Jeremiah Bosgang was on Seinfeld duty as a staffer at NBC from the show’s earliest days, when it was still called The Seinfeld Chronicles. For my upcoming book Seinfeldia, I interviewed him about how his boss Rick Ludwin, the network’s senior VP of specials, variety, and latenight, nurtured the strange little show that was about little more than a comedian talking to his friends.
It’s unusual for a sitcom to be developed in the latenight department. How did that happen?
That department is really like the step child. The really cool places are comedy and drama development. I joined Rick as a program associate, which is this special program that NBC had where they bring people in as development executives. You have maybe two years and they see if you’re somebody who can go on to become an executive. I joined in the late ’80s. Rick Ludwin had identified Jerry Seinfeld as this up and coming comedian. He thought this guy is the next thing to really break through. He called Jerry and his managers in for a meeting and asked what he wanted to do. Jerry was like, “I don’t know.” They came up with this idea that Seinfeld was supposed to be a hybrid show. The idea became: I’m going to do these three pods of standup, and then after those standup pieces, we’ll have these little scenes that show how I got the idea. And the pilot was very heavy on that. The first four to six episodes were like that.
How were you involved with the show?
I came in when the pilot was done. I had really always wanted to write and perform comedy. He said, “You’re gonna be the point person.” It was my first job as a network executive. I was probably 28 years old. After we’d do a table reading of the show, I was one of the guys giving Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld notes. What the hell did I know? They were always really very nice to me.
How did it change from The Seinfeld Chronicles for the first episode to Seinfeld after that?
I still remember [NBC President] Brandon Tartikoff talking about how Jerry was unhappy with the title of the show. at the time the show was not any huge success. There were strong advocates for the show at the network, chiefly Rick Ludwin and myself. I remember Brandon coming down to Rick Ludwin’s office when I was in there. He said, “I caved to Seinfeld, it’s gonna be called Seinfeld now.”
What was the relationship like between the network and the show then?
One of the the things that I learned from Rick Ludwin was that Rick really empowered Jerry and Larry to do the kind of show that they wanted to do. Even if there were times when we were scratching our heads at those early episodes, what I learned was this was their show. NBC hired a real voice and talent and vision and then created an environment so they could do what they do. Rick and I had to fight internally to give Seinfeld its due. At the time the show that was supposed to be the big show was Wings. The people at NBC really believed in Wings and the creative people behind Wings. Seinfeld was this thing where even when it wasn’t a perfect episode, you’d go, Wow, that was kind of cool.
How did being involved in Seinfeld help your career?
The big upstart then was Fox. I ended up leaving NBC to become the head of comedy development at Fox largely due to the halo effect of Seinfeld. Even though there were lots of other successful sitcoms built around a comedian, there was nothing that had the kind of storytelling and pacing that Jerry and Larry created.