The term “Seinfeld curse” is almost oxymoronic. To have been a part of Seinfeld at all is an unmitigated blessing; not only are all those associated with it forever enshrined as comedy legends, but the residual checks from constant Seinfeld reruns must be pretty nice, too. (Particularly in an era of waning residuals.) Yet in the years immediately following the beloved sitcom’s curtain call, that term picked up popularity with the press—which was, to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ thinking, just regular old moronic.
“It was invented by the media. They thought it was clever,” she reflects on the “Seinfeld curse” in a new interview with Rolling Stone. “You don’t need me to prove it wrong, it was ridiculous! It made no sense. I was amazed that it had legs, because it was so moronic. I don’t know how else to say it!”
This isn’t the first time Louis-Dreyfus has dismissed the so-called curse, the most notable instance being when she definitively put the term to bed by winning an Emmy for The New Adventures Of Old Christine in 2006. “I’m not somebody who really believes in curses, but curse this, baby!” She declared in her acceptance speech.
Prior to that, the term cropped up due to the successive (relative) failures of Louis-Dreyfus’ sitcom Watching Ellie, Michael Richards’ The Michael Richards Show, and Jason Alexander’s Bob Patterson and Listen Up! These one- or two-season enterprises led to speculation that the Seinfeld alums would never do anything as successful as Seinfeld again, i.e., the curse. Never mind that few television series ever created could be as successful as Seinfeld.
Larry David himself called the curse “the most idiotic notion” in a 2009 Esquire interview. When asked if he thought it was real, he replied, “Are you crazy? It’s so annoying to hear something like that. There was no curse. It’s crazy. So there were two TV shows attempted that didn’t work? Big deal. How many TV shows work?” Confronted with the fact that Alexander was at one point a KFC spokesperson, David said, “Well, he’s entitled to make a living. But a curse? It’s so absurd.”
As for Jerry Seinfeld, he joked on Watch What Happens Live in 2012 (via DigitalSpy) that he likes “anything named after me,” but stated, “There never was a ‘Seinfeld curse’, because [co-creator] Larry David’s done so well. I’ve done well… the New Adventures of Old Christine, Julia won an Emmy, so, curse fans, sorry, it’s over.”
These sound denials occurred before Louis-Dreyfus was launched further into the stratosphere with Veep, thus soundly disproving the Seinfeld curse once and for all. As for her other co-stars, Alexander had a thriving theater career before and after George Costanza, in addition to continuing to appear in film and television. Michael Richards’ career decline can be attributed to, well, other reasons. And Jerry Seinfeld is Jerry Seinfeld. Let David’s words be the final ones on the subject: “It was the most absurd, silliest, stupidest thing to say that there was a curse.”
