Building Buzz
Jerry Seinfeld Hits Seattle Thinking Bee

You certainly have to give Jerry Seinfeld props. The man may not be the star of a mega-huge television show anymore, and he may not step into the limelight as often as he once used to, but when he does decide to be a part of something he certainly doesn’t just go half way. For his new computer animated effort Bee Movie he’s traveled the globe doing promotion, including dangling from a building wearing a giant bee costume at the Cannes Film Festival, and if that isn’t deserving of kudos then I really don’t know what is.

Jerry Seinfeld in the recording studio for Dreamworks' Bee Movie

Back here in the United States, the one-time staple of NBC television came to Seattle on the last leg of his ten city promotional tour and who couldn’t have been happier to be here. “I told the other directors just wait until we get to Seattle,” says a beaming Seinfeld. “This is a great town for comedy. People are sharp and they pick up the nuances.”

Granted, just because it was the end of the tour that didn’t stop him from pondering what sort of insect related puns might be in store for his family friendly labor of love. “Not knowing how the movie is going to be received, [the filmmakers] and I were trying to guess what things a publication like Variety would say,” says the comedian with a chuckle. “Things like ‘Bee Stings Box Office,’ ‘Bees Reviews Sweet,’ things like that, but, really, I don’t know. There will be a lot of sweet, a lot of stinging, a lot of… I don’t know… flying?”

After the table of other web journalists I was sitting with stopped laughing, we all got down to the task using our short time with Seinfeld to grill him on why this story, the tale of a slacker worker bee looking to find direction in his life and finding it by taking the human race to court for stealing their honey, was the one that got him back to work. And, with that in mind, we also couldn’t help but wonder how hard it was for a writer used to working in the medium of sitcom television to make the transition to feature length screenwriting.

“It’s just long,” says Seinfeld immediately. “[Movies] are just so long. A joke is like a minute-and-a-half, a sitcom is 22 minutes, and then you jump to 90 minutes and it’s like, ‘Is this thing ever going to end?’ But, the hardest part, and we’ve all been in movie comedies where this is true, is that it’s pretty rare when the last third [of the story] has much in it that holds you. They always seem to run out of gas.”

“So that was the real challenge and we tried to meet it. I feel like we did a good job and I’m really happy about it. We did figure it out.”

Not that this figuring out for a whole family’s entertainment was too far off from the comedian’s usual comic sensibilities. For the most part he’s known for keeping his humor pretty clean, PG-13 or less, and as racy as his classic self-titled sitcom ever got it still never got to the point where parents would feel the need to run their kids out of the room to avoid it.

“To me, frankly, [being clean] is just a point of professionalism,” he says matter-of-factly. “I don’t find the words offense. I don’t think it’s damaging to the culture to use profanity. I just think, it’s like if you’re a carpenter the nail heads shouldn’t stick up. If you’re a comedian, you should be able to get laughs without resorting to what comedians know are knee-jerk laugh words and ideas. Some people do it, I don’t have a problem with it but, for me, the ideas should be funny enough. If they’re not, then I don’t feel like I’ve done my job.”

“Early in my career I would use any word I wanted; S-words, F-words, you know. As any comedian will tell you, use those words and the audience will laugh. It’s just right there. Then, one night, I decided to take those words out and see what happens. [So] I took them out and certain jokes that were getting big laughs were now getting no laughs. So I thought, well, what are they laughing at? They were laughing at the words. I just realized that it just wasn’t very professional. If I’m going to say that I am funny professionally then I should be that, and that’s the way I looked at it.”

With that in mind, did he feel the pressure working while working on Bee Movie? Not only is this the comedian’s first real new work in ages, it’s also his first major follow-up to Seinfeld all of which means the bar for success is set remarkably high. “Yeah, there’s pressure,” he shrugs with a smile. “What are you going to do? Life is pressure. There is no way out of it. We all have to do something and if you succeed or fail you have to do something else after that. It’s the nature of the experience.”

“But, I’m pretty good with pressure. I just try to use it to make me do my best. That’s my attitude. But, I did feel it. I did not want to come out with a major movie following a successful T.V. show that bombed. So, I set my alarm and I was [in the studio] on time. I was there everyday. But, you know, I’m healthy. I can work. It was fun.”

Vanessa Bloom (Renée Zellweger) and Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld) in Dreamworks' Bee Movie

Still, the balance between what children are going to enjoy and what adults are going to guffaw at is a tricky one, and trying to strike that balance had to be at the forefront of his mind all through the creative process. “I never looked at it that way,” negates Seinfeld emphatically. “I just wrote it saying this is what I think is a funny story about bees, this is a funny line, this is a funny scene. [Balancing] is kind of a corporate entertainment mentality that I think leads to some very mediocre entertainment. ‘We have to target this, we have to target that.’ No, there [are] no targets. I say what I want to do. This is funny. If it is funny, they will find it.” 

“I get so many twelve-year-olds who run up to me and tell me they are watching the T.V. show. Do you think we ever thought about twelve-year-olds? You don’t know who is going to understand what. You cannot presume to know the mentality of a ten-year-old [or] of a fifty-year-old. You don’t know. Do you’re best work and there are enough people on this planet that someone will find it.”

Additional Links:

-  Bee Movie Review by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  Bee Movie Theatrical Teaser Trailer