Don't You Know Who He Thinks He Is?

Time for a little break from bemoaning the state of television, inspired by a ghost of television shows past. As you MUST know because he's promoting it like his life depends on it, Jerry Seinfeld has been making the rounds on talk shows to hype Bee Movie. A few days ago he was on Larry King Live and the interview turned seriously awkward and painful when Larry asked Jerry if Seinfeld had been canceled. Before I go any further, watch it for yourself if you haven't already--it's less than one minute long.





After I watched this, I wasn't sure who I was more disturbed by. Let's start with Larry King. They really need to pull him off the air, stat! He's like the Joan Rivers of talk show hosts--he always forgets fairly important information about his guests, asks apparently innocent but often offensive questions, and is just all around annoying. His hard-to-watch interview with Seinfeld reminded me of his show with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in June, marking the one-year anniversary of Cirque du Soleil's Beatles-inspired production, Love. Wanders has a great recap of that interview's highlights, but let's just say that at one point, Larry called Ringo "George." And he also completely inappropriately plugged his upcoming talk with Paris Hilton to the astonishment of his current guests. Clueless!

But quite frankly, in the spat with Larry King, I don't think Jerry came off very well, either. Although Larry is an idiot for asking whether Seinfeld had been canceled, Jerry completely over-reacted to the insinuation and seemed like an arrogant ass. Get over yourself, buddy! It was a TV show. Perhaps I'm biased against Jerry at this point because I am SO SICK of the Bee Movie promotions. Especially the random plugs they keep dropping in the middle of The Office. I want to watch The Office! I don't want to hear anything else about these damn bees! Even though the movie is getting good reviews, I'm going to protest seeing it just because the marketing for it has been so intrusive.

Like most people, I used to really like Seinfeld. I went to a big party for its finale, I've seen Jerry's stand-up act when he toured in Chicago a few years ago--I had no problem with him. But the Larry King interview was not the first time in the recent past that he's acted like a jerk. Many found his rant on Letterman about the woman accusing his wife of plagiarism to be out of line (this clip's longer, at about ten minutes).



If you don't have time to watch the clip, this article sums up the reactions of many.

Between his defense of his wife and his intense promotion for Bee Movie, I'm a little fatigued. Now that the movie is actually out, perhaps the "buzz" (pun intended, albeit lame) will die down and I can go back to having more pleasant memories of Jerry Seinfeld.

- e