(audience cheers and applauds)
I'm sitting here with Jerry Seinfeld.
What in the world is happening
that I am on the Conan O'Brien show. - Yes.
It's a crack in the comedy space time continuum.
(Conan and audience laugh)
I used to own this network.
Uh, huh.
(Conan and audience laugh)
What's happening?
Everything is backwards.
Everything is backwards, yes.
I dismiss you now!
Now I'm here hoping that you like me.
(Conan and audience laugh)
Desperately wanting to be liked.
(Conan chuckles)
Well, it's working, it's working very well.
It is great to be here, really is.
It's been a long time.
I'm very happy that we were able to do this.
Yeah, you know what's funny is,
a couple of weeks ago
I'm walking down the street and I hear someone call my name.
Usually that's not a good sign.
I turn around, it's you.
We have a very nice conversation
and it got me thinking,
you were just walking down the street, backpack,
and I thought, what is it like
for you to walk through Manhattan?
It seemed to me like
you're that kind of guy that just walks around.
Well, you're kind of that guy too.
Yeah.
You walk around.
Yes.
But it was a very interesting moment.
(audience titters)
See, now I know --
I do walk, I was being carried at the time.
(Jerry and audience laugh)
By two Chippendales dancers.
Those are lovely guys, by the way.
Huge upper, yeah.
Nice guys.
Yeah, yeah.
It's something.
And they do it as a favor, too, they're not even paid.
Er, Jerry, what's up?
How's it going?
(audience laughs)
This is Lars, this is Umgay.
Yeah.
(audience laughs)
I love when you see, like for me, it's like,
I know he thinks I'm some psycho on the street.
I go, "Hey, Conan!"
But as soon as he knows it's me
he's going to change from "Oh no, Psycho to Guy I know."
Yeah.
And it was very funny to watch you go,
"Oh."
You know you see that?
(Conan and audience laugh)
That's how I am with my wife every day.
Huh, oh, yeah.
It's like when you don't answer the phone
and you don't know who's there, who is it?
Oh, oh!
But people are, when people see you,
it's like you've come out of the television.
You're the, you know, so famous
for being a New Yorker.
Yeah, and you are the same.
I don't know, people think I come
from some other dimension, you know?
(audience laughs)
I'm like the parade float going down the street.
I don't think it's the same.
People don't connect to me on a human level.
It's like being in a focus group all the time.
When people are always telling you
"I didn't like the Zantac joke last night!"
You know?
You're always getting ratings on everything you do.
Doormen are just yelling at me, or cabbies,
they yell at me,
and you know how you're doing.
They go, I like this, I don't like that.
Right, you know what I get?
I get people telling me
I saw that thing you did on the show last night.
Then they explain to me why they were up at 12:30.
Right. (Jerry and audience laugh lightly)
They say, I love that thing you did
on the show last night.
You see, I take a medication for a rash at 12:30.
(Jerry and audience laugh)
I'm like, all right.
Now, you have said, famously,
it's been quoted a lot, that you think New York City,
Manhattan, is good for comedians.
It's good for comedy.
Mm hm.
What's the theory behind that?
Irritation is good for comedy.
And everything in New York is irritating.
[Conan] Yeah.
(audience laughs)
I have always --
(audience breaks into applause)
Right?
True.
I used to do this thing about how,
I used to love the thing about
when you're in New York and you're in the back of a cab
and you look through the glass,
it seems like it's happening on TV,
and whatever the guy does you think,
oh well, he's a cab driver.
I'm sure he knows what he's doing.
You don't think for yourself, he's going to kill me.
(Conan and audience laugh)
It doesn't seem real.
And you trust, you see the license and you trust it.
Yes.
Even though a lot of the letters are like elements
from another planet or something,
(Conan and audience laugh)
but you just trust
in New York that cab drivers know what they're doing.
But it is very annoying
that you put your life in this person's hands
that you don't know.
You've never met them.
You don't know them, they've never been here before,
and you go,
I'm sure he knows what he's doing.
Right, right.
Now you are, you've also said you think it's good
to be a cranky guy?
That comedians are all cranky,
a little bit irritable, do you think that's really true?
Yes, yes, you name it, I can't stand it.
(audience laughs)
Right, and that's where it all comes from.
I don't like things.
[Conan] Right.
Every thing.
(Conan and audience laugh)
Things irritate you?
Everything irritates me.
Humans, all inanimate matter, oxygen.
It all irritates you.
It all irritates me, yes.
Yeah, wow.
What a wonderful life you have.
(audience laughs)
It is.
Well, if you, you know, you try and make a joke about it.
Yeah, yeah.
I want to mention something else,
you're also here to mention,
and it deserves mentioning,
"Seinfeld The Complete Series."
That's it.
Boxed set.
That was nine years of my life in that box.
Right here.
Yep.
And, phenomenally successful show.
And I wanted to point out quickly,
a show, a lot of people don't know this,
it's surprising.
People just accept when something's a success.
And they think it was always a success.
"Seinfeld" struggled.
I actually remembered in the early years,
it struggled.
Yeah, for three and a half years.
We were very borderline.
People didn't, at NBC, were not excited about the show
when we did the pilot.
And there was only one guy at NBC
who really did like the idea, his name was Rick Ludwin.
He was from the Late Night and Specials Department.
And he's still with NBC.
And in fact, he's here tonight.
[Conan] He made it happen.
And I would like to introduce him.
[Conan] There's Rick Ludwin right there, give him a hand.
[Jerry] That's Rick Ludwin right there.
(audience applauds and whistles)
You know, that's what he does now.
He just salutes.
His reward for saving "Seinfeld"
and making it all happen is to stand
and monitor each one of our shows.
(Jerry and audience laugh)
But if it wasn't for him, that would be
an empty box right now.
Yeah, well, deserves mentioning,
we struggled too, in the first,
well, a little longer than you probably.
And Rick Ludwin was one of the people who stepped in
and said I think this show has potential,
and he was eventually proven wrong.
So thank you, Rick.
(Jerry and audience laugh)
(audience applauds)
(Conan guffaws)
You're batting 500, good for you.
"Bee Movie" is in theaters now.
"Seinfeld The Complete Series" will be in stores
on Tuesday, I think everyone's gonna want
to have that.
Big thrill for us, thank you so much.
[Jerry] Oh, thank you, Conan.
[Conan] Seriously.
[Jerry] Thank you. (audience applauds)