Jerry Seinfeld had a specific goal in mind when directing and starring in his Pop-Tarts movie at Netflix — make “Unfrosted” as little like “Barbie” as possible.
“We really wanted to be the opposite of ‘Barbie,’” Seinfeld said during a SiriusXM town hall on Thursday. “We wanted to be, Kellogg’s would not make this to promote their product.”
“Unfrosted” tells the “true” story of how Kellogg’s came up with the Pop-Tart. The cereal giant competes with Post and a warring band of food marketing mascots while racing to be the first to come up with the next big thing in breakfast. Seinfeld added in the town hall that their fix for the legality of making this “true story” was to simply not mention it to the brand.
“Kellogg’s had no idea we were making the movie,” he said. “We got a shady Valley lawyer to write a page to send to Netflix. And you know, I have a good relationship with Ted Sarandos, the head of Netflix content, and he said, ‘You got, you know, you got legal, sign off?’ I go, ‘Absolutely. Yeah, we got it.’ And we never showed Kellogg’s the movie. And they saw it a few weeks ago. Still haven’t heard anything, but they did, they started making Pop-Tarts with our pictures on them, so we assumed they’re OK with it.”
The comedian has had plenty to say while on the “Unfrosted” press tour. A lot of it about the state of comedy today and how he thinks politics are hurting the quality.
“It used to be, you would go home at the end of the day, most people would go, ‘Oh, ‘Cheers’ is on. Oh, ‘M*A*S*H’ is on. Oh, ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ is on. ‘All in the Family’ is on,’” Seinfeld said on the New Yorker’s Radio Hour. “You just expected, ‘There’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight.’ Well, guess what — where is it?”
“This is the result of the extreme left and PC crap and people worrying so much about offending other people,” he continued.
Seinfeld’s thoughts didn’t stop there. The soundbites kept coming on the press tour when he also expressed his thoughts to GQ on making a movie after working for so long in TV. He said everyone working now was “dead serious” and replaced with “malaise” and “depression.”
“Disorientation replaced the movie business,” he explained. “Everyone I know in show business, every day, is going, ‘What’s going on? How do you do this? What are we supposed to do now?’”
“Unfrosted” popped up on Netflix on May 3. Seinfeld is joined by a star-studded cast that includes Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, Hugh Grant, Max Greenfield and more for his directorial debut.
