Marc Jaffe (comedian, writer Seinfeld)

Marc Jaffe joined me to discuss living in Cleveland after Seinfeld; remembering his first TV; Winky Dink; Johnny Carson; liked to write funny things but was not always funny in class; making the teachers laugh; being influenced by Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, and Steve martin; writing for Garry Shandling and Paul Resier; finding his own voice; appearing on Evening at the Improv; easier to do short shots on TV; being a comedian is harder now; improvising what became "Bill & Ted" with Ed Solomon & Mark Cendrowski; getting an MBA; starting standup as a graduate student in Michigan; spending a summer in Chicago moving up the ranks; comes to LA in 1981, the year of the strike; writes for Byron Allen; goes back to Cleveland and gets more work; agent arranges him to meet Jerry Seinfeld and give him comedy material; writes panel for Paul Reiser who vouches for him to Jerry; hired to write standup material for Jerry to perform in the show; pitches over 1000 ideas and gets three made; harder to pitch "The Bookstore" in season 9 because there were more pitches than the second and third season; he would write Jerry's material and Jerry would try it out in clubs with him; giving Jerry notes on performance; marrying an OBGYN and writing a controversial book about it; writing Goo Goo Ga Ga a funny baby book; inventing Elijah's cup, a Passover novelty; doing standup pre and post-Covid; retiring from standup; some older material can't be used because it's considered insensitive, some because the references are too old, and some because relationships are different (ie., daughter's boyfriend is now husband of many years); his wife's Parkinson diagnosis an his taking part in an experiment which isolated the Parkinson's marker; keeping secret his wife's diagnosis so she continue to work as a mohel; coming up with a one man show about his experiences "Side Effects May Contain"; talking about his wife's hypersexuality due to Parkinson's drugs on stage; his children's reaction; being a grandfather