Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV

by Warren Littlefield, Former NBC President of Entertainment

  Glenn Padnick: Larry told me once that leaving the show was the biggest mistake he ever made. He loved the show, and he hated the thought of it going on without him.

  Jerry Seinfeld: Larry and I created the show together. We were absolutely bonded. It was a very tough thing when Larry left.

  Larry had to go. He wanted to do what he’s doing now, though he may not have known it at the time. Out of everything he did for me, I’m most grateful that he left me and caused me to swim on my own. I know I can run a ship now.

  Glenn Padnick: Jerry had something to prove to himself and the world. After the show became a hit, the media said the secret of Seinfeld was Larry David. There was some truth to that, but in my view the secret of Seinfeld was—guess what?—Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry softened Larry’s dark edges. There were so many things Larry might have done … but he put them in his notebook and used them on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

  Jerry Seinfeld: When Larry left, I knew I wasn’t ready to stop, and the audience wasn’t ready.

  Jason Alexander: The show was originally written about some pretty complex people, and that ship was being steered by a guy who was pretty complex and kind of dark. Larry had a real gallows humor. Now you’ve got the same characters, but the writing staff is all in their twenties, and they’re being led by a guy who’s not dark.

  It felt like it shifted from a show where George was the most compelling character to a show where Kramer was the most compelling character. He had a youthfulness, an innocence, that that writing staff knew how to write. And Michael was so easy to write for. “Kramer comes in.” You’re done.

  Jerry Seinfeld: Then I did two years without Larry. The half-life of an executive producer on a sitcom is a short one. It’s a grueling, exhausting life. I was starring in the thing. I was in pretty much every scene. I’d rehearse from 9:00 to 3:00 and then write from 3:00 to 7:00. I loved that the show was working.

  Warren: Any day at any time, if I needed to find Jerry, he was over at the show. Onstage, writing, or in editing, always fully committed to the show.

  Bob Wright: Those last two years, after Larry left, Jerry was really concerned that the show be as funny as it was in the preceding years. Jerry was his own worst critic. It was almost like Jerry was concerned that he was too close to the product.

  Jerry Seinfeld: If you look at the last season, when we did “The Betrayal”—the entire show in reverse—or “The Bizarro,” when we met our opposites, those were signals to me that we had broken enough china in the china shop. There wasn’t much left to break down, and I didn’t want to twist a dry sponge.

  We had to keep pushing, but at a certain point we just got to the end of the path.

  I never was out in the world, and that’s where you get stuff from. I started to feel isolated from the world, and as a comedian that’s a horrible feeling. I remember going into a deli on the Upper West Side and seeing phone cards. I said, “What’s that? I don’t even know what that is.”

  Warren: It had become a tradition with me and Jerry that around Halloween I would go by Jerry’s office on the Radford lot to tell him formally, “We want you back next year. The audience wants you back.” I would always cite some of the amazing performance stats of the new season for the show. Jerry and I would talk about how he was feeling and how the show was going, and he would eventually say, “Okay. Let’s try and work it out.”

  My next call was to John Agoglia to say, “Jerry’s up for it; let’s make a new deal.” We weren’t the only ones in Burbank who thought creatively. As head of business affairs, John came up with a complex equation of rewards for our most important star.

  As an additional reward for their great success, I told Jerry to take the GE jet and the writing staff to New York for an all-expenses-paid “research” trip. It became an annual event. In one contract negotiation, I had the art department take an eight-by-ten photo of the jet and write “AIR JERRY” on the tail. It was the final bit of icing on Jerry’s financial cake that year.

  Then there was the NBC-Nike connection. It was a close second in perks to the GE jet. Nike Inc., in the form of the West Coast rep Tracy Hardy-Gray, was enormously generous to the NBC talent. The actors on our Must See schedule got loads of swag from Nike’s Marina del Rey warehouse, and they didn’t even have to wear it on the air. Though I was assured it would be perfectly all right if they did.

  I have a copy of a well-known Seinfeld poster hanging in my house. It shows the legs of the Seinfeld cast from the knees down. Jerry just happens to be wearing a pair of sneakers. Guess which brand? This sort of thing drove the sales force nuts. “Nike should be paying us for that!” But Tracy was helping us keep the talent happy, and you couldn’t really put a price on happy talent.

  I’d usually get a call from Jerry just before Christmas, often on the afternoon of December 23. “We’re coming back for another season,” he’d tell me, and that was that. It was a reliable, professional, honorable relationship. No drama. No tantrums. The honeymoon never ended. There was always the sense between the network and Jerry that he’d brilliantly done his job and we’d done ours.

  When I visited Jerry in late October 1997, things went a little differently than they had in years before. We chatted for a while, and then I told him, like usual, “We want you back next year, Jerry. The audience wants you back.” For his part, Jerry went off script. “Warren,” he said, “I need you to know that I don’t have a life yet. I’m not in a relationship. This show is my life, and at some point I have to have a real life.” There was no “Let’s try and work it out,” and for the first time I left a meeting doubtful that Jerry would sign on for another year.

  Jack Welch, Bob Wright, and Don Ohlmeyer all believed that if we made a rich enough offer to Jerry, he’d have to continue with the show. My feeling was that we usually had Jerry emotionally on the five-yard line and just had to come up with a few enticements to shove him into the end zone. The Jerry I’d met with on this particular Halloween was well back down the field. A meeting was set in New York.

  Howard West: We were the number one show, and we got a call from Bob Wright, president of the network. Welch would like to have brunch with Jerry, George, and myself.

  George Shapiro: In Bob Wright’s apartment on the thirty-eighth floor of Trump Tower.

  Howard West: For two weeks we negotiate what Jerry would like to eat. Oatmeal. French toast. Whatever. They were very nervous, catering to Jerry. It was a far cry from where we’d started.

  Bob Wright was at the head of the table. To his left was Welch. I’m to the left of Welch. Across the table was Jerry and George. There were three waiters for five people.

  We’re eating. I’m discussing everything with Jack Welch but Seinfeld.

  George Shapiro: Howard was like a kid meeting his baseball hero.

  Howard West: They bring in research on Seinfeld. Charts. They’re making a presentation to us. We turn from beggars to the network begging. Welch tells us Seinfeld hasn’t yet reached its peak. It was a very warm moment. It felt so good.

  Jack Welch: We pitched Jerry in Bob Wright’s apartment and thought for sure we had the sale. We made the pitch to Jerry that if he quit, he would be quitting with increasing ratings.

  Howard West: A magnificent presentation, but inside I’m laughing my ass off. Jack Welch said, “You know, Jerry, I go all over the world. People only want to know about one thing—Jerry Seinfeld and his show.”

  Bob Wright: We gave Jerry all kinds of reasons to believe the show was still as popular as it always was, but that wasn’t enough for him.

  Jerry Seinfeld: I almost wished it was a regular show, like a grocery store. You don’t close it. You leave it open. “We’re making money here!” But the show had its own rules, so I felt like I had to play by them.

  Howard West: Jerry sent signals that it might be time for him to get off the stage. Jack Welch said, “Jerry, come here.”

  They go off to the side, and Jack Welch writes on a piece of paper and gives it to Jerry. He writ
es $5 million a show. That’s for twenty-two shows. A hundred and ten million dollars. Firm offer. We didn’t negotiate. That’s the offer. That’s the beginning.

  Jerry Seinfeld: It was the most backward meeting ever in show business. Where the people are telling you you’re worth more, and I was saying, “I don’t want it.” Normally, you tell them you’re worth more, and they say, “We don’t have it.” They can’t give you any more, and you won’t work for any less. This was backward. We want to give you more. I won’t take it.

  I felt the giant wheel slowing. A big part of that was the writing staff, the engine that supports the show. The writers had all set up deals all over town for their own shows and their own production companies—not a one of them panned out—and they weren’t giving me the support I needed. I probably should have fired them all and brought in fifteen new kids who were excited.

  But my own wheel was slowing also. My only interest was, “What would make this most exciting for the audience?” I thought of the Beatles. They did nine years and then were gone.

  Howard West: The meeting ends, and George and Jerry and I go for a walk. All around Central Park, and Jerry sits us down on a bench.

  George Shapiro: Eighty-first and Central Park West.

  Howard West: Jerry says, “Guys, when I was twenty-one, I sat on this same bench.”

  George Shapiro: The same bench he sat on when he told his father he was going into stand-up comedy.

  Jerry Seinfeld: We went to the park bench where my dad and I had sat before I moved into my first apartment. I told him I was going to be a comedian, and he thought it was great. He said he wished he could have done it. And he could have. He was very talented, a very funny guy.

  Imagine sitting there trying to figure out if this was the time to leave the show.

  Howard West: Now we’re walking to lunch, and Jerry said, “What do you think?” We’d been well paid as an extension of Jerry. Me, I’d have loved to have done one more season.

  George Shapiro: I thought it would be great to quit while Jerry was on top.

  Howard West: I told him he was the guy working seven days a week to turn the show out.

  George Shapiro: Jerry said he didn’t want to stay too long. He was getting a standing ovation, and he wanted to leave while he was still getting that ovation.

  Jerry Seinfeld: I really didn’t think about the money at all. I thought about the audience. How are they feeling? Where are they? I was trying to perceive it like a comedian on the stage. When you’ve been onstage for a pretty long time—and nine years is a healthy run—and they’re still screaming, if you can get off, they’ll scream even louder. They’ll never forget you.

  Jason Alexander: It was the right artistic thing to do. Every comic wants that. “Good night, everybody.” No, do ten more minutes!

  Jerry Seinfeld: There’s something about a thing that’s in your life for a brief period of time—a little bit less than you really want it—that makes it special. I thought, “If I go now, the level of excitement the audience feels will last.” There’s a peak of energy that everything has. I thought if we ended the show when we did, we’d leave a buzz in the room.

  Howard West: Jerry said he would have gone back if the writers had come to him and said, “Jerry, one more. Let’s do it together.” But those writers were spoiled, indulged, and overpaid. We started with three and ended up with eleven or twelve. No one ever created a show and had it on before or after.

  George Shapiro: They won Emmys and got credit for the scripts, but Larry and Jerry rewrote every word. They acted out every word. Performed every word.

  Jerry Seinfeld: My only regret is that we never found out where that deal would have come out. Nobody knows.

  Howard West: I was deballed! I didn’t even get to make a counteroffer.

  Warren: On December 23, 1997, I got the fateful call from Jerry. “Warren,” he told me, “this isn’t going to be like those other phone calls.” The tone of our conversation was like everything else that passed between NBC and Seinfeld. It was straightforward and good-humored. Jerry told me the show was over, that he was ready to go out and live. Seinfeld was one of those shows where there were never any problems, and this wasn’t a problem either. Jerry had had enough, so Seinfeld was finished. Jerry would go out on top. Seinfeld would end the 1997–98 season as the year’s most watched series, averaging thirty-four million people a week (Nielsen Media Research). I called Bob.

  Bob Wright: At the meeting at my apartment, I thought we had convinced Jerry to stay on with the show. But I got a call later that day or maybe the next day. It was George Shapiro telling me Jerry didn’t want to keep doing the show.

  Jack Welch: When I think of Jerry calling me on Christmas Eve to tell me he wasn’t going to do the show anymore, I couldn’t believe somebody could turn down $110 million.

  Jason Alexander: I don’t miss doing the show. I miss the people, and I miss having a reason to hang out with those people. We did not become friends outside of the show, so we knew we were splitting up that family. My feeling was we couldn’t surprise the audience anymore. We could make them laugh, but we couldn’t take characters down a road where you couldn’t anticipate what they might do. I think that’s the dictionary definition of jump the shark. It felt like a good time to go.

  I think I’m the only guy on the planet who liked the finale. It was what we never were, which was sentimental. It found an organic reason to bring back all the people who had been meaningful to us and to the success of that show. The experience, for me, out-colored what it was for everybody else, which I guess was underwhelming.

  Mike Mandelker: For the finale of Seinfeld, we went out asking $2 million for thirty seconds. We ended up getting $1.8 million. We’d gotten less for the Super Bowl the year before.

  George Shapiro: When the show went off, Jerry’s picture was on every magazine. He said he was sick of himself. The last telecast was May 14th of 1998, and that was the day Frank Sinatra died.

  Jerry Seinfeld: In around 1997, somebody interviewed Steve Case of AOL, and they asked him, “Who is your competition?” He said, “My only competition is Jerry Seinfeld. When that show comes on Thursday night, our connections go in the toilet. I’m only scared of Jerry Seinfeld.” Then I left, but it didn’t save him.

  Warren: The end of Seinfeld occasioned another programming conversation with Jack Welch. It played out a little better than our Wall Street chat. Preston Beckman and I were in New York, and Jack summoned us to his office at 30 Rock to discuss what we had in mind for replacing Seinfeld, not that anything could replace Seinfeld.

  We walked into Jack’s office and found him beaming like a little kid. “I think we’re into one of the most exciting businesses we’ve ever played in,” Jack told us, and with that he opened an envelope and spilled diamonds all over his desktop. Some of them skidded off the blotter onto the floor. “They’re synthetic!” Jack said.

  He told us how, instead of needing a thousand years to make a diamond, they could now do it in a couple of weeks. Preston and I were on our hands and knees gathering up the synthetic spillage off the carpet and looking at each other. Synthetic diamonds? Jack was beside himself, downright giddy.

  He got to the topic of television only eventually. Jack just wanted a heads-up on the Seinfeld replacement—what would go on Thursday at 9:00—whenever we made our decision. “I’d like to know about it before I read about it,” he told me.

  That was as close as Jack Welch ever came to “interfering” with programming. We left him with his synthetic diamonds scattered all over his desktop.

  Jason Alexander: There was not a day we were together on that set when we weren’t laughing. Every day. It was pretty miraculous. If they said today, “Come back and do Seinfeld,” it might be a stupid career move, but somebody’s going to pay me to laugh?

  Warren: In 2009, the invitation to “come back and do Seinfeld” was extended by Larry David for his HBO show, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

  Jerry Seinfeld: The
reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm was perfect for us—perfectly wrong.

  Jason Alexander: I had tons of hesitation about going on Curb Your Enthusiasm. I’ll be brutal. It was far too valuable for HBO. A Seinfeld movie? We could have made gazillions. There was only going to be one. That was it, and we were just giving it away.

  The other hesitations were really practical. We hadn’t worked together in ten years. Could we do it, and without a script? I was forty when we shut down the show. Now I’m fifty. George was a lot to handle at forty, now maybe I hate this character. Between us not knowing if we could work together and whether or not these characters had aged well, I was concerned. But we were in Larry’s hands, and he knows what he’s doing.

  Jerry Seinfeld: Look how easily the shows collided. People loved the scenes with me and Larry in the office. People said, “It looks like that’s what it was really like.” That’s what it was really like.

  Jason Alexander: It was so Seinfeldian. When we walked into that stage and there were those sets again. There were people at that table read who would have been at that table ten years ago. It was a pretty remarkable thing.

  Jerry Seinfeld: The syndication story of the show is, to me, more interesting. The show flourished in syndication, found a new audience, and kept going.

  Howard West: We’ve been on, in one form or another—network to syndication—for twenty years.

  Jason Alexander: Our audience grew at least fourfold in syndication. It’s beyond a TV show or an acting job at this point. Seinfeld has a resonance and a power that nobody could have imagined.

  George Shapiro: With Turner, we’re set for a deal through 2016. There’s a whole new generation discovering the show. Funny is funny. The kids are loving the show.