Jerry Seinfeld Had This Sitcom Advice for Leanne Morgan
Leanne Morgan, whose new sitcom, Leanne, streams on Netflix, needed some advice. While she was a veteran of 100-city stand-up comedy tours, the world of television made her feel like a newcomer all over again. Starring in a sitcom “scared me to death,” she admitted on the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast. “I didn't know what camera blocking was. I had to learn a script every week, and I had not built that muscle up. I didn't know about table reads. It was a lot, and I was freaked out.”
If you’re going to get sitcom counsel from someone, you could probably do worse than Jerry Seinfeld, who eventually made a million bucks an episode and has reportedly earned more than a billion dollars from all the Seinfeld syndication and streaming rights. So when he called Morgan offering some of his TV wisdom, she was happy to take the call. Seinfeld “was really sweet to me,” she told O’Brien.
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He told her about his bumpy start with The Seinfeld Chronicles, the original name of his sitcom. After a pilot that network execs thought was “too Jewish,” NBC only commissioned four episodes, an unusually small order. “Leanne, we didn’t even get picked up, and then they were going to pick us up, then they weren't,” he told her.
But Seinfeld’s show found its groove and figured out its characters (George Costanza was originally a fellow comedian), just as Morgan feels like she really discovered her sitcom’s rhythms about six episodes in. “You'll find that and you'll eventually feel like you're walking into your home and you’ll feel more comfortable,” Seinfeld told her.
He also reminded her that she deserved her own show. “You've got to remember, Leeane, you got yourself here,” he said. “You put in this work, and you know what you're doing. You're the one that can get in front of a live audience and make a theater of 3,000 people laugh for an hour and a half. You've got to remember that that's what you're bringing to the table. Not everybody can do that.”
Seinfeld’s pep talk was just what she needed, as her sitcom was quickly renewed for a second season on the streamer. “It really helped me,” Morgan said. “That made me feel good. He really helped me through that. I didn't know who else in the world to talk to.”
No one else to talk to? What about good ol’ Conan? “Well, I called you, and you didn't take the call,” he complained. “They said, ‘She's still on with Jerry.’”
