Jerry Seinfeld would be up for hosting the Oscars, but only under very precise conditions. In the newest installment of the web series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," Alec Baldwin asks Seinfeld, "If I produce the Oscars, would you host it?"
"If you're producing, and I can talk to you during the broadcast," Seinfeld said, "And you're off camera there, yeah, I'm in."
Since that sounds like a fairly far-fetched scenario, it's probably best not to get your hopes up. But that's OK, because this declaration gives us not just a great fantasy of what the best Oscars ever could look like, but an excuse to discuss "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" at greater length.
If you've never seen it, the premise of the series is this: Seinfeld gets in some sort of classic car, picks up an actor or comedian friend, and the two of them go to get a coffee and a bite to eat. All the while, their conversations are being taped, and what's presented in the final webisode is neatly edited and hilarious. As Larry David said to Seinfeld in the episode titled "Larry Eats a Pancake," just after a long exegesis on the differences between someone smoking a cigarette versus a cigar: "You have finally done a show about nothing."
The show, which has also featured Ricky Gervais and Brian Regan has taken some heat for appearing to be a lot like something: namely a British series "Carpool," which has a similar premise and launched on iTunes in 2009. This scandal is broken down at The Daily Beast, and it has a mostly happy ending (Seinfeld said he'd never heard of the series) and it should. Because in an era where so much comedy is mean spirited, there's no harm in there being more than one series that proves it's still possible to make some jokes at pretty much no one's expense.
So the suggestion for the weekend is this: if you care about laughing, then maybe think about typing www.comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com into your web browser. Enjoy.
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