Jerry Seinfeld Was Desperate to Work With Joan Rivers, Who Called Him ‘Perfectly Average’
Jerry Seinfeld has gotten to meet and work with a number of iconic comedians over the years. He appeared on Rodney Dangerfield’s HBO special, went for a ride with Eddie Murphy on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and once hung out with the ghosts of Abbott and Costello for some reason.
But one legendary comic that Seinfeld never got the chance to interact with on his over-caffeinated Crackle/Netflix series was Joan Rivers.
Following her death in 2014, Seinfeld revealed that he had actually asked Rivers to be his “lead guest” on the new season of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. He even shared an old text message documenting that she said she would “LOVE” to be on the show.
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Unfortunately, according to Seinfeld, Rivers had to postpone the taping because she was “going in for a medical procedure.” This was in late August; Rivers died on September 4th after going into cardiac arrest during “a routine procedure at an outpatient surgical clinic in New York City.”
Seinfeld wrote that he “would have loved to have shown another side of her” on the show — presumably, the “being rude to coffee shop servers after pulling up in a vintage Porsche with a camera crew in tow” side. “I wanted to tell her how much I admire all she had accomplished, especially in the latter stages of her career,” Seinfeld added. “She was one of the greats.”
But that boundless admiration and respect wasn’t exactly a two-way street.
During an interview for Pioneers of Television, Rivers revealed that she had, surprisingly, never been approached about starring in her own half-hour comedy. “I was never asked to be in a sitcom,” Rivers confessed. “Nobody ever came to me and said let’s do Oh That Joan! (or) Joanie’s House. That script never came across my desk.”
Rivers advised young comedians to take any sitcom deals that they’re offered. “I would be a rich woman today. I’m doing fine, but I’m doing fine on club dates,” Rivers admitted. And, as a point of comparison, she brought up a certain comedian who became a wealthy sitcom megastar, despite the fact that she found him to be mediocre at best.
“I am not Jerry Seinfeld — can you imagine? He wasn’t even a headliner!” Rivers stressed. “And he had a very nice act, but nobody was saying, ‘Oh my God, did you catch that boy Jerry Seinfeld?!’ Yeah it was good. And then, my God, what has happened to his life — how lucky. Jerry Seinfeld is lovely, I’m not knocking Jerry Seinfeld. But he’s perfectly average, (and) got lucky to the point of $500 million lucky. That’s okay.”
If anybody plans on using a Ouija board to communicate with Rivers in the near future, maybe don’t mention the fact that the “perfectly average” Seinfeld is now a literal billionaire.
