Why Julia Louis-Dreyfus Doesn't Think Seinfeld Could Get Made Today

You couldn't make "Seinfeld" today. Because it's already 2:30, and you said you'd run to the grocery store to get some more butter and milk. Also, you need to bring your dad his back medicine, and he lives way over on the other side of town, and traffic is usually back that time of day, so by the time you got home, it'd be dinner time. There's just not enough time to produce 180 episodes of a hit sitcom before bed. 

Ha ha. That was fun. 

In actuality, one couldn't make "Seinfeld" in 2024 because, like all shows, it was a product of its time. "Seinfeld" debuted in 1989, when Americans were growing increasingly tired of wholesome and predictable sitcom tropes that had been repeated, ad nauseam, for decades. Some of the most popular sitcoms of the late '80s served as deconstructionist works, taking the bland wholesomeness of classic American TV and setting it on its ear. "Married... with Children" featured a common suburban family, but the show's central joke was that they were all unhappy, petty a-holes who hated each other. "The Simpsons" saw the suburban American family as low-class, boobish, and odd-looking (what with their yellow flesh). 

"Seinfeld" was invented as an antidote to the sentimental mawkishness of traditional TV shows. Show creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld describe their series as being "about nothing," mandating that its characters learn no lessons and share no hugs. Instead, the characters were to be shallow and petty, eternally trapped in their piddling neurosis and pathetic self-interest. In terms of its laughs, "Seinfeld" had long legs. In terms of its attitudes, "Seinfeld" will eternally be a relic of the '90s. 

In a recent interview with the New York Time Magazine, "Seinfeld" star Julia Louis-Dreyfus was asked about the show's potential timelessness, and she also felt that its magic could never be recaptured. From her point of view, however, the calcification of "Seinfeld" wasn't as much of an issue as the modern risk-averse TV marketplace. No one, she felt, would give "Seinfeld" a chance in 2024. 

Louis-Dreyfus, like the rest of us, has survived the bitter Streaming Wars and acknowledges that TV is in a strange spot. Studios will overspend on some series with a valuable IP attached, release it to little fanfare, and then pull it from the service after only a few months (see: "Willow"). It also was revealed during the 2023 writers strike that — generally speaking — companies care more about market value than ratings. There was no longer a chance for a series to start small, gather an audience over time, and stay on the air for years, becoming a cultural institution. 

Louis-Dreyfus remembers the loose, let's-just-make-ourselves-laugh attitudes of the early seasons of "Seinfeld," and feels that that environment just doesn't exist anymore. Every channel is risk-averse, and none of them seem willing to allocate even a single penny for anything that won't be successful immediately. When asked if something "Seinfeld" could start in 2024, Louis-Dreyfus said:

"Probably not. I mean, what the hell is happening in network television anymore? When 'Seinfeld' was made, it was really unlike anything that was on at the time. It was just a bunch of losers hanging out. So I would say one main reason it wouldn't be made now is because it's hard to get anything different recognized. Particularly nowadays, everyone's sort of running scared." 

Louis-Dreyfus certainly knows about hit TV shows. She won an Emmy for "Seinfeld" in 1996, an Emmy for "The New Adventures of Old Christine" in 2006, and nine Emmys for her many years on "Veep," which she helped executive produce. She will soon appear in the Marvel movie "Thunderbolts*." She is looking to the future, unconcerned with the structures of the past.