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“I was a gunnery officer in the United States Navy. Guns aren’t funny.” ‘Seinfeld’ producer Tom Cherones quoted in There’s a lost ‘Seinfeld’ episode, and it’s about guns [at azcentral.com]

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68 COMMENTS

    • Agreed. I never understood why people found the show or the actors funny.

      I suppose the same sort of people who find Woody Allen movies entertaining might find Seinfeld funny, but I don’t see entertainment in Allen’s movies, either. Neurotic blather has never been particularly entertaining, IMO.

      • Woody Allen isn’t at all similar. I guess a couple of the characters on Seinfeld are pretty neurotic, but that’s as far as I can see a similarity to Allen’s boring stuff.

        Don’t know what to tell you.. If I catch a Seinfeld episode, I have to watch it. I was at a hotel on a business trip a couple weeks back, turned on the TV, and ended up watching like two hours of Seinfeld re-runs.

        My wife can’t stand the show, doesn’t think it’s funny at all.

      • If you watch the making of Seinfeld, there are interviews with NBC execs at the time who had doubts about the show, saying that audiences thought it was “too New York” or “too East Coast.” Maybe that’s why it still doesn’t resonate with a lot of folks. As for me, living in Jersey, just across the river from NYC, I have to say I enjoy the show a lot, I thought the writing was great (I even went to Tom’s Restaurant once, aka Monk’s, but it doesn’t look the same on the inside). And even though most of the cast is probably way out there on the left (I can’t stand Jason Alexander in real life), the TV characters and their circumstances ring very true to real life.

      • I couldn’t say if it was funny or not; I have never seen a single episode, nor do I think I’ve missed anything.

      • What I never understood was why people thought the BEATLES were any good. Talk about a bad that could only write nursery rhymes. Puke! 🙂

    • Oh thank God. All these years I was starting to wonder if it was just me. I’ve never been able to finish a single episode. I’d rather watch CSI, at least that one can be funny on accident.

      • Seinfeld might be funny but I have never watched an entire episode. Seriously, when I was little if Seinfeld came on I would go outside…even if it was raining.

        Will give it another try when I am older/have more time on my hands. For now I will stick to Friends, M*A*S*H*, 2 guys, a girl and a pizza place, Malcolm in the middle and Everyone hates Chris.

    • Glad to see I’m not the only one that isn’t a fan. My significant other likes to watch the reruns and can’t understand why I don’t care to do so. I find it painfully unfunny, the comedy equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard.

      For all those Millenials who probably went to school after blackboards were replaced by whiteboards, Google is your friend.

    • The key to understanding and enjoying Seinfeld is to know that they are all horrible people and get what’s coming to them. Think about it almost every person that they come in conflict with is a better nicer person than they are.

      That and it’s funny as hell especially the dog killing episode.

  2. “I was a gunnery officer in the United States Navy. Guns aren’t funny.” I don’t believe that a familiarity with crew-served 16″ guns qualifies one as an expert on concealed carry.

    • Also, if I were firing off a 16″ cannon, I would not be able to contain my psychotic laughter as I watched things explode.
      Heh heh, 16″ cannon, heh.

      • Intense giggling while thinking to self, “and they PAY me to do this.” I got that from dropping 500 lb bombs.

        • Hell, Larry, I loaded 500 pound bombs (amongst other things) on airplanes, and thought that was terrific fun!

    • Nor does it make him an expert in Criminal Justice, counter-terrorism, personal defense, and a myriad of other subjects related to the reason people carry. While serving, I apprehended a lot of people who had his specialty for everything from aggregated assault to rape to attempted murder. Not saying that everyone in that specialty were bad, but just proving that his specialty means nothing when talking about this subject.

      • Word police here; Is that a whole bunch of assaults considered together, or perhaps “aggravated”?
        OTOH, I agree completely. “I once dug ditches in southern Idaho, therefore I am an expert on defensive uses of firearms!” has been used far too often.

        • You dug ditches in Southern Idaho? What a coincidence! So did I! Good thing we’re both gun experts.

  4. ““I was a gunnery officer in the United States Navy…”

    Translation for all the non-military folks: I did a lot of paperwork in the Navy.

  6. Being practical it would be difficult to build a 1/2 hour comedy about a gun purchase. Better to not have the episode than have the typical antigun rant.

    • Actually if the show was about what it takes to get a concealed carry permit in NYC it could be a recurring topic for a couple of seasons. Might even be funny. There would at least be plenty of opportunities to take jabs at bureaucrats.

      • As presented, it sounded absolutely horrific, esp with suggestions of shooting herself, etc. But your concept could be hilarious, maybe 5 minutes every fifth show for years, describing the process in NYC and how it just might be designed to assure the cooperation of any potential rape victim, as they would be unarmed, unless political figures or celebrities.

    • It’s Always Sunny.. had two episodes that centered around guns. Both of which were pretty funny and neither came across, to me at least, as being particularly biased or preachy.

      In fact, the later episode, had two of the characters attempting to buy a gun just to show how easy and therefore dangerous it was to have guns available only to be denied for their inability to pass a background check. Then they started complaining about how it was too difficult to exercise their constitutionally protected rights. Very funny.

      • I was going to to mention the same thing. “Gun Fever” is one of the funniest episodes of the first season.

    • With all the bureaucracy surrounding gun purchases and ownership etc…I think the sarcastic mockery featured in all Seinfeld episodes would have plenty of fodder to fill an hour.

    • Well… I do have an Alaskan Survival 45/70 Derringer. It’s pretty dang funny to watch other people shoot it.

    • I have a Kahr that I keep in the glove compartment, and a Glock 26 I bought with a 50rd drum mag.

      So yes, there’s at least 2 forms of comedy right there (puns and fish-slapping silliness).

  9. It sounded like it was going to be an unfunny episode so they ditched it. Nothing wrong with quality control.

    • read the synopsis… basically the cast no longer wanted to do the episode after one of the jokes about Elaine buying a gun was her pretending to shoot herself in the head and “do the Kennedy”… yeah that’s pretty high up there on the tasteless joke scale

    • “Sweep The Leg” is one of my favorite videos ever…also check out their “Reduced Size Target Systems”

  11. Ultimately this post is about nothing. Seinfeld had a pronounced leftwing progressive bent. What made Seinfeld successful ( and unique at the time ) was the shows ability to show everyone how STUPID the left was.
    Cable Boy was hilarious. And guns ARE funny…

  13. Anybody else notice this huge coincidence??? The Navy retires their big 16″ guns and suddenly a bunch of squids start comin out about guns ain’t funny & guns are bad…

  14. It wasn’t really a “lost” episode. It was written, and they only got halfway through a read before the cast decided they didn’t want to do it. Nothing was ever shot, so to speak.

    It’s worth noting that two cast members (Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus) are publicly anti-gun, but beyond that I don’t care. They’re idiots. Lot’s of people in entertainment and media are idiots. I’m not going to stop enjoying something because it was produced by idiots. I still drink bourbon, after all.

  15. You could probably do a funny Seinfeld about guns. Kramer opens a gun shop, gets involved with some less than legal transactions, hides merchandise at Jerry’s. Feds are coming for them and at the last minute they unload all of the products into Newman’s mail truck.

  16. If only the subject of gun control would go the way Sienfield did…… go re-runs, syndication, and be scheduled to air when nobody watched.

    • i think your analogy is off… there’s at least 90 minutes of Seinfeld on in any given day 16 years after it went off the air.

    • Seems like “go the way Seinfeld did” would mean to “succeed wildly despite initial doubts about its appeal.” I’d rather not see gun control take that route, thanks.

  17. Considering that THE JOKE “Seinfeld” was based on was that all the characters were narcissistic idiots who cared nothing for anyone else (including their friends), the show’s very premise means that any treatment of gun owners was sure to portray the polar opposite of 99% of real gun owners. I’ve found that as a group, we tend to be sincerely altruistic people.
    So, even though I liked the show (but not even CLOSE to the best TV sitcom of all time, TV Guide), it’s probably just as well that this episode was never made.

  19. There was an episode where Jerry joins Kramer and a friend at the movies, and the friend is a movie bootlegger. Jerry complains about the friend’s videotaping during the movie, and the friend quietly quiets the objection by revealing he’s carrying a gun.

    There’s also the episode where George is impersonating a white supremacist and is about to be exposed. He tells Jerry they’re not in any real danger from the armed supremacists they’re deceiving, because they’re in the city, to which Jerry sarcastically replies that nobody’s ever been shot in the city.

    Now, neither is exactly a positive portrayal of firearms, but neither are they shunning guns because they’re supposedly unfunny.

    Fact is, guns have been used in all kinds of comedic formats to hillarious effect for generations. We could all name a thousand movies, t.v. shows, and even cartoons as examples. I don’t know what their motivation is to discuss this “lost episode”, actually an unfilmed script, all of a sudden. I’d guess it’s just born of a longing to be relevant and topical again after so many years out of the limelight.

  21. Guns don’t make people laugh. People make people laugh.

    Also: did he mean funny-strange, funny-haha, or funny-there-was-supposed-to-have-been-an-earth-shattering-kaboom funny?

  22. I’ve never heard of so many people who don’t like Seinfeld. That is the funny show ever made in the history of television.

    • I think it’s just the typical knee-jerk response. As GreenTriumph pointed out earlier, most every show with an obligatory “X buys a gun” episode turns it onto an anti-gun screed. Even on shows that aren’t hostile to the 2A, most of the humor around guns on TV involves using them in blatantly unsafe ways.

      Whether one thinks Seinfeld is or isn’t funny depends, but one thing that always worked in the show’s favor was its refusal to crowbar in any morals or messages; the writers’ mantra was “no hugging, no learning,” and if there wasn’t a way to do the episode without turning it into one of those godawful Very Special Episodes, then it’s good that it got canned.

  23. Surprise fucking surprise, if this is new news to anyone, before you go back to sleep make sure you turn your firearms in and apply for your cattle number.

  24. C’mon now. Guns are fun! Angela Giron is funny. Kevin de Leon is hysterically funny. But guns are not funny.

  25. Anyone seen the “Soup Nazi” episode? To buy his soup, you must follow his strict purchasing procedures or NO SOUP FOR YOU! Now, just imagine .22LR ammo can only be found at your LGS and the owner is a “Ammo Nazi”. Form the line to the right, No talking until spoken to, No checks, no credit cards, have exact change ready or NO AMMO FOR YOU! yikes.

    • “Anyone seen the “Soup Nazi” episode?”

      Geeze, that analogy hits far too close to home around here… “No bulk-pack for you!”

  26. Switch to decaf. Or in the words of SFC Hulka, “lighten up, Francis.”

    Sienfeld was at least quaint, humorous, funny, or hilarious (depending on your sensibility). I enjoyed it. They were not trying to change our opinions on anything. It truly was a show about nothing.

    And if you would have taken 30 seconds to read the article, the storyline was inspired by the co-writer’s experience BUYING A GUN. The cas did not have an ojection to guns. Their objection was to the Kennedy joke. Somethings just don’t work.

  28. ““I was a gunnery officer in the United States Navy…blah blah blah” ??? [btw, never let someone’s resume’ kick your a_ _ ]

    Is that a “I once took an arrow in the knee”, or that a boomerang-snipe “oh yeah, Dumbledore was gay, didn’t you know that?”

    Who cares, t.v. is only entertainment at its best, and the devil’s toilet paper all the other days.

  29. “I was a gunnery officer in the United States Navy. Guns aren’t funny.”

    I was an English major in a literature and composition program. And you’re using the rhetorical fallacy known as an appeal to authority: invoking the authority of an institution or profession because you have neither logic nor evidence to support your argument.

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