Jerry Before Seinfeld

While I was expecting more of a background to how Jerry got his start into Comedic stardom or even a mixture of that with his act it was still a treat to watch him perform. His stand up as always was first class. We were treated to great material that was effortlessly delivered by the master. I am so glad Netflix gave us this wonderful special amidst all their other shows. Seinfeld is a class act who has distinguished himself in the comedic and entertainment world. He gave us the greatest TV show of all time, Seinfeld and has continued to conquer the stand up and comedic world. We saw some snippets into his life before making it big but it was really a treat to watch him perform and own the stage.

American stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld revisits the Comic Strip club, a small nightclub where he cut his teeth as a comic in 1976 before going on to international success as actor, comedian, producer and director. The material is pleasingly nostalgic and funny and one gets the feeling that the secret to his success has been down to his sunny disposition and laid back persona.

I really like Seinfeld and I love Seinfeld the TV show. But this special really disappointed me simply because most of the jokes(70% in my rough estimate) are old material. I am talking about jokes from Seinfeld the TV show. I do understand that this is special is about his history but I can't help to think he should have included way more new material.

I am a big fan of the Seinfeld show and of Jerry's sense of humor. When I saw that he did a new thing for 2017 I absolutely had to see it. But it was nothing new. Just him talking about his childhood and his life in New York for a few scenes, and the rest of this one hour show he just does stand up. Which was fine, only I knew about 90% of the material just by watching the Seinfeld TV show.

And then there is the voice thing. I don't know what happened to him, but at some time he would just raise his voice a little bit and it would come out all shrill and broken. In this show he managed to keep it under control, but not all the time.

Bottom line: I always enjoy Seinfeld, but I expected some more depth in something that was about his personal life and was marketed as "before Seinfeld". I understand he took all the good bits and put them in the TV show and he couldn't have made another show just with the bad material, but still, I wanted to see him write again, not just reminisce about the good jokes he thought of when he was a kid. Maybe next time.

People who are expecting new material will be disappointed. The title says it all. These are glimpses or insights into a part of Jerry before he became THE SEINFELD. It is shown in fragments of him on stage as well providing us reels of him as a child, how his family is, just a normal kid. Perhaps it will be easier for the new viewer not to take things too literally and get to know him a bit. Which is the purpose of this docuspecial anyways. It is interesting to take into account that Jerry the normal kid became such a megacomedian if say you want to compare him to other superstar comedians who came from the slums, poverty and the likes. His normalcy gave him an edge, clean cut you may say but a funny genius nonetheless.