Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Production

History

Seinfeld said that the roots of the concept traced to a DVD extra he made for his 2002 documentary Comedian along with a later trip he made after purchasing an old VW Beetle in New Mexico, subsequently filming the return trip to the east coast with a friend.{{cite web

Before the series was developed, Seinfeld was told by leading social network advisers including those at Facebook and Yahoo, that a show length exceeding five minutes had little chance of success on the web. Howard Schultz, coffee magnate and chairman of Starbucks, turned down the opportunity to sponsor the show.{{cite web

The series premiered on Crackle on July 19, 2012. As of May 2015, it had been streamed nearly 100 million times. In January 2017, it was announced that the series would migrate to Netflix starting with the show's tenth season. The first nine seasons became available to stream on Netflix in January 2018. Excluded are the Super Bowl promotional episode with Jason Alexander and Wayne Knight reprising their respective roles of George Costanza and Newman from Seinfeld, a series of promotional videos featuring Michael Richards as fictional Crackle president Dick Corcoran and a spin-off series Single Shot (2014–2016), which compiled footage from various episodes to focus on a more narrow subject.

The series' eleventh season premiered on July 19, 2019. After hinting in mid-2020 that he may be done working on the series, Seinfeld said in late 2021, "I think I'm going to put that volume on the shelf." He elaborated that "It was a lot of fun and I got to meet ... a lot of those people who I had not met. We're friends now." The first episode filmed and last episode released feature Barry Marder and the same 1966 Porsche 356.

Format

Episodes are estimated to cost about $100,000, with guests being paid in cash and the initial raw shoot lasting on average three and a half hours, which is then edited over a two-week period down to a 12- to 20-minute episode. The process uses a lean production staff, involves a minimum of network interaction and is designed as an edited and unscripted talk show without an audience that can be comfortably watched on a smartphone.

The show is formatted around the car drive and "movement," as Seinfeld believed that "when attempting to show the meandering, silly and sometimes deep conversations that comedians share, you have to remove the audience to keep the participants from dropping into their acts,"{{cite web

The format is similar to Robert Llewellyn's Carpool, which ran for over 100 episodes between 2009 and 2011. In July 2019, Seinfeld apologized to Llewellyn for the similarity and for not previously being aware of his series.

Bob Einstein became the first repeat guest on the show, appearing in the first season and again in the ninth season. Two guests have had their appearances split into two episodes: Jimmy Fallon in the fifth season and Ricky Gervais in the eleventh season. Several episodes have featured multiple guests appearing together including Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks; Colin Quinn and Mario Joyner; and Kathleen Madigan and Chuck Martin. Colleen Ballinger appeared in character as Miranda Sings as a guest on an episode.

Episodes

Series overview

Season 1 (2012)

Nate 'n Al's, Beverly Hills, CA 1970 Porsche 911 (classic) Nate 'n Al's, Beverly Hills, CA

Season 2 (2013)

Season 3 (2014)

Dominique Ansel Bakery, SoHo, New York, NY Wayne Knight as Newman

Season 4 (2014)

Francesco's Bakery, Hicksville, NY 1968 AMC AMX

Season 5 (2014)

A series of bonus promotional videos featuring Michael Richards as Crackle president Dick Corcoran were released before and during this season. Joan Rivers had been asked by Seinfeld to be the fifth season's first guest. However, she postponed her appearance due to a scheduled medical procedure. Rivers died as a result of that procedure.

1994 Land Rover Defender 90

Season 6 (2015)

Season 7 (2015–16)

1966 Ford Mustang

Season 8 (2016)

Season 9 (2017)

Season 10 (2018)

Massapequa Diner, Massapequa, NY

Season 11 (2019)

Martine's Fine Bake Shoppe, Scarsdale, NY

Reception

Brian Lowry of Variety said that the series is the kind of short-form concept that feels stretched, even at 18 minutes. David Hinckley of The New York Daily News gave the series 3 out of 5 stars. Mike Hale of The New York Times said: "The [series' segments] ... are presented in a clean, elegant template with a studiously casual pencil-drawn logo. And the filming and editing are, if you break them down, impressively complex and artful for a Web series."

The New York Timess Anand Giridharadas critiqued the show as being out of touch with the everyman and more of a showcase of Seinfeld's wealth. "We watch pairs of rich guys chatting about the gilded joys of their lives and careers and cars, about the sealed-off world they inhabit and we don't." Giridharadas wrote. "…The democracy of observational humor has become, in Mr. Seinfeld's reincarnation, an oligarchy of mutual admiration." Other publications have been more positive in their opinion. The New York Daily News wrote of the show's format and first three seasons that, "It all sounds random, which it is and trivial, which it is and isn't. In the end, the fun is contagious." Newsday then graded season four of the series with an "A".

Among the show's highlights is the episode with then-president Barack Obama. It begins with Seinfeld knocking on the White House windows, which he later would say "was the peak of my entire existence". Critics and audiences alike praised the episode for "what could have easily come off as stilted, manufactured dribble miraculously contains a comedic spark" and for its "charming and relaxed natural moments of playfulness," as well as the chemistry between the two.

The Guardian's Stuart Heritage reviewed the later seasons of the show as degraded in quality, with the Christoph Waltz episode representing a low point that was "a betrayal of the premise [and] a slab of flabby filler to boot". With the move to Netflix, a subscription service, Heritage expected an increase of quality rather than episodes that were "exactly the same in terms of look and feel as the ones that came before," and further that the series feels more like "a product" with less creativity regarding its selection of guests.

Awards and nominations

The show has earned numerous Primetime Emmy Award nominations and has won several Producers Guild awards.

Legacy

A variant cover for the first issue of the 2022 reboot of the Batman & Superman: World's Finest comic book series features Seinfeld driving the Batmobile with Superman in the passenger seat and Batman on the back of the car, all three holding coffees in the manner of the show. A coffee table book about the show, The Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Book, was released in 2022; Vanity Fair says the book is "a total gas".

References

References

1. (May 27, 2015). "Jerry Seinfeld, Online Force". [[The New York Times]].
2. Maglio, Tony. (January 17, 2017). "Netflix Nabs "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee", 2 New Jerry Seinfeld Stand-Up Specials".
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4. Arora, Akhil. (1 January 2018). "Star Trek: Discovery, Comedians in Cars, and More on Netflix in January".
5. Rhodes, Eric. (2019-08-07). "10 Hidden Details Everyone Missed In Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee".
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7. "I love the coffee. ⁣ I love the cars. ⁣ I love the comedians. ⁣ And yes, doing the show with Eddie was really special.". [[Instagram]].
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35. Liebenson, Donald. [https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/11/jerry-seinfeld-on-turning-comedians-in-cars-getting-coffee-into-a-book "Jerry Seinfeld on Turning Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Into a Book"], ''Vanity Fair'', November 22, 2022