Jerry Before Seinfeld Page #6

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[man] I recognize the bookends.

- Are they always here, or is that...

- No, I put them here. Those are mine.

That's a Superman.

You know, I love Superman.

So this is a...

This is Kal-El on Krypton.

You see that he's in there.

He's in the rocket.

And there's his dad, Jor-El,

and his mom, Lara.

And then he goes in the rocket,

and he lands...

Where does he land? Kansas?

- [man] Kansas.

- Kansas.

And there he is, and they have got

the little Superman baby... right there.

Yeah, those are mine.

- What else? What's that?

- [man] Whose books are those?

The books are a prop. They're fake books.

They're just props. This is show business.

I don't actually live here.

This is not a...

[laughter]

You need to get out a lot more.

I had every comedy album

and every comedy thing you could get.

I did a show with this puppet

when I was in third grade.

When I was a kid

and a comedian came on TV,

I would just freeze and stare at them.

Being obsessed with comedy

felt very liberating,

because it didn't have to do

with the real world.

You know, a Mad Magazine,

you would start reading it

and you're going,

"Well, these people

don't respect anything."

And that just exploded my head.

It was just, like,

you don't have to buy it.

You could say, "That's stupid."

"This is stupid."

Then, one day, my friend's older brother

told us there was this place in New York

where young guys were getting on stage

and doing stand-up comedy.

Not like the guys on Ed Sullivan

with tuxedos and cigars,

just young, crazy people.

Once I saw that this was going on,

that there was a world,

I went, "Oh, I want to be in that world.

I don't want to be in the real world."

So, I came into the city in 1976.

I told you that.

Uh... At that time, New York,

a little bit of a tough town.

Uh... But definitely the best place,

in my opinion, to become a comedian,

because, first of all,

everybody in New York is a little funny.

I'm sure you all think you're funny.

[laughter]

That's why you like comedy -

you feel you're pretty funny yourself.

You probably even think

you could do what I'm doing.

You think...

"I got interested in other things,

but if I wanted to, I could have easily...

I could have done it.

I chose not to."

[laughter and applause]

And that is a good place to learn comedy,

because in New York

you've got to really have something

to make audiences laugh.

And at that time, also,

New York wasn't doing so well as a city.

The city was going bankrupt.

It was also the same year that they built

the Roosevelt Island Tramway.

I used to say,

"Great, the city's going bankrupt.

They're putting up rides for us."

[laughter]

"Maybe eventually we'll get

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