For most of my 20’s I’d stroll into a 7-11 Eleven and get myself a pack of S’mores Pop Tarts. They were delicious, jolts of happiness that I never regretted…for about an hour and a half, until the searing acid reflux would sometimes make me feel like I was having a heart attack. So I guess, props to you Jerry Seinfeld? You managed to completely recreate the Pop Tart experience in movie form, from sugary highs to acid-reflux inducing lows. How could something so tasty hurt so much at the same time? Well…
Seinfeld takes us into the 1960s breakfast wars between Kellogg’s and Post. After sweeping the cereal awards, Edsel Kellogg III (Jim Gaffigan) and his development genius Bob Cabana (Jerry Seinfeld) are savoring their victory over Rick Ludwin (Max Greenfield) and Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer) pretty smugly. Bob’s suspicions get the better of him, and he realizes Post has a leg up on Kellogg’s making a fruity wafery thing that kids are going to be clamoring to eat. Desperate to not get fired, Bob brings in NASA food scientist Donna Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) to help crack the bread/fruit mixture he could never crack, before Post beats them to market…and the milk lobby/costumed brand actors like Tony the Tiger derail the proceedings.
Jerry Seinfeld has never directed a movie before. So when you’ve never done something, you stick to what you know. That means: a joke invasion. Plot? Unnecessary: they’re making a Pop Tart. Character motivation? Pointless. Internal logic? Um, what are you talking about? So that means the success of Unfrosted is completely reliant on maybe our greatest sitcom lead ever making a funny movie. Should be a walk in the park right? Um, nope! Turns out, 22 minutes of joke barrage totally works with Larry David assisting, but 94 minutes of it sans David is exhausting. Seinfeld goes for mostly quick hitters that’ll get the audience in 5 seconds or less. Over 50% of those quick hitters are him with 20/20 hindsight saying something like “Come on Donna? Do you really think we’re gonna put a man on the moon?” in 1963 movie time. OMG THAT’S SO EFFING FUNNY, CAUSE WE WOULD LAND ON THE MOON! GENIUS! The rest of the jokes are basically relying on shock factor at the approximately 987,853 cameos in this film. I get that all these funny people would want to work with Jerry, but I was in awe and the sheer quantity of willing participants.
I wish Jerry had studied the Weird Al biopic and used that approach a little more instead. When he gives time for a joke to breathe, we do get some really great stuff. The first “Pop Tart” test was a great example of joke building, with little divergences interspersed with big elaborate gags with a great payoff. And the side stories involving the costumed mascots, press releases, and milk men start with shock cameos, but use those actors to build a 5 second shocker into an absurd, amusing 10 minute meandering continuous comedic setup that works because of the commitment to the bit. The best main story sequence has to do with a TV crossover you never see coming, but completely works because the scene has time to deliver the best joke possible instead of quickly cameoing and walking away. So Jerry, next time, during your story, take a breath, and figure out how let the barrage of funny people who want to work with you, figure it out for a few minutes instead of cutting and moving on after the first take.
Let’s maybe not do any more movies based on Pop Tart jokes though. And Jerry, if you’re gonna make a mediocre Netflix comedy, don’t drag down most of the funny people on the planet with you? I like a lot of these folks, and would rather they spend their time making us laugh than help out an over the hill funny guy trying to relive some glory days. But damn if you didn’t make me want to get more Pop Tarts at 7/11 regardless. You win again, Seinfeld!