How did the idea of writing about such a beloved show come about? It seems like such a great idea to write about a show that really changed sitcoms, yet there wasn’t a book as high quality as yours out there. So how did the opportunity come about? Like you said, I was very surprised that there wasn’t a book about this but I think we are also at the beginning of maybe a time when we’ll see more books taking television seriously because we are in the early days I think of taking television as seriously as we take our fi lm and music and there are lots of books about those. My previous book was about “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” We liked that as an approach in general. I was planning on working with the same publisher Simon & Schuster and once you know that you’re looking for specifi c shows to write a book about, there actually aren’t that many that have enough to be said about them to fi ll 300-plus pages. It was a no-brainer when we were looking at that and a show that really had an effect on television history, had a story to tell and something we care enough about now to write books about, quite frankly. There aren’t that many shows that live up to those ideals and “Seinfeld” seemed like the obvious choice. Were you a “Seinfeld” fan from the beginning? The thing I always say is, if we were alive and watching televisions in the ‘90s, it was sort of hard to avoid. You didn’t really make a choice. Everybody was watching and talking about it at some point. I didn’t watch it f rom the v e r y beginning, but very few people did see the technical beginning, that f irst couple of episodes. I think I probably caught on around the same time as the other people and caught up through syndication. But I remember watching when it was absolutely required that you watch and understand what other people were talking about the next day. I love how you portrayed how badly the odds were stacked against the show. It seems like nine out of 10 times, a show like that fails. It’s a huge reason why I thought it would make such a great book. You want to hear the story. You need there to be obstacles and even though we know how this turned out, you need something interesting to say. I always joke when people often say, “Oh, you should write a book about ‘Friends’” and it’s not as exciting a story because it’s not surprising that a show about six beautiful young people who were being very funny turned out to be an instant hit. Whereas, “Seinfeld” is a show that never should’ve gotten on the air, never should’ve lasted and it did anyway, and became one of the biggest shows of all time. Why were Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld so confi dent? One of the great things about Larry and Jerry, I think, is that it seems like as if at every stage, they didn’t totally care if the show lasted. They were more interested in writing the show that they wanted to and they seemed like they were ready to walk away at any time. Larry would say every season that he was quitting and Jerry, we saw that he actually ended the show voluntarily and always wanted to go Photos courtesy of NBC and Jennifer Keishin Armstrong QNS.COM SPRING 2017 31
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