Jerry Seinfeld has officially jumped ship from Sony's streaming service Crackle to Netflix. The comedian has signed a deal to move his series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee to the popular streamer, including all previous episodes, as well as two standup comedy specials, and other series development.
First Car Ride Interview Series
Everyone's been talking about James Corden's viral video "Carpool Karaoke" segments this year, which feature the comedian riding around with popular singing stars as his passengers while conducting an interview and singing some of the guest's greatest hits. Few realize that it was actually Jerry Seinfeld who introduced the concept of interview segments with celebrity guests in a car ride in his breakthrough streaming series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee.
The show premiered on Sony's modest streaming service Crackle back in 2012, but now Seinfeld has joined the most popular video streamer in the world, Netflix, which will now air the show exclusively as part of a larger overall deal with the Seinfeld star.
Seinfeld's New Netflix Deal
The 59 episodes of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, which have already been produced, will be available for streaming on Netflix in addition to 24 brand new segments set to begin premiering in late 2017 and move into the following year. The deal also calls for Seinfeld to appear in two standup comedy specials for the streamer, as well as potentially develop other series and programming for Netflix.
Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee has been an unqualified success, garnering three Emmy nominations in the variety talk series category, a remarkable feat for a show airing on a streamer, let alone a lesser known one such as Crackle. The show has featured many of the top comedians in show business, including Chris Rock, Don Rickles, Howard Stern, Jim Carrey and Steve Martin. Seinfeld TV series co-creator Larry David has also appeared, along with all of Seinfeld's major cast mates on the show, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards. Seinfeld's biggest guest ever on the show, however, was not a comedian but the former President Barack Obama.
"When I first started thinking about Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, the entire Netflix business model consisted of mailing out DVDs in envelopes," said Seinfeld in a statement. "I love that we are now joining together, both at very different points." He added that Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer at Netflix and his company "not only have the same enthusiasm for the art of standup comedy as I do, but the most amazing technology platform to deliver it in a way that has never existed before. I am really quite charged up to be moving there."
