Giddy-up! Kramer’s back in the saddle.
Controversial “Seinfeld” actor Michael Richards has been cast in a new sitcom on TV Land, the network announced yesterday.
Richards, 63, nearly dropped out of sight after Nov. 17, 2006, when he inexplicably launched a racist diatribe at the Laugh Factory in LA.
Now, he’ll back in front of the camera, shooting TV Land’s “Giant Baby,” alongside Kirstie Alley and Rhea Perlman.
“Giant Baby’s” pilot will be shot next week, the network said.
The comedy will be about a Broadway star named Maddie Banks, played by Alley, her limo driver, Richards, and best pal and assistant, Perlman.
Maddie will reconnect with her long-lost son after his adoptive mother dies.
The role could become Richards’ first steady gig since he played Cosmo Kramer — the “hipster doofus” who lived across the hall from Jerry Seinfeld — in the iconic NBC sitcom, whose nine-season run ended in 1998.
He regularly stole scenes with his physical dexterity and deadpan delivery.
But Richards’ post-“Seinfeld” career fell off the cliff during one bizarre night in Hollywood.
He lost it with a few hecklers during a stand-up comedy routine, and dropped the N-word to a group of young African-American men. The racist rant was video-recorded and uploaded on the Internet.
“Fifty years ago, we’d have you upside down with a f–king fork up your ass,” Richards screamed.
“You can talk, you can talk, you’re brave now, motherf–ker Throw his ass out. He’s a n—-r! He’s a n—-r!”
One of Richards’ targets, 32-year-old barber Frank McBride, said the comedian never called to personally apologize. But McBride insists he doesn’t hold a grudge.
“Him being back on TV? I don’t have a problem with it,” McBride told The Post yesterday. “That’s what he does for a living. That’s his job, to be an entertainer.”
Actor Danny Woodburn, who played Richards’ “Seinfeld” sidekick Mickey Abbott, said his former colleague deserves another shot.
“He’s a nice guy, he’s a sweet guy, he’s a comedian who had a bad night,’’ Woodburn said. “He’s not that [the racist rant].”
Days after Richards’ offensive meltdown, he appeared, via satellite feed, on David Letterman’s “Late Show.”
The actor stumbled through an awkward, Larry David-esque apology to viewers, Letterman and that night’s guest, Jerry Seinfeld.