcast is an insight based kind of thing. So it could be interesting to people. I’ve learned crazy things. We could talk for three hours about all of the mistakes I’ve made and crazy things I’ve learned about publishing. But yeah, to me this seemed like when they come calling and to be quite honest with a six figure deal, I am not in the position at that time. I am single, all I did was work, it was like, “I will work more” it was an absolute nightmare because I was writing full time at my job and then writing at home. So I’d take a vacation to write, I’d write at night, I’d write on weekends and all I did was this thing. It was a little rough because it was not something I knew about or was particularly passionate about. I mean I knew about TV and I loved learning about 1950’s television. I loved that part and I loved talking to these people who were Mousekeeters when they were kids. And then went on to try to live normal lives that was great. So it’s not like I had no hook into this thing but it was funny at cocktail parties. I hung out with a lot of literary people and I’d be at a cocktail party and I’d be like, “Oh I have this book deal now” and they’re like, “Oh my god, what’s it about?” and I’m like, “The 1950’s Mickey Mouse Club” and you could see their faces just go like, “I am thinking…” and I’d be like, “No, I was not alive at the time if that’s your first question”. “Secondly, no I’m not some weirdo who’s harboring a 1950’s Mickey Mouse Club fandom in my spare time”. I had to go get –

[0:50:04] Charlie Hoehn: That’s such an obscure topic.

[0:50:05] Jennifer Armstrong: It’s so weird. So it was really fun to do and it was a great learning experience about books and I’m glad I got to make all my mistakes on that one. If you really want to know a weird publishing story, the thing that happened was that the publisher died which was very sad. He was a really nice man but first of all, I didn’t even know right away and then like –

[0:50:25] Charlie Hoehn: While you were writing the book?

[0:50:27] Jennifer Armstrong: Yes, so then they went from like – I was hearing from my editor all this stuff about, “Oh they’re so excited. The sales people are getting Mickey Mouse Club hats and the whole thing” and then all of a sudden, it was just radio silence.

[0:50:42] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, the one guy who really cared about it is gone.

[0:50:45] Jennifer Armstrong: Yeah and he was in charge. So all of a sudden I felt it but I wasn’t experienced enough to really know it meant anything. I also didn’t know enough about how you really need to promote your own book regardless of what your publisher is doing or not doing probably. So I just sat there waiting for somebody to tell me what to do and I was thinking about it, the cover looks beautiful. It got okay reviews for the places that it got reviewed. But there’s such a disconnect between me and the audience and then no one was telling me I needed to figure out a way to promote this thing until it was too late and so it just died on the vine this way. Yeah, publishing is so weird and so that happened but it also gave me the idea. The one thing I took from that is like, “What if I picked a show I actually liked and put a whole story that way?” So I have been doing that ever since. So thank God for that book because it had never occurred to me before that. And I also co-wrote a book called Sexy Feminism with my best friend, Heather Wood-Rudolf and we had run a website called Sexy Feminist for about six years together and finally culminated with our little book deal and it felt like, “Okay we’re all set with that though” so that was a lovely experience because I got to write a book about my website with my best friend. So it was really fun.

[0:52:06] Charlie Hoehn: Oh yeah, that’s great. So would you say your parting piece of advice to authors is to write about the thing that you really like and that a lot of people really like as well?

[0:52:17] Jennifer Armstrong: Absolutely. I think if you look at – I mean that is the total lesson of my career so far is that. Because you are going to hate it.

[0:52:26] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, with Seinfeldia it was a New York Times bestseller right?

[0:52:32] Jennifer Armstrong: It was, yeah and by the way, I recommend becoming one of those.

[0:52:40] Charlie Hoehn: A bestselling author.

[0:52:41] Jennifer Armstrong: I definitely recommend it. I high recommend it.

[0:52:44] Charlie Hoehn: How’s your life been?

[0:52:45] Jennifer Armstrong: I don’t want to oversell it either. I’m still sitting in the same apartment and whatever but it is still interesting because I’ve had these other experiences. It’s been such a slow climb that when this bestseller thing happened, it unlocks – it reminds me literary of like when you unlock a new level on a video game. That’s what it felt like. Everything turned up. Suddenly – I mean my publisher has been great from the get go and they stayed with me after. They let me do this passion project and I stayed with them after that and we did this and we really came with the Seinfeld idea together. So they’ve been super supportive but understandably they turned it up a notch once you’re a bestseller and they are able to do more too. Like the big thing that they were able to do is partner with Hulu where Seinfeld is now streaming and we’ve done all kinds of nice things with Hulu. Hulu is not going to be interested unless I am a bestseller too. So that’s where having the power of your big publisher, like I don’t think I personally could call up Hulu, but that’s where having the publisher behind you and having that they can go to Hulu now and say, “You know we have this bestseller. Everybody is into it.” Barnes & Noble did this incredible festivist display around festivist time. I walked into the Barnes & Noble in Union Square which is a flagship Barnes & Noble and it was the one that’s nearest me. I walked in there for something else and it was right when you walked in. I’ve never even seen people right there and it was an entire table of Seinfeldia. You know I have never seen this many copies of it in one place and they had like –

[0:54:25] Charlie Hoehn: Did they have the metal full?

[0:54:26] Jennifer Armstrong: They did. They had a festivist pole and they had a couple of other things. They had a Frankenstein’s, the doll and stuff. I am not kidding you, I walked in there I went, “Huh!” and I walked back out because it was too much. I walked back out and I stood outside of Barnes & Noble and I was like, “Okay now I’m going to walk back in and I am going to be ready for that and now I can shop.” It was overwhelming and honestly, the media attention. I mean it has died down now but things were really intense. I have not had a lot of time to just sit here and go like, “Is it nice that I am a bestseller?” It’s been an absolutely punishing year. I mean other things have gone on to too to make it more stressful. I was on tour on Election Day.

[0:55:14] Charlie Hoehn: Oh my gosh.

[0:55:15] Jennifer Armstrong: I got stuck in a random city in South Carolina. I got stuck for a day in an airport there the day after the election results. It was like an actual realm of hell because all of it was like CNN and things playing and there’s was a bat in one of the terminals. It was berserk. There was a bat, it felt like the apocalypse. There was a bat flying around in a terminal. I couldn’t get out of South Carolina. I could not believe this was happening. All the TV’s were blaring President Trump and I was like, “What is happening to my life right now?” It was a really weird time to be on the road. The nice thing was, I will conclude with this, the nice thing about it I think was that I went to a lot of Blue States and a lot of Red States. I went to both and one of the things that I really liked about that was I felt like I really saw how Seinfeld brings people together. It was supposedly this famously too Jewish, too New York for mainstream audiences. For mid-western audiences to embrace it and it became an absolute phenomenon. 40 million people watched every week and 80 million people watched the finale. People still love it, still talk about it in all states. I am not saying that Seinfeld is going to save the nation but it can’t hurt to read Seinfeldia. It might help, I don’t know. I was really struck by the fact that this gave us all something to talk about in a really neutral way. I had to speak in Arizona at 11 AM the day after the election. I walked in, it was like a private event thing. I walked in and someone actually took me aside and was like, “Listen, just FYI, this is a mixed audience.”

[0:57:08] Charlie Hoehn: Right.

[0:57:08] Jennifer Armstrong: You know, because it’s easy if you live in New York, you get really used to being able to just kind of make Trump jokes or whatever. She was like ‘Steer absolutely clear.” It was the most surreal thing we actually watched, Hillary’s concession speech on a giant TV in the living room. Then people started coming in and it was all just like, the most polite… Everyone’s like, “This food is great, let’s talk about the food bar. Seinfeld, let’s talk all about Seinfeld.” Nothing else. It was really striking to me that this was something I could go around the country talking about to people and remain in a completely safe spot.

[0:57:45] Charlie Hoehn: Sorry, I cut you off a little. What did you say at the very end?

[0:57:47] Jennifer Armstrong: I just said, it’s just really nice to be able to go around talking to people about this at this time and if you stay on Seinfeld, it’s just kind of a completely safe space and it really allows people to connect you know?

[0:58:01] Charlie Hoehn: 100%. Well Jennifer, this was awesome. You’re so much fun to talk to. I didn’t get through half of my questions but it’s okay. How can our listeners connect with you and follow your work?

[0:58:14] Jennifer Armstrong: Very easily, you can go to JenniferKArmstrong.com and all the other ways are on there. You can find my Twitter and my Instagram and probably more information than you could possibly ever want about me there.

[0:58:30] Charlie Hoehn: Alright. Well, this was great. Thank you so much again.

[0:58:33] Jennifer Armstrong: Thank you, let me know when it’s up.

[0:58:35] Charlie Hoehn: Will do.

[0:58:35] Jennifer Armstrong: Alright, bye.

[0:58:37] Charlie Hoehn: Many thanks to Jennifer Armstrong for being on the show. You can buy her book, Seinfeldia on Amazon.com. We’re going to close this episode out with a special tribute. Instead of telling you to leave us a review on iTunes, we’re going to play the greatest one liners from Seinfeld. Enjoy. Thanks again for listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. We’ll see you next time.