It didn’t work for the same reason that the Dwight Schrute spinoff didn’t work. You may remember that one. Dwight is on his farm surrounded by more normal but far less compelling and completely two dimensional characters, none of whom we know nearly as much as we know Dwight. These characters were supposed to anchor Dwight, but they were not successful, leaving us with a wackily unhinged main character (who should have been a supporting character) surrounded by boring supporting characters who should have been scenery. The pilot was so bad the writers of The Office had to create a half of an Office episode to shoehorn the Schrute pilot into, because it wouldn’t have stood on its own. And it still didn’t stand. I’d imagine a Kramer pilot would be much of the same.
JLD’s New Adventures of Old Christine was a pretty damn funny show that managed to live through 5 seasons.
Yeah, but it was The New Adventures of Old Christine, not The New Adventures of Even Older Elaine.
At the time plenty of TV writers said that Kramer was the only character from the show that could survive on his own without the other cast members. Unfortunately the show wasn’t Kramer, it was a new character. An actual private investigator isn’t as funny as a hapless weirdo pretending to be a private investigator.
But who would want to hang out just with Kramer?
Elaine in VEEP is pretty “annoying”, 7 profitable seasons of it. Larry David is height of annoying, 11 seasons and counting. Seinfeld itself only succeeded just barely in the beginning: it was a very stilted “Seinfeld Chronicles” and they only ordered 6 episodes.
Michael Richards could have made it, if they had found the right formula, had the patience, and realistic expectations. But they wanted a blockbuster right out of the box, and even Seinfeld wasn’t that.
Take a look at why The Michael Richards Show failed to take off
For me the answer was pretty simple: Michael Richards
I just don’t find him that compelling.
Kramer always seemed like he knows a guy who knows a guy who can put you in touch with a guy.
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