Web Video / Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Yep. That's it. Nothing else happens.

"You've finally made a show about nothing."

—Larry David to Jerry, during the first episode.

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is a comedic talk show web series created by and starring Jerry Seinfeld, which features him inviting fellow comedians along for a drive and some coffee. As you might expect, the show's humor derives from the conversations between Seinfeld and his guests. In addition to being funny, the series allows viewers to catch a glimpse of Seinfeld and company behaving more or less as regular people — albeit very funny regular people — rather than as the celebrities they've become.

A total of 84 episodes were made over eleven seasons from 2012–19, ranging from as short as six minutes to as long as twenty-two,^note This is counting the Jimmy Fallon two-parter as two separate episodes with most in the 11–18 minute range. There are also short clip videos called "Single Shots" which center on common threads between the conversations, such as donuts or the sound a ketchup squeeze bottle makes when it releases its contents, or within the episodes, e.g., left turns or the closing of the car doors to rhythm.

Episodes were originally available on YouTube, Sony's Crackle, and its own site. However, after the series moved to Netflix in Season 10, the earlier episodes were removed from the other platforms.

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Jerry’s guests on the series:

Season 1

• Larry David
• Ricky Gervais
• Brian Regan
• Alec Baldwin
• Joel Hodgson
• Bob Einstein
• Barry Marder
• Colin Quinn and Mario Joyner
• Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks
• Michael Richards and Barry Katz

Season 2

• Sarah Silverman
• David Letterman
• Gad Elmaleh
• Don Rickles
• Seth Meyers
• Chris Rock

Season 3

• Louis C.K.
• Patton Oswalt
• Jay Leno
• Todd Barry
• Tina Fey
• George Costanza (featuring a cameo from Newman)
• Howard Stern

Season 4

• Sarah Jessica Parker
• George Wallace
• Robert Klein
• Aziz Ansari
• Jon Stewart

Season 5

• Kevin Hart
• Amy Schumer
• Bill Burr
• Miranda Sings
• Fred Armisen
• Alexandra Wentworth
• Jimmy Fallon^note across two episodes

Season 6

• Julia Louis-Dreyfus
• Steve Harvey
• Jim Carrey
• Bill Maher
• Trevor Noah
• Stephen Colbert

Season 7

• Barack Obama
• Steve Martin
• Kathleen Madigan and Chuck Martin
• Garry Shandling
• Sebastian Maniscalo
• Will Ferrell

Season 8

• Jim Gaffigan
• Margaret Cho
• Judd Apatow
• J.B. Smoove
• Lorne Michaels
• John Oliver

Season 9

• Kristen Wiig
• Norm Macdonald
• Cedric the Entertainer
• Lewis Black
• Christoph Waltz
• Bob Einstein^note second appearance

Season 10

• Zach Galifianakis
• Dave Chappelle
• Ellen DeGeneres
• Tracy Morgan
• Brian Regan
• Dana Carvey
• Hasan Minhaj
• Neal Brennan
• John Mulaney
• Kate McKinnon
• Alec Baldwin
• Jerry Lewis

Season 11

• Eddie Murphy
• Seth Rogen
• Ricky Gervais^note across two episodes
• Matthew Broderick
• Jamie Foxx
• Sebastian Maniscalo^note second appearance
• Martin Short
• Mario Joyner
• Melissa Villaseñor
• Bridget Everett
• Barry Marder^note second appearance

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Tropes associated with the series include:

• The Alleged Car: Some of Jerry's cars are less impressive than others. Jerry points this out at times and one of the special guests was scared to drive in one.
  • Jerry seems to sum up the trope when describing the car he uses to pick up Jon Stewart (per Stewart's own request):
    Jerry: This is a 1978 American Motors Gremlin. It has an interior. It has an engine. It has wheels. Oy.
  • The DeLorean DMC-12 and Siata 8V both break down just after picking up the guests. (Patton Oswalt and Steve Martin respectively.)
• Alliterative Title: Three "C" words.^note No, not that one. Grow up.
• Author Appeal: The show is all about the three things Jerry likes best: comedy, cars and coffee. It's also clear Jerry is still close with his castmates from Seinfeld, as he's had on Larry David, Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Jason Alexander in-character as George Costanza. Not to mention Wayne Knight briefly showing up in-character as Newman in the latter episode.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Jerry notes in one episode that the Rolls Royce, despite it's reputation as the original luxury car, is really just "a living room on wheels." It doesn't go very fast and is extremely difficult to turn.
• Celebrity Paradox: He has had Michael Richards as a guest, and frequently brings up Seinfeld in other episodes. Yet there is an episode where his guest is George Costanza, and Newman shows up during that episode as well. Perhaps Jerry and George finally got around to making Jerry after getting out of prison, changed the name to Seinfeld, and got Michael Richards to play Kramer because they looked so identical?
• Cool Car: Every vehicle Jerry drives in the series qualifies and he describes them at length at the start, sometimes by making fun of them.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Jerry Seinfeld picks up fellow comedians in cars and they go for coffee.
• Food Porn: Hope you like gorgeous close-up shots of coffee beans brewing!
• Formula-Breaking Episode:
  • In lieu of a comedian, Jerry's guest in the Season 7 premiere was the sitting President of the United States, Barack Obama. They also don't go out for coffee, as, for security reasons, they were not allowed to drive off the White House property. They basically drive down to the end of the driveway, then back for coffee in a White House breakroom.
  • Christoph Waltz, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Alec Baldwin stretch the definition of "comedian", given that they are better characterized as actors who have appeared in some comedic roles.
• Fridge Brilliance: In-Universe example: Jerry picks up Howard Stern in a Pontiac GTO Judge. At the end of the episode, Stern realizes Jerry chose the car because he's a judge on America's Got Talent.
• I Am Not Spock: invokedZigzagged. Michael Richards tells Jerry that he finds himself slipping back into the Kramer character just by hanging out and talking with Jerry.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each episode's title is a word or sentence lifted from that episode's conversation. The George Costanza episode is notable in that it follows the naming conventions of both this show and Seinfeld at the same time.
• Kayfabe: The George Costanza episode is not mislabeled. It's Jerry Seinfeld and Jason Alexander as their Seinfeld characters. Another example is the Miranda Sings episode; it is the character that has the conversation with Jerry, and it isn't until the very end that you see the real woman playing her.
• Lazy Bum: A reoccurring joke is the pair of comedians talking about how all comedians are lazy with one of them saying that they didn't want to go to work until the evening and another saying he didn't want to do "real work".
• Mathematician's Answer:
  Jerry Seinfeld: What kind of language do people use? What kind of language—
  Barack Obama: English. As a general rule.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Most of the Michael Richards episode is light, but he does bring up the Laugh Factory incident from 2006 - at which point the episode gets a bit more serious as he reflects why he handled the heckling badly.
  • In the Chris Rock episode ("Kids Need Bullying"), Jerry is pulled over for speeding.
• Mythology Gag: In the George Costanza episode, Jerry and George have coffee at the real-life restaurant that was used on Seinfeld for exterior shots of Monk's Café.
• Nice to the Waiter: Averted, albeit (probably) jokingly, in the Alec Baldwin episode. Baldwin lampshades it by saying they'll have to leave the waitress a $1000 tip to compensate.
• Non-Indicative Name: In the show's very first episode, Larry David refuses to get a coffee, much to Jerry's chagrin. A smattering of other guests have also abstained. A few of the guests are also not comedians.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: One appears on the screen in the Michael Richards episode:
  Jerry: Certain events in this episode seem set up. They were not.
• Product Placement: Since the show was sponsored by Acura, there is some product placement for Acura cars, which ends up being Played for Laughs and lampshaded to hell and back by Jerry in the episodes in which it occurs. The placements were deleted from the old episodes when Netflix gained the rights to the series.
• Running Gag: The above mentioned "Product Placement car". Jerry's lampshading could count as well.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: The chitchat between Jerry and his guests amounts to nothing because it's just unscripted small talk between comedians, and one of them is Seinfeld himself. Topics include whether or not it matters if someone is drinking tea or coffee, "walks of pride" in bowling and something about the car of the episode.
• Super Bowl Special: "The Over-Cheer", a.k.a. the George Costanza/Newman episode that served as a Reunion Show of sorts for Seinfeld, was actually a half-time special for Super Bowl XLVIII. Unfortunately, that's why it isn't on Netflix: they only bought the rights for episodes, not half-time specials.
• Take That!: In the Bridget Everett episode, Jerry delivers a rather lengthy one to a comic whose name is bleeped (though it's generally agreed to be Bobcat Goldthwait).

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