Seinfeld blames ‘extreme Left’ for killing TV comedy

Jerry Seinfeld has blamed the “extreme Left” and “PC c---” for killing comedy on television, claiming networks were too worried “about offending other people”.

The American comic, whose eponymous sitcom drew 76 million viewers when it ended in the late 1990s, hit out at TV bosses for sending jokes through “committees” for approval.

Would-be viewers were now turning to live stand-up routines for comedy that had not been sanitised in order to avoid causing offence, he added.

“It used to be, you would go home at the end of the day, most people would go: ‘Oh, Cheers is on; oh, M*A*S*H is on; oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on; All in the Family is on,’” Seinfeld told The New Yorker’s David Remnick.

“You just expected there’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight. Well, guess what? Where is it?” This is the result of the extreme Left and PC c--- and people worrying so much about offending other people.

“When you write a script and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups – ‘here’s our thought about this joke’ – well, that’s the end of your comedy.”

Seinfeld, who began his career as a stand-up comedian, said: “Now they’re going to see stand-up comics because they are not policed by anyone. The audience polices us. We know when we’re off track. We know instantly. And we adjust to it instantly.”

The 70-year-old added: “With certain comedians now, people are having fun with them stepping over the line, and us all laughing about it.

“But again, it’s the stand-ups that really have the freedom to do it because no one else gets the blame if it doesn’t go down well.”

Seinfeld has previously said he had been warned not to perform his act at colleges because “they’re so PC”.

Students “just want to use these words – ‘that’s racist, that’s sexist, that’s prejudiced’”, he said, adding: “They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”