Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee: “Feces Are My Purview” With Tina Fey

We are well-documented fanboys of Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee” web series, presented by Acura and hosted on Sony’s free video hub Crackle. News broke earlier this week that “(w)ith a record 25 million streams, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee is now Crackle‘s No. 1 original series,” according to Deadline. This is great news; a plucky little web series in its first season, CICGC is now must-see web TV for comedy fans, coffee enthusiasts, car geeks, and any individual whose interests happen to overlap in that particular, peculiar Venn diagram.

This week’s episode features comedian Tina Fey, an American comedy treasure whose work includes the iconic (and now sadly departed) television series 30 Rock, a best-selling autobiography, and a long career at Saturday Night Live, where she hosted SNL’s “Weekend Update” news segment and served as the show’s first-ever female head writer. The car in question – this is a show at least partially about cars, after all – is a 1967 Volvo 1800S, about which Seinfeld tells Fey: “I don’t know if you get it, but this car is you! It’s sensible, and fun.” The cafe they visit is Floridita, a Cuban restaurant in Harlem originally opened in 1969, and located across the street from the famed Cotton Club.

In some ways, Tina and Jerry Seinfeld couldn’t be more different: he’s a stand-up comedian at heart, and she’s one of comedy’s sharpest editors and script experts. Watching them together in this episode of CICGC is like an exercise in opposites at times. Seinfeld’s quip abilities are second to none, whereas Tina Fey looks mildly uncomfortable being put on the spot to make with the funny-funny. A moment where Seinfeld asks Fey about her favorite expensive indulgence is downright awkward; the joke isn’t there right away for Fey, but give her 15 minutes in a pitch room and you know she’d craft the funniest possible response. These are two very different kinds of comedians, and this is the kind of interplay that only this show provides. Even if it’s not funny the entire time, you want to see what happens next.

Stray observations:

• Tina Fey does come prepared with some funny Twitter schtick. “You should have to have a license to be on Twitter,” she half-jokes. “You would give me 10 samples of what you might want to talk about, and we would talk about if those were things people would want to know.” That, folks, is a comedy editor.
• The gang orders “wheat puff” milkshakes at Floridita, which are literally just sugar, wheat puffs, and milk blended together. Think of it as kind of old school cereal milk, like what you might find back in the East Village at Momofuku Milk Bar. Seinfeld quips: “We know what it is – the question is why it is.”
• We learn through this episode that Tina Fey doesn’t drive, doesn’t have a key to her doorman building on the Upper West Side, and doesn’t miss making 30 Rock. She’s also in charge of handling all feces-related issues in her household.
• Seinfeld on a wig-wearing old lady they pass while driving around Manhattan: “I don’t mind a wig. I like healthy hair, no matter where it’s from, or who it’s from.”
• Fey on her love of inappropriate snack choices: “After I win an Emmy, I’m like, ‘What is my food treat going to be?’ The only award for anything is food.”
• At the end of the episode they pop over to Dominique Ansel’s eponymous bakery, home of the cronut. “Call an ambulance in 15 minutes!” jokes Fey. “Make sure they have an insulin pack,” adds Seinfeld.