Jerry Seinfeld talks about how hard it was to film Seinfeld's library cop scene without laughing

Lieutenant Bookman can crack even the hardest of cases

By Reid McCarter  |  October 25, 2021 | 8:30pm
TV Features Seinfeld
Jerry Seinfeld talks about how hard it was to film Seinfeld's library cop scene without laughing
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As part of an acquisition deal with his Netflix paymasters, Jerry Seinfeld has been making videos promoting his sitcom and the fact that it’s now available to stream on a different service than the one it used to be on. The latest of these is a thankfully straightforward Q&A that sees the comedian talking about his career and, most importantly, some of his Seinfeld memories.

When asked which “was the hardest scene to film on Seinfeld without laughing,” he brings up season three episode “The Library” and his confrontation with Philip Baker Hall’s Lt. Bookman, the library cop who’s come to Jerry’s apartment to grill him about an extremely late copy of Tropic Of Cancer (and his lack of instant coffee).

“It was just so ridiculous that he was interrogating me in my own apartment about a book,” Seinfeld says. “I just kept cracking up.”

This is pretty clear in the final scene. Seinfeld is smiling throughout and looks to be barely holding up during a monologue where Baker Hall calls him “joy-boy” and discusses the poor children opening books marked up with drawings of “pee-pees and wee-wees” by people like him who fail to give the library the respect it deserves.

“So that scene that you see is made up of about eight different times we shot it,” Seinfeld says. “We took the pieces that worked and put it together because I messed that one up a ton.”

Elsewhere, Seinfeld brings up Bee Movie (though he fails to apologize again for its bee-stiality implications), tries to get us hyped for his upcoming Pop-Tart film, and discusses how he didn’t expect Patrick Warburton’s “Puddy” to end up being one of the best guest stars to appear on the show.

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