Comedians on comedy

Jerry Seinfeld had one show that famously was about nothing. Then he had another show that was about three things: cars, comedians and coffee.

Now the highlights of that second show are available in his book The Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Book (2022), appropriately enough in the size of what used to be called a coffee table book.

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee began on Crackle, where I caught several episodes, then moved to Netflix. In each episode Seinfeld picks up a comedian in a borrowed classic car and drives somewhere to get coffee while engaging in the show's very important fourth C: conversation.

His guests include such people as Eddie Murphy, Steve Martin, Tina Fey, Jerry Lewis, Don Rickles, Dave Chappelle, Cedric the Entertainer, Ricky Gervais, Sarah Silverman, Ellen Degeneres, David Letterman, Chris Rock and on and on. He also visited with old pals from Seinfeld like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Larry David. Some of his guests can only be described as honorary comedians, such as Barack Obama.

The book consists mostly of excerpts from these shows on such topics as music, money, growing up, getting older and, of course, comedy. And comedians discussing comedy is where this entertaining book becomes most entertaining. Among the insights you discover here are:

• Jay Leno calls comedy "a concealed weapon." It can come out of nowhere and level a room.

• "Comedians speak in commandments," Seinfeld observes while talking with Chappelle. Listen to a comedian sometime and see if that's not true.

• Seinfeld and Fred Armussen concur that comedy must be spare. Too many words spoil the joke.

• You can't teach comedy. On that Seinfeld and Steve Harvey agree.

• Nor can you give up comedy and go into another kind of work. Silverman observes "If you can quit, then you're not a comedian."