One of my all-time favorite Jerry Seinfeld bits involves the comedian riffing on how much he loved Pop-Tarts as a kid. “How did they know that there would be a need for a frosted, fruit-filled heatable rectangle that’s the same shape as the box it comes in?” Seinfeld marveled, in this footage that you can also check out below during a conversation with a New York Times writer. “And with the same nutrition as the box it comes in?”
The ending of that clip kills me, because the comedian goes on to rave that Pop-Tarts also have a special superpower that most foods generally don’t enjoy — they never go stale. Because, and here’s his punchline, they were never fresh in the first place. The wisecracks all come from a place of love, of course. So much so that Seinfeld and Netflix (which is, of course, the streaming home for all nine seasons of NBC’s Seinfeld) are working on a movie together about the breakfast treat.
Jerry Seinfeld Netflix movie Unfrosted
Wild Berry flavored Pop-Tarts appreciation post for all you little lads out there pic.twitter.com/wxaCQIj7yU
— Pop-Tarts (@PopTartsUS) September 23, 2021
Here’s what we know about this upcoming Netflix movie so far:
- The title is Unfrosted. But no word about the plot yet, which is being kept under wraps (no pun intended).
- Seinfeld apparently co-wrote the script with Spike Feresten, who also wrote several episodes of the Seinfeld’s long-running NBC show, as well as comedian and writer Barry Marder.
- Seinfeld told our sister publication Deadline that, basically, being confined indoors because of the pandemic helped give him the idea for this. “Stuck at home watching endless sad faces on TV, I thought this would be a good time to make something based on pure silliness. So we took my Poptart stand-up bit from my last Netflix special and exploded it into a giant, crazy comedy movie.”
- Per the Netflix-focused site What’s on Netflix, production will get started in a couple of months. Running from late May to early July.
Seinfeld + Pop-Tarts = Comedy gold
Along these same lines: I was recently gifted Is This Anything?, a book Seinfeld published in 2020, which was great fun to read. Because it collects so much of his best standup material in one single volume. I mention that, in light of his upcoming project with the streaming service, because the book includes a long, entertaining riff on … you guessed it … Pop-Tarts.
“Different foods hit you different at different ages,” he says during the bit. “When I was a kid, and they invented the Poptart, the back of my head blew right off.
Continues Seinfeld: “You open the box. The Poptarts are not even visible. They’re sealed. Inside special packets, too precious and valuable to be exposed to the air … You’ve got to think back to when the Poptart came out. It was the ’60s. We had TOAST. We had orange juice, frozen decades in advance.”
All leading up to, as I noted above, his point that Popstarts amazingly never go stale. Because they were never fresh to begin with. Classic.
Seinfeld fans should definitely check out the whole book, by the way. The title is a comedian’s phrase, referring to the way they’ll sort of try out material informally with each other. What do you think? Is this good? Is this anything?
