Jerry Seinfeld Takes Jab at ‘Friends’ Claims It Copied ‘Seinfeld’

Jerry Seinfeld recently took a jab at ‘Friends’ during his performance at the Netflix Is a Joke Festival earlier this week.

As reported by the Hollywood Reporter, the comedian made the remark during his set on Tuesday night at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. While engaging with the audience, Seinfeld asked fans to guess his favorite television show. When someone shouted “Friends,” he shared his theory about the beloved NBC sitcom.

“My show [‘Seinfeld’] came on — ’89, ’90. ‘Friends’ came on a few years later,” he told the crowd.

Seinfeld joked that NBC noticed the success of his sitcom and decided to create something similar with a more attractive cast.

“I think NBC was watching my show and went, ‘Hey, this is working pretty well. Why don’t we try the same thing with good-looking people?’ And that was a pretty good idea. I think that kind of worked.”

‘Seinfeld’ first aired on NBC in 1989 and ran for nine successful seasons, featuring Seinfeld alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards.

In contrast, ‘Friends’ premiered five years later in 1994 and enjoyed a 10-season run. The sitcom starred Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, and the late Matthew Perry.

While both shows revolve around groups of friends living in New York City, their styles differ significantly. ‘Friends’ leaned more towards relationships and emotional arcs, whereas ‘Seinfeld’ became renowned for being a “show about nothing.”

This isn’t the first time Seinfeld has linked himself to the success of ‘Friends.’ In a 2022 interview with the Daily Beast, Lisa Kudrow recounted a story about meeting Seinfeld at a party in the 1990s.

Kudrow shared that Seinfeld approached her and said, “you’re welcome,” because ‘Friends’ aired right after ‘Seinfeld’ on NBC’s schedule.

Kudrow recently discussed the sitcom again in an interview with the Times of London, revealing that the cast of ‘Friends’ still earns approximately $20 million a year from residuals, more than 20 years after the show concluded in 2004.

However, Kudrow noted that working on the show wasn’t always smooth sailing behind the scenes.

“There was definitely mean stuff going on behind the scenes,” she admitted.

She explained that filming in front of a live audience added pressure on the actors, especially when scenes didn’t receive the expected reactions from the audience.

“Don’t forget we were recording in front of a live audience of 400, and if you messed up one of these writers’ lines or it didn’t get the perfect response, they could be like, ‘Can’t the bitch f–king read? She’s not even trying. She f–ed up my line,’” Kudrow recalled.

Kudrow also claimed that some members of the predominantly male writers’ room would openly discuss sexual fantasies about Aniston and Cox during late-night conversations, describing the atmosphere at the time as “intense.”

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