Jerry Seinfeld (Part 2)

“In high school I took geometry and we had to do these theorems where you had to prove a series of theorems and that is very much like comedy. Proving something that is absolutely trivial, but with rigorous logic—that’s what a joke is I think.”
Jerry Seinfeld

Before Jerry Seinfeld made his mark in stand-up comedy, TV (Seinfeld), movies (Bee Movie), commercials (American Express) and Broadway (Long Story Short), he was an Honor Roll student at Queens College. For some reason, I never thought of  college as being part of Seinfeld’s resume. But he points out in an interview with Larry Wilde why college was a part of his success;

“We’ll it does require a lot of discipline, I mean jokes are not easy to write. And comedic thinking, if it’s good, is very disciplined. I mean there’s got to be a very strong logic—that’s what tricks people into the joke, into believing in what you’re saying is really of value and has a real point to it. Of course, it just ends in some silly term. But you have to have the ability to think clearly. I think in school that’s what you do. School is not learning, it’s exercise. You don’t remember anything you’ve learned, but the act of trying to learn is mental exercise and that exercise builds some sort of muscle you can use. I think the most important thing to me was I finished college. Even through I didn’t really accomplish much besides that, but I did finish it. And that set up a pattern in my life of finishing things and seeing it through. And in comedy and stand-up you encounter resistance and it’s good to have that pattern in your life to keep you going.”

Tomorrow we’ll look at how Seinfeld made the leap from college to his first appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

P.S. This post is bound to be one of the most likely ones to be forwarded by moms and geometry teachers to their stand-up comedian dreaming sons and students. (Sort of like when I was a kid and was told, “Cowboys eat green beans.”  I never did eat those green beans—and, sadly, I never became a cowboy.)

P.S.S. Of course, judging by current trends in comedy today you are now only required to attend school through the fourth grade. Once you have learned all the bathroom humor, body parts required for sex, and words in the profanity dictionary—you’re good to go.

Scott W. Smith