There’s a good reason that Jerry Seinfeld’s Web series, “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee,” has the loosey-goosey feel of an unscripted, fly-on-the-wall conversation.
“It’s 100 percent improvised. No scripts. No writing of any kind,” Seinfeld told The Post. “I don’t prepare for the interviews. It’s more what I want to know about this person.
“To put it in talk-show terms, it’s the conversation that happens outside of the plugging of the new project.”
In the series, which kicks off its third, six-episode season Jan. 2 on streaming service Crackle, Seinfeld — driving a classic vintage car (Mercedes, Cadillac, Volkswagen, etc.) — retrieves a fellow comedian from their residence.
(Past guests have included Don Rickles, Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Bob Einstein, Ricky Gervais and David Letterman.)
On his way over, he calls his guest to make sure they’re ready to go. And, yes, he says that part is staged.
“The only thing that’s consistent is the phone call, which is, of course, fake,” Seinfeld says. “That’s just having a little fun with the format.”
Once Seinfeld’s guest gets into the car, the pair drive around discussing nothing in particular — small interior cameras record their conversation — and then stop for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat, continuing their talk with the cameras rolling.
“We can talk about something and maybe it leads to an interesting conversation and maybe it doesn’t, but I have the luxury, because of this medium, to not include things that just didn’t seem that entertaining,” Seinfeld says. “The viewer gets a very distilled experience of that two hours I was with that guest — which, for the most part, is entertaining.”
Seinfeld says he never envisioned “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee” as a network TV show. “I really conceived of it as what would be a fun show to watch on a phone, so I never really thought of it for TV,” he says. “I do like the freedom of the Internet — we can shoot for any length of time we want — and I have absolute, 100 percent freedom, which is very exciting for me.
“We’re creating a new audience in a new medium with a new idea, and all of that together has made it fun for me.”
Seinfeld says he chooses the cars in which he tools around.
“I try to pick a car that reminds me of that guest in some way,” he says. “We then go online or call car clubs. I really look for cars that are fun to photograph.
“I want the show to have a strong visual element, like bright colors or interesting shapes or a car that makes loud noises.”
Seinfeld’s Season 3 “Comedians In Cars” guests will be A-list comics Louis CK, Howard Stern, Tina Fey, Jay Leno, Patton Oswalt and Todd Barry.
But he says he isn’t considering taking the show — which has received many critical accolades — to mainstream TV.
“I let those conversations take place with the people with the nice suits and tasteful ties,” he says. “I just enjoy making the shows and I really enjoy the interaction with fans on Twitter instead of reading reviews.
“When we did the series [‘Seinfeld’] in the ’90s, we read the reviews in newspapers and magazines, which was all we really knew, the only feedback we got.
“Now, we can talk directly to the fans. I really feel like I’m in the middle of this developing [technological] mushroom cloud of screen entertainment which nobody is quite sure how it will evolve,” he says.
“I doesn’t seem like it will be too long before all screens will be equal — in which case I’ve got my own little place in it.”