Everyone put away your puffy shirts. Stop camping out in front of Tom’s diner. A “Seinfeld” reunion isn’t happening, and we should all just move on.
Jerry Seinfeld made news recently by letting slip on Reddit that he and the sitcom’s co-creator Larry David are working on something “gigantic.” The Internet exploded with speculation that the project must be a “Seinfeld” reunion. It has to be!
No, it doesn’t. In fact, it’s probably anything but. Here are three reasons why.
1. Pretty much everyone involved with the show is on record as saying a reunion will never happen.
Just this past summer on Jimmy Fallon, Seinfeld himself was asked by an audience member if he would ever consider getting the band back together. “No,” he answered. “[The series ended] 15 years ago. It’s depressing already. It would be like an old-people reunion.”
On the most recent episode of Seinfeld’s interview show “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee,” Jerry told Louis C.K. that the sitcom was about four single people living in New York, and that it had an expiration date. He didn’t ever want to be doing an episode about Kramer’s 50th birthday party.
A few years ago, David also squashed any reunion talk. “It’s come up quite often. People asked me and I said no,” he told the Huffington Post. “I never considered it and I never will consider it.”
2. It would sully the show’s legacy.
Seinfeld and David decided to end the sitcom when it was No. 1 in the ratings, to go out on top. The last thing they wanted was for the show to grow old and creaky and wear out its welcome with viewers. So why would they ever want to bring it back and risk ruining the show’s rep with potentially sub-par episodes?
True, David did a reunion of sorts on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” but that was more meta than a proper reunion, and everyone involved could hide behind the fact that it was on a different show and wasn’t called “Seinfeld.”
The truth is that even if new “Seinfeld” episodes were as good as the old ones, they would probably never live up to the hype or viewers’ expectations. There is nothing to be gained by a reunion, and everything to be lost.
3. It’s about the money.
Perhaps the best reason we’re unlikely to see a true sequel to “Seinfeld” comes from Jason Alexander, who played neurotic George. “Nobody could afford it,” he told EW.