Jerry Seinfeld's career beyond 'Seinfeld'

Notably, none of the core “Seinfeld” cast really put together a movie career. In fact, Seinfeld himself never tried his hand at film…until “Bee Movie.” Suddenly, a sitcom icon was lending his voice to an animated film that he also co-wrote. Hey, if “A Bug’s Life” and “Antz” could be hits! Strangely, “Bee Movie” just kind of came and went. It made money, but just barely, and feels fitting it has a 50-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “Bee Movie” really only made an impact in becoming a meme favorite for a bit.

In the wake of “Seinfeld” ending, Seinfeld focused back on his standup career. He also produced a feature-length documentary called “Comedian,” of which he was one of the stars. “Comedian” focused, partially, on Seinfeld putting together a whole new act having retired his old act in 1998. We say partially, because Seinfeld’s half of the film is juxtaposed with the career of Orny Adams, an up-and-coming standup now best known for, um, being the other guy in “Comedian.”

If you were a successful standup in the ‘80s or ‘90s, there’s a good chance you got your own sitcom. There’s also a good chance you wrote a book. Was that book probably 90 percent just your act? Sure, but it still counts! In 1993, you could see Seinfeld’s smiling visage on the cover of “SeinLanguage.” His sitcom was huge by that point, so the book was a best seller. “SeinLanguage” is exactly what you expect it to be.

Seinfeld’s greatest success outside of his titular sitcom, aside from perhaps his standup, is “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.” The show does what the title promises, for the most part (“Comedian” is a loose designation at times). Seinfeld, who created the show, gets his hands on some vintage car, and he and his guest drive around, stop for coffee, and talk. It’s not unlike every diner seen in “Seinfeld,” and some of the episodes are really good. Now living on Netflix, if you want a blast from the past, the show started on Crackle.

“Benson” was a successful sitcom. The “Soap” spinoff starring Robert Guillaume ran for seven seasons and 158 episodes. In the second season, they added the character of Frankie, a deliveryman and aspiring standup comedian. He was played by Seinfeld, but he only lasted three episodes. Evidently the people working on the show didn’t love an unknown and inexperienced actor being so opinionated about the material.

A lot of standups end up doing a lot of marriage material, or a lot of parenting material (and often both). Seinfeld decided to lean into that in the 2010s. He created the show “The Marriage Ref,” a comedy panel show where a few celebrities would adjudicate people’s marital disputes. While Seinfeld created the show, and appeared in nine episodes, the host was actually Tom Papa. “The Marriage Ref” only lasted 22 episodes.

Seinfeld and Larry David crafted “Seinfeld” together. After the show ended, David went on to create “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” an improv-heavy sitcom where he plays a loose version of himself. Given that, within the world of the show, David is the guy who co-created “Seinfeld,” Jerry popped up on the show multiple times, including in a storyline about a “Seinfeld” reboot. His half-dozen episodes on “Curb” represent his biggest acting role since “Seinfeld” ended.

Netflix has carved out a space for standup specials. It is arguably now the foremost place for them. Seinfeld has been a big part of that. He’s now had two specials on Netflix, “Jerry Before Seinfeld” and “23 Hours to Kill.” The former is also something of a documentary.

Let’s do a quick rundown of some of the notable, post-fame cameos that Seinfeld has had as himself in the last couple of decades. There’s the “30 Rock” episode “SeinfeldVision,” for starters. He played himself in two episodes of “The Larry Sanders Show” and two episodes of “Louie,” two shows starring standup compatriots. Seinfeld also lent his voice to a computer in the animated “Dilbert” show as well.

The sitcom “Square Pegs” only lasted for one season and 20 episodes, and is best known now for starring a young Sarah Jessica Parker. However, show creator Anne Beatts, an early “National Lampoon” and “SNL” writer, pulled out all the stops to get notable people onto the show. Now, in 1982, when he played Bat Mitzvah quest, Seinfeld wasn’t a huge star, but he was starting to make a name for himself. Her real coup, though, was the fact she got Bill Murray to guest star in an episode. Murray was already a movie star at the time.

The 1984 Showtime TV film “The Ratings Game” is not well remembered, but it did give Danny DeVito a nice little vanity project. He starred and directed, and his then-wife Rhea Perlman costarred with him. Seinfeld has a small role as a network representative in this slight comedy. Notably, though, in the role of Sal you find Michael Richards. Could “The Ratings Game” have sowed the seeds for Richards to play Kramer on Seinfeld?

Other than “Bee Movie,” Seinfeld has basically only been in documentary films. The key exception is “Top Five.” Sure, he plays himself, in an uncredited cameo, but it’s something. He was doing a favor for Chris Rock, who stars in “Top Five,” which he also wrote and directed. To the extent the film has anything going for it, it’s probably Seinfeld’s cameo.

Though Seinfeld rose to fame through standup, and his acting skills have never really risen about decent, it was a no-brainer for him to get a chance to host “SNL.” After all, if athletes and Steve Forbes can do it, so can a guy with a sitcom. In his two hosting gigs, Seinfeld didn’t exactly extend himself, comedically speaking, but the show wrote about his strengths (i.e. being Jerry Seinfeld) well. He also popped up during the 40th anniversary special as well.

We’ll admit that we weren’t familiar with the music video for “Sunflower.” However, Seinfeld has been in all of one music video, so we wanted to highlight it. Vampire Weekend was a known commodity, but past the peak of their cultural cache, by the time of the 2019 music video. They were shooting on the Upper West Side, though, which is some real Seinfeld-style territory. Fab 5 Freddy also cameos. Jonah Hill directed the video which may have helped as well.

Years after “Bee Movie” came and went, Seinfeld is at it again. This time, he’s starring in a film he co-wrote, but he also directed “Unfrosted.” The Netflix comedy, which unsurprisingly has a star-laden cast beyond Seinfeld, is ostensibly about the creation of Pop-Tarts, a food Seinfeld has a known affinity for. However, it’s really more of a parody of the (inexplicable) rise of movies about the creation of some consumer product that serve as much as an ad as a film. It’s an interesting move, at least. We’ll give Seinfeld that.