The Curious Case of the Seinfeld Curse 

Jason Alexander deserves better he is an insanely good actor.

Worth mentioning Jason Alexander also had a strong Broadway career and even won a Tony award!

One of my fav things is Julia playing Maggie on arrested development. The whole faking blindness plot on the show feels kinda like a callback to Elaine faking deafness on seinfeld

Julia Louis Dreyfus has the best post career of the supporting characters hands down. "The New adventures of Old Christine" is HILARIOUS. As well as VEEP. You can tell she's been in the background so frequently early on in her career, she was able to hone in her craft more with each show. She's a real inspiration to me and a true comedy underdog.

I don’t blame the actors for these failure follow ups, I blame the networks. They didn’t see the actors, they only saw the characters they played. Michael and Jason really tried to do something different, but the networks weren’t looking for that, all they wanted were spiritual successors to Seinfeld. Julia, on the other hand, is too big to fail. She was always going to have a career.

Definitely agree with your whole pet peeve about sitcoms having “The Actor Show” as a title when the main character isn’t even called that.

Jerry ending the show at the peak of popularity was the smartest thing they could ever do

Unpopular opinion: Seeing Michael Richards on Seinfeld's coffee and cars show really warmed my heart

Not so much a curse of Seinfeld as it is just not having Larry David around. It's no surprise that the first person to find success after Seinfeld was Larry.

The actress featured @9:44 is not Julia Louis-Dreyfuss. It is Catherine Keener appearing in a guest role.

That happened a lot more way back when. The lead character on _The Dick Van Dyke Show_ is Rob Petrie, and the lead character on _The Mary Tyler Moore Show_ is Mary Richards.

Hard to feel sorry for those 3 actors. They still get paid millions of dollars each year from the Seinfeld series.

Naming shows after the big star is an old tv norm. "Dick Van Dyke Show" in which DVD's character is "Rob Petrie". "Mary Tyler Moore Show" in which MTM plays "Mary Richards". History.

I always thought a interesting spin off would have had Michael Richards and Wayne Knight team up as their Seinfeld characters Kramer & Newman. The two always had very good chemistry on the show and sketches they were in, quite funny. So paired with the right Seinfeld writers (particularly Larry David), I think a spin off in involving both of them could have been a hit.

Larry David was the brains behind the jokes.. If you watch Curb your Enthusiasm.. you realize that this guy turns everything into an interesting story

Minor nitpick, but aside from the footage not being Elaine in a section of your video, the Julia's last name is pronounced LOUIE-Dreyfus.

No one ever mentions Duckman. It ran longer than any of the shows covered in this video, and it was great. Jason Alexander's best non Seinfeld role.

Like any other Seinfeld fan I watch it religiously and use it to as background noise cuz it's just so comforting. But also as with any popular show they always do spin-off series and what they truly don't understand they being Hollywood is that the chemistry of the cast is what really made it so successful not just one individual on the show.

I think most actors struggle to find new roles after being part of a major film or TV show. For example, it's near impossible to see Daniel Radcliffe and not think of Harry Potter. Thankfully Radcliffe has been able to continue his acting career, but as an audience member it's difficult to see him in newer roles and see him as anything else than the boy wizard. When the audience knows an actor from an iconic role, it's difficult to cast them in a different role because the audience not only sees them as an already established character, but they also may expect the new role to live up to the expectations set by the previous iconic role.

9:45 .... That's not Elaine.

There is no curse. This has been happening to TV actors and actresses from the beginning.

Seinfeld has an all time likeable cast. Favourite show of all time

While time has proven it wrong, I remember back in the day people talking about “the Seinfeld curse.” It was constantly talked about the New Adventures of Old Christine which I am sad you didn’t mention.

I'm never getting that episode on how rich or how poor is Eustace Bagge from courage the cowardly dog am i?

I think what disproves the curse is looking back at all the successful entertainers who had guest spots on the show. Brian Cranston, Anna Gunn, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Silverman, Laurie Loughlin, Parton Oswald, Drake Bell, Courtney Cox, Brad Garrett, and Jeremy Piven to name a few.

Its typical typecasting. Once they become really well known as one character, they can't do anything else without being known as that character.

Seinfeld... Modern Family and The Office never get old. Well the office as long as Michael Scott is in it

I like to think that there’s an alternate universe where Michael Richards didn’t have the Laugh Factory incident and ended up becoming the most popular celebrity of all time who everybody universally loves.

The New Adventures of Old Christine was pretty good 👍 plus it introduced Clark Gregg who managed to have a "teeny bit(lol)" of success in the MCU

The guy who made this is too young to remember The Dick Van Dyke era of shows where the name of the show wasn't necessarily the name of the main character.

It’s not a curse. It’s just really hard to get a good show. Expecting someone to do it twice in a row is a bit of a stretch.

Why is this framed as the curse has to occur within a few years after Seinfeld ended? That’s intellectually dishonest as is this

Great video ! Keep grinding ! Love all your content 😊

The Cosby Show was named after the actor and not the character he played had a completely different name. That was pretty successful.

It’s pronounced “LOO-ee-DRY-fəss”. The “s” in Louis is silent.

As for best Seinfeld characters, I think George edges out Kramer. His character is more dynamic and flexible, so they could base way more storylines on him.....and they did.

A lot of shows that have an actor’s name attached to the title actually have a differently named main character. Mary Tyler Moore, Martin, The Michael J. Fox Show. I honestly think it doesn’t make sense either, but it’s not uncommon.

I don't want to be remembered. I want to be forgotten. - George Costanza

If youre a millennial or older you surly remember the crazy amount of series’ on Fox in the early 2000s that didn’t make it past the first season. There’s no Seinfeld curse. It’s the curse of not having Larry David. Larry went on to have his own super successful show

All those shows back then had the stars name and a different character name. Cosby Show, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore...

I mean that gripe you had with the Michael Richards Show name can be interchangeable for a bunch of old TV sitcoms, especially Cosby Show. Also I'm surprised you didn't mention Duckman Private Dick/Family Man, because despite that show had ran during Seinfeld and did have a good 3 (out of 4) seasons, it consistently did very poorly in ratings considering it aired at 10 PM on a small cable network no one watched at the time (USA Network)

No there’s no curse. Those shows that came in the immediate wake of Seinfeld were just rush jobs that weren’t thought out in order to cash in on the success of Seinfeld. Plus, look at the TV success JLD has had since. She had that one failed show but has had 2, long running and successful shows since Seinfeld went off the air. What kind of curse is that?! Not to mention the success of Curb since 2000, only 2 years after Seinfeld went off the air.

Your gripe about a character not being named after the show _is_ weird, all right. The Dick Van Dyke Show = Robert Petrie The Andy Griffith Show = Andy Taylor The May Tyler Moore Show = Mary Richards The Cosby Show = Heathcliff Huxtable The Steve Harvey Show = Steve Hightower The Michael J. Fox Show = Mike Henry And the list goes on. While the actor, more often than not, retains their first name for comedy shows, "Seinfeld" is the black sheep of the family by having the actor play a fictionalized version of themselves.

9:45 that is not Julia Louis-Dreyfus LOL

Considering how frequently he gets fired from his jobs, I feel the need to ask: How broke is George Costanza?

Wow I don't remember these shows that came after Seinfeld. It's pretty common that shows don't work out.

I've never agreed that Seinfeld was "about nothing"... It about rude New Yorkers navigating life and relationships...

Jason Alexander did a late night cartoon show in the mid 90s called "DUCKMAN" it's severely underrated and I encourage anyone who's a fan of George castanza should watch it ...

OK I’m not sure if you realize this or not but the lady that you were showing on the screen when you first started talking about Elaine is not her.

The Seinfeld curse is the same as being the first man on the moon curse. In both cases it is near impossible for the person to ever reach such heights. I doubt Neil Armstrong was bothered by the fact that he will never achieve anything greater than being the first man on the moon. All involved with the Seinfeld show have done the comedy equivalent of reaching the moon. Of course they aren't ever going to better that, but there is no reason to see it as a curse.

VEEP was hilarious and JLD won the well deserved best comedy EMMY every year but the last one, they gave it to an ‘up and comer’. Selena Myer, The Vice President, was actually a truly horrible person. Loved JDL though❤️

Funny how you went to a shot of Catherine Keener when you said "as 'Elaine'... " @9:43 .

Michael Richards on curb was fantastic. That entire series is the Seinfeld reunion and it's great

9:45 that's the actress Catherine Keener, not Julia Louis Dreyfus.

As far as having a show with the star's name but the star having a different name: Bill Cosby Show - Heathcliff Huxtable, Bob Newhart Show - Robert "Bob" Hartley, Newhart - Dick Loudon, Dick Van Dyke Show - Rob Petrie. This was a fairly normal thing to do. They would call the show based on the biggest star but would separate it from him by naming the main character something else. It's a marketing technique. Think Sears naming their tool division Craftsman. They later sold to Black and Decker, yes, but it was the house brand for a very long time. However, the brand can outlive the store. I think the idea was that they could revive the characters without the actors or give the actor a different show without associating their name to it, if that makes sense. Also, I think Vip killed the curse, if there was any. I do agree that the writing in that show was great. I do think it's ironic that if you look at audience sizes now, what would have gotten your show cancelled then is considered a great audience now. Look at the war between Fox and CNN and look at the audience size they are arguing over. It really is small. You would think that they would have recovered thanks to the panini but to see shows like Abbott Elementary get 5-6 million viewers and that is a hit show, it's kind of funny how it all works. Streaming and RU-vid have killed the TV star, much like video killed the radio star before it.

That reunion of sorts that they did on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' was such an unexpected treat. It was so well done.

I don't think it's a curse, it's just down to bad choices and writers. The perfect idea for Michael Richards would be carrying on as Kramer in a spin off with Newman as PI's.

The New Adventures of Old Christine lasted 4 seasons and was hilarious. Yiu didn't even mention it. Wtf

That one guy really nailed it, the issue is "NOT HAVING LARRY DAVID". it's as simple as that, if LD is behind a proyect you know it's going to be a winner.

To me, Michael Richard's will be "A.G. Pennypacker."

The curse was that they assumed having a former Seinfeld cast member fronting a show was a guarantee of success. Perhaps more effort should have been put into quality in addition to the name recognition.

How I would have continued without Jerry & Larry David... Have Jason and Michael in their own show living under assumed names. Let's say Newman has convinced them they're being pursued by the Mob and that they have to keep a low profile in a new city. They never refer to one another as Kramer and George, but we know they're playing the same characters. And now and then they bump into an old aquaintance from the show. Remember that run of episodes of Seinfeld where they went to LA? It would be a bit like that. So you have a spinoff without mentioning Seinfeld, and those two can develop and grow their characters. Imagine if 30 years after the Seinfeld days, George has now met a woman with kids from a previous marriage and he's trying to be a dad and failing miserably, meanwhile Kramer keeps popping around and almost blowing his cover. I dunno. I'd watch that over some stupid sitcom where they play an entirely new person, at least I wouldn't be distracted by their typecasting from Seinfeld.

To me, the only spinoff I would’ve wanted to see is called the Costanza’s. Focussing more on Estelle and frank with George as a secondary character. I think it would’ve been amazing.

I never seen or heard of any of those shows except for Seinfeld

the cast also had peter brady syndrome . type cast as kramer and george . jerry and julia i dont think got typed

Sometimes a show/movie needs to just end gracefully. Studios need to stop being greedy.

I think the name thing is fine. Andy Griffith played Andy Taylor In the Andy Griffith show, and Tom Brady played Jon Heisman in the Brady bunch

I own every season on DVD! I still watch them!

The fact that Jason Alexander won no Emmys is a huge crime.

What’s crazy to me is how wealthy Louis-Dreyfus and Alexander (actually, his last name is Greenspan) are outside of acting. Each of their families are worth billions of dollars.

I LOVED Watching Elle! Still have them all on VHS. The 2nd season played it safe, and wasn’t as good. But I still love it.

9:45 isn't Elaine, thats her artist friend

There is no curse. There are so many cancelled shows or shows that didn't make it to even run their pilot. These stars had more attempts and opportunities to make a show than most.

Title is pure clickbait....Dreyfus starred in Veep which ran for 7 years and was popular. Larry David had his own popular show. Jason Alexander still appears in various roles in movies. Where exactly is the curse?!...

9:44 that's Catherine Keener in those shots

In my opinion, if they had made Jason Alexander's first show a seinfeld spinoff and named it "costanza", it would've done better .

You see the same kind of thing with Dr Who, it was great for many seasons, but when they got new writers and a show runner who were handed something that SHOULD have been beyond their pay grade, it started to fail so they got desperate and tried different things like bringing back OLD actors to old for their roll even though they are great actors. (David Tennant isn't one of the old ones)

Bob Patterson could actually work today tbh...good premise and a great actor

Mary Tyler Moore played Mary Richards on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Lucille Ball played Lucy Carmichael and Lucy Richardo on Shows named after Lucy.

Cosby Show did the same actor thing as the Michael Richard’s show, although being comparable to the Cosby show isn’t a good thing

I actually liked Listen Up but I'm a sucker for all sitcoms really. The Bob Patterson idea would have worked better today in a RU-vid, Crypto, social media guru scam world. A lot more people today are aware of that type of character selling the dream. Also needed some distance from Seinfeld.

Bob Patterson looks like it's using old Murphy Brown sets.

Newman got eaten by a dinosaur....so that happenend.

The Michael Richards show and The Cosby show and The Donna Reed show are all similarly titled. In that the series are named after there respective stars. But in the show. But I’m the show itself, they have a character name different from their real life names used in the title. It’s weird but not unheard of.

Michael Richards was also in a show called Kristie that was quickly canceled in 2013

Kramer was great but George Costanza was on another level

If I had to guess who from Seinfeld would end up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe I would not have expected it to be the one who played Elaine!

It sure dosnt feel like 200 episodes I need more !!

The new adventures of old Christine was a good show.

It's not that weird to have Michael Richards play a character called Vic Nardozza in a show called the Michael Richards Show. This is very common, if not perhaps even the general trend. For example: The Dick Van Dyke Show - Dick Van Dyke plays Rob Petrie Newhart - Bob Newhart plays Dick Loudon The Phil Silvers Show - Phil Silvers plays Sgt. Bilko The Cosby Show - Bill Cosby plays Cliff Huxtable Often they write the character as having the same first name as the actor for whom the show is named, but even then they change the surname more often than not: The Mary Tyler Moore Show - main character = Mary Richards The Andy Griffith Show - main character = Andy Taylor Roseanne - main character = Roseanne Conner (not Barr) Everybody Loves Raymond - main character Ray Barone (not Romano) Actually the list of these (lead actor shares first name but not surname with main character) just goes on and on. Mostly the lead actor is playing a separate character, not themselves. Thus in the Steve Harvey Show, Steve Harvey plays a guy named Steve but he isn't a TV presenter. In the Andy Griffith Show, Andy Griffith plays a guy called Andy but he's a sheriff, not an actor. Seinfeld is probably the exception rather than the rule, in that he's just playing himself almost exactly - famous stand-up comic Jerry Seinfeld - in a fictionalized version of his life. Most other examples of shows named after the star didn't follow this (fairly groundbreaking and meta-comedic) format, but probably just wanted to parade the star's name for name recognition's sake, to pull in viewers and advertisers (or because it is a vanity project for the star). Michael Richards starring as a completely new character in a show called the Michael Richards Show is really following in a grand old tradition. Having said that, this video is the first time I've ever heard of the show so it must have been doing something wrong; if not this, then something else.

Also, Wayne Knight even had a pilot but it didn't get picked up.

Nitpicky note - the clip from 9:44 to 9:52 that's supposed to show Julia shows some other actress.

The title for THE MICHAEL RICHARDS SHOW isn't too uncommon. The Andy Griffith Show The Dick Van Dyke Show Mary Tyler Moore None of these shows focused on actors playing people with the same name listed in the title.

They probably created the character and concept of the show first. Adding Michael Richards’ name give it more star power. It was called The Cosby Show but his character was Cliff Huxtable. Both men are now controversial, one more than the other for obvious reason.

Ha, Ha, "Household name"? Yeah, like I remember Seinfeld, and I knew of Dreyfus only because of the name "the Dreyfus Affair." I Don't remember any of the other shows. A "curse" hardly.

Just an FYI: Julia Louis-Dreyfus' last name is pronounced like "Louie-Dreyfus."

Meanwhile, Curb your enthusiasm has been a huge success!

the same is true for very successful shows with an ensemble cast, Friends.. The Big Bang Theory, Cheers, Scrubs, That 70s show. the list really goes on.

So drawn out. Its called "type casting" Those actors are going to be associated with their more interesting characters so anything less then that will be BORING or just not as interesting and most of the time the writers are going to be mediocre people jumping on board expecting it to work because of previous success which is a failure way of looking at things instead of looking to make something unique and interesting and funny ALL ON ITS OWN!

Loved Julia Louis-Dreyfus in You People!! You're damn right she's still in high demand 🤩