Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Seinfeld has stated that the roots of the concept traced to a DVD extra he made for his 2002 documentary Comedian along with a later trip he made after purchasing an old VW Beetle in New Mexico, subsequently filming the return trip to the east coast with a friend.[1] Later, describing the birth of the series, Seinfeld said the series birth was "an experiment"[2]—as "kind of a guess."[3]

Prior to the development of the series, Seinfeld was told by leading social network advisers, including those at Facebook and Yahoo, that a show length exceeding five minutes had little chance of success on the web.[4] Howard Schultz, coffee magnate and Chairman of Starbucks, turned down the opportunity to sponsor the show.[4] Acura eventually sponsored the show, giving Seinfeld creative license with creating commercials and product placements.[4]

The series premiered on Crackle on July 19, 2012. As of May 2015, it had been streamed nearly 100 million times.[5] In January 2017, it was announced that the series would migrate to Netflix starting with the show's tenth season.[6][7] The first nine seasons became available to stream on Netflix in January 2018.[8] Excluded are the Super Bowl promotional episode with Jason Alexander and Wayne Knight reprising their respective roles of George Costanza and Newman from Seinfeld,[9] a series of promotional videos featuring Michael Richards as fictional Crackle president Dick Corcoran and a spin-off series Single Shot (2014–2016), which compiled footage from various episodes to focus on a more narrow subject.[10]

The series' eleventh season premiered on July 19, 2019.[11] After hinting in mid-2020 that he may be done working on the series, Seinfeld stated in late 2021 that "I think I'm going to put that volume on the shelf." He elaborated that "It was a lot of fun and I got to meet ... a lot of those people who I had not met. We're friends now."[12] The first episode filmed and last episode released feature Barry Marder and the same 1966 Porsche 356.[13]

Episodes are estimated to cost roughly $100,000,[2] with guests being paid in cash and the initial raw shoot lasting on average three and a half hours,[2] which is then edited over a two-week period down to a 12 to 20-minute episode.[2] The process uses a lean production staff,[2] involves a minimum of network interaction[2] and is designed as an edited and unscripted talk show without an audience that can be comfortably watched on a smartphone.[2]

The show is formatted around the car drive and "movement," as Seinfeld believed that "when attempting to show the meandering, silly and sometimes deep conversations that comedians share, you have to remove the audience to keep the participants from dropping into their acts,"[2] adding that "part of what makes the show watchable is that it's always moving. There's no narrative [to] drive the story. We know what happens. We know they're going to get coffee. You need a kinetic energy to move it along. Moving people around keeps them awake."[2]

The format is similar to Robert Llewellyn's Carpool, which ran for over 100 episodes between 2009 and 2011. In July 2019, Seinfeld apologized to Llewellyn for the similarity and for not previously being aware of his series.[14]

Bob Einstein became the first repeat guest on the show, appearing in the first season and again in the ninth season.[15] Two guests have had their appearances split into two episodes: Jimmy Fallon in the fifth season and Ricky Gervais in the eleventh season. Several episodes have featured multiple guests appearing together including: Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, Colin Quinn and Mario Joyner, and Kathleen Madigan and Chuck Martin. Colleen Ballinger appeared in character as Miranda Sings as a guest on an episode.

A series of bonus promotional videos featuring Michael Richards as Crackle president Dick Corcoran were released before and during this season.[17][18] Joan Rivers had been asked by Seinfeld to be the fifth season's first guest. However, she postponed her appearance due to a scheduled medical procedure.[19] Rivers died as a result of that procedure.