‘George’ on the big change that means Seinfeld couldn’t be made today

Out there, somewhere, is a streaming television viewer who is watching Seinfeld for the first time. Or Happy Days, Friends or even The Brady Bunch. The egalitarian nature of streaming puts everything into the pot and stands them all shoulder to shoulder.

That notion still surprises Seinfeld alumnus Jason Alexander. “That there is a continuing audience and an ever new audience of generally younger people coming to that show and still finding it funny, because comedy changes from generation to generation,” he says.

In the series, Alexander played George Costanza, comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s best friend. The series also starred Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine and Michael Richards as Kramer. “They still think it’s funny. They still understand it, and they still find it in some way relevant,” Alexander says.

Jason Alexander for Uber Eats.

“What has been fascinating, and I don’t understand it, and I don’t know if any of us involved with the show understand it, is that it’s so much of its time,” the 65-year-old New Jersey-born actor adds.

“I look at Seinfeld and I see it as completely of its time and I can’t see it any other way,” he says. “If mobile phones existed when we were making that show, we wouldn’t have been able to tell half those stories. We would not have had to be in each other’s apartments.”

Alexander played himself in Curb Your Enthusiasm twice, and on his second turn appeared with Seinfeld, Louis-Dreyfus and Richards. He also appeared in Friends as Earl, the suicidal office supply manager, among countless other TV guest appearances.

Jason Alexander as George Costanza, centre, in the final episode of Seinfeld.Credit: Joey Del Valle/NBC REUTERS

He is sitting down to talk to Green Guide on the set of a television commercial for Uber Eats, in which he plays a version of himself who is struggling to win laughs socially, and instead tries to get “canned laughter” delivered. The result is genuinely funny.

The advertisement leans into one of the most misunderstood aspects of the sitcoms from Seinfeld’s era, such as The Nanny, Roseanne, Friends, and Will & Grace: the belief that they used canned, or artificial, laughter. They did not. The laughs you hear are from a studio audience.

Canned laughter in fact dates back to sitcoms of the 1960s and 1970s, many of which were not filmed in front of a studio audience, such as The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family.

“One of the things that makes an audience spontaneously like something is to feel that they’re sharing it with other people,” Alexander says. “The problem, as we all know, is if there was no audience, you don’t know if you actually would’ve gotten a laugh.”

Jason Alexander for Uber Eats.

Meeting Alexander for the second time – we first met 30 years ago, on the set of Seinfeld – it is of course difficult to quickly discern where the character ends and the actor begins. Though it is clear the Uber Eats ad campaign leans into that.

“This is, as gingerly as they can, stepping on the Seinfeld trope,” Alexander says. “If they could have me wear glasses and talking in a thick accent, they’d have taken it. So they’re trying to get as much of that DNA as they can.”

“There are other times where somebody says, hey, we just want you to play you, would you do a cameo as you? And I go, which me? You don’t know me. Which me do you want? George? And more often than not, that is exactly what they want.

“That’s where I have to be very careful,” Alexander adds. “I did George, I’d be happy to do another one. But no one’s figured out a way to create one that is as interesting. So that’s it.”

George Costanza (Jason Alexander) finds a refined way to eat his Snickers in a famous episode of Seinfeld.Credit: Twitter

While Alexander is largely known as a television actor, in truth the Jason Alexander of 2024 is living closer to his roots in American theatre, with roles in Mel Brooks’ The Producers, a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, directing The Cottage on Broadway and starring in Judgment Day for the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.

“I began this journey as a theatre actor,” Alexander says. “That’s all I ever imagined, if I was lucky, that my life would be. So I’m just going back to what I knew, but the difference is that when I started, everybody understood what a theatre actor was. Now they go, oh, the TV guy is going to be on stage.”

Meanwhile, those dreams of a Seinfeld reunion, sequel or spin-off (which survive, let’s be honest, largely in the minds of the show’s fans, and not as a focus for any of its stars) seem only a very remote possibility. Even in an era in Hollywood where the film slate looks like Frozen 3, Frozen 4 and Toy Story 5, and television networks air sequels to Roseanne, Will & Grace and Frasier, and remakes of Lost in Space, Dallas and Shogun.

“The rewards of doing that show were extraordinary, financially, artistically, creatively,” Alexander says. “Could you wring more money out of it? Probably. Could you do it better than we did it before? No.

“I could be wrong about this, and if I am please forgive me, but I have a vague memory from when we were wrapping up Seinfeld, somebody saying a George spin-off. And my answer then, as it would be now, was ... there’s no George without the other three. What would he do?

“One of the things I have learned in life is this: think about something fantastic in your life, [something] gorgeous, delicious. And if you could just do that again, it will never be what it was. And at almost 65, I have learned that lesson well enough.”

Seinfeld streams on Netflix, 9Now and Apple TV+. The Uber Eats campaign, featuring Jason Alexander, launches during this Saturday’s half-time show at the AFL grand final.

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