Review: Jerry Seinfeld pokes fun at the everyday in Century II standup show

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld started his set at the Century II Concert Hall on Thursday with a peppy jog across the stage and back again, several waves and his signature wide-eyed smile.

“Wichita,” he said, as the audience roared.

“How do you take the excitement of living here all the time?”

Seinfeld quickly thanked fans for getting out of their houses and showing up for the 7 p.m. show – an awkward start time that made it nearly impossible to get dinner, he pointed out.

“Your friends probably said, ‘Jerry’s coming to the Century II! We gotta go. Let’s go,’” Seinfeld said. “And you could have said, ‘I’ve seen the guy on television a million times. Why should I have to park and dress and pick up people?’”

But there they were. Members of the audience, who paid between $71 and $137 for tickets, laughed loudly throughout Seinfeld’s 80-minute standup show, during which he covered topics including marriage, parenting, Twitter, Facebook, expandable-waist pants and other hilarities of modern life.

And death.

“Cremation – that’s like you’re covering up a crime,” he said. “Quick, burn the body! Scatter the ashes all over the ground! As far as we’re concerned, nothing ever happened here!”

Seinfeld, 60, is best known for playing a semi-fictional version of himself on the award-winning 1990s sitcom, “Seinfeld.” More than 15 years after the series finale, the show continues to be ranked among the top television shows of all time.

Seinfeld’s latest venture is a web series called “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” in which he picks up the guest comedian in a vintage car and takes him or her out for coffee or to a restaurant. The fifth season of the show premiered Nov. 6. New episodes are posted at noon Thursdays at comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com.

As he did for a decade on his television show, Seinfeld spent much of Thursday’s performance marveling at everyday objects, traditions, routines and sayings.

Expressions like “Not to the best of my knowledge” and “What was I saying?” drive him crazy, he said.

“People say, ‘It is what it is.’ That’s another good one,” he said. “Has anyone ever responded, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize that! I thought things aren’t what they are’?”

He noted that the world runs on typing and texting, and we only seem to talk to one another when we absolutely have to.

“Talking is old. It’s obsolete. It’s antiquated. I feel like a blacksmith up here sometimes, to tell you the truth,” Seinfeld said. “If only I could text you this whole thing you could just get … out of here.”

He described five-hour energy drinks as “meth lab Hawaiian Punch jello shots” and fancy coffee drinks as “half-caf mocha choka ya-ya-whatever.”

The post office, he said, “has this emotional, financial meltdown every three-and-a-half years because their business model from 1630 isn’t working anymore.”

“We can’t understand how a 21st-century information system based on licking, walking and a random number of pennies is struggling to compete,” he said. “If the postal system actually wanted to be helpful to us, just open the letters, read them and e-mail us what it says.”

But some classics, like Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts, will never go out of style, Seinfeld said.

“Back when I was a kid and they invented the Pop-Tart, and my head blew wide open,” he said.

“You gotta remember, when the Pop-Tart came out, it was the ’60s. We had toast. … I don’t know how long it took to invent it, but they must have come out of that lab like Moses with the two tablets: ‘The Pop-Tart is here!’”

Opening for Seinfeld in Wichita on Thursday was Tom Papa, former host of the short-lived Seinfeld-produced television show, “The Marriage Ref,” and a funny comedian in his own right.

During his 15-minute set, Papa denounced people who shop at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s instead of regular grocery stores. “It’s where I get my conflict-free M&M’s,” he mimicked.

And then there’s Costco, which sells coffins.

“That sounds absurd,” Papa said, “Until you look at your cart filled with Slim Jims and Cheese-Its, and then it makes total sense.”

This story was originally published November 20, 2014 at 10:29 PM with the headline "Review: Jerry Seinfeld pokes fun at the everyday in Century II standup show."