Jerry Seinfeld took a jab at “Friends” in a promo for his new film “Unfrosted.”
In the clip, Pop-Tarts accuses Seinfeld of trademark infringement for referencing their breakfasts.
“Are you familiar with the concept of trademark infringement?” the fictional Pop-Tarts president asked. “You see Mr. Seinfeld, you took something of ours, and now we’re going to take something of yours. Show him, Tarty.”
When they threaten to take one of his characters, Seinfeld jokes “You mean like ‘Friends’?” referencing the sitcom also set in 1990s New York about a group of friends.
“Schmoopie, Jackie Chiles and the Soup Nazi! My characters!” Seinfeld said.
“They’re my characters now, Mr. Seinfeld,” the president said. “Tell me, how does it feel when people steal your ideas and then do whatever they want with them?”
“You mean like ‘Friends’?” Seinfeld joked.
It’s Seinfeld’s directorial debut after a career in stand-up and his own sitcom.
He said filmmaking is “nothing like” TV work and the movie business no longer occupies the same cultural position, with confusion replacing it.
“It was totally new to me,” Seinfeld said. “I thought I had done some cool stuff, but it was nothing like the way these people work. They’re so dead serious! They don’t have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea.”
He noted, “Film doesn’t occupy the pinnacle in the social, cultural hierarchy that it did for most of our lives. When a movie came out, if it was good, we all went to see it. We all discussed it. We quoted lines and scenes we liked. Now we’re walking through a fire hose of water, just trying to see.”
People in show business constantly wonder what they’re supposed to do now given the changing landscape, he noted.
“Depression? Malaise? I would say confusion,” Seinfeld said. “Disorientation replaced the movie business. Everyone I know in show business, every day, is going, ‘What’s going on? How do you do this? What are we supposed to do now?’”
