Jerry Seinfeld is offering his thoughts on Friends — not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The comedian performed Tuesday at the Netflix Is a Joke festival at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. In a set-up to a bit about his love for infomercials, Seinfeld asked the crowd to shout out guesses for his all-time favorite television show.
Among the shows that the crowd mentioned as possibilities was Seinfeld, the popular NBC sitcom that he led for nine seasons. Larry David co-created the show with Seinfeld before later creating and starring on Curb Your Enthusiasm for HBO.
“Seinfeld? I am Seinfeld. Why would I watch Seinfeld?” the comedian quipped. “Would you go up to your bathroom mirror and go, ‘This is fantastic. I love this show. I’m in every episode.’”
He then acknowledged that Breaking Bad and Curb Your Enthusiasm were good guesses before responding to an attendee who mentioned Friends. “Here’s my theory on Friends,” Seinfeld said. “My show came on — ’89, ’90. Friends came on a few years later.”
Seinfeld continued, “I think NBC was watching my show and went, ‘Hey, this is working pretty well. Why don’t we try the same thing with good-looking people?’ And that was a pretty good idea. I think that kind of worked.” Alas, he never actually named his favorite show but just used the topic as a set-up for his material about Flex Seal sealant’s late-night ad.
Debuting on NBC in July 1989, Seinfeld starred the eponymous comedian alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards and Jason Alexander in the show about four single friends in New York City. Also starring a friend group navigating life in the Big Apple, NBC’s Friends premiered in September 1994 and ran for 10 seasons with a core cast of Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer.
In The Hollywood Reporter’s 2015 list of the top 100 TV shows that polled more than 2,800 industry individuals, Seinfeld came in as the No. 5 series, while Friends topped the rankings.
