{"id":1497,"date":"2025-11-15T12:36:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T18:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/?p=1497"},"modified":"2025-11-15T12:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T18:42:07","slug":"jerry-stiller-had-em-cracking-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/jerry-stiller-had-em-cracking-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerry Stiller had &#8217;em cracking up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Yes, That IS Tracy Letts in the Classic &#039;Seinfeld\u2019 Festivus Dinner Episode | The Rich Eisen Show\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WjpubzMjZVY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright\/actor Tracy Letts recently joined Rich Eisen in-studio, where he shared stories about the making of the famous Festivus dinner episode of &#8220;Seinfeld.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the <em>Seinfeld<\/em> episode, &#8220;The Strike&#8221; (Season 9, Episode 10), Letts played one of the OTB operators that meets Elaine and then later joined the gang at the Costanza Festivus celebration.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1500\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1500\" style=\"width: 2138px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1641.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1500 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1641-e1763230533496.png\" alt=\"Actor Tracy Letts (left) as an off-track-betting bookie in Seinfeld\u00a0&quot;The Strike&quot; (Season 9, Episode 10)\" width=\"2148\" height=\"1326\" srcset=\"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1641-e1763230533496.png 2148w, https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1641-e1763230533496-300x185.png 300w, https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1641-e1763230533496-1024x632.png 1024w, https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1641-e1763230533496-768x474.png 768w, https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1641-e1763230533496-1536x948.png 1536w, https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1641-e1763230533496-2048x1264.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2148px) 100vw, 2148px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1500\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Actor Tracy Letts (right) as an off-track-betting bookie in <em>Seinfeld<\/em>\u00a0&#8220;The Strike&#8221; (Season 9, Episode 10)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Letts remembers struggling to maintain composure during the filming, which occurred over Thanksgiving. As Letts recalled, &#8220;I broke. Everybody is broke. We all broke a lot. Yeah. And we didn&#8217;t have a studio audience. It was the Thanksgiving week, and so they didn&#8217;t even bring in a studio audience for the taping. So there&#8217;s no audience there. We were just cracking each other up around the table.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Letts also recalled how Jerry Stiller was the funniest person he&#8217;d ever met and seen work in his life. &#8220;He&#8217;s just hysterically funny. And he&#8217;d just open his mouth, and people would just start cracking up. He&#8217;s just so damn hilarious.&#8221;<\/p><div class=\"festi-after-4-paragraphs\" id=\"festi-3071184582\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- FestivusWeb Responsive -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3297689279938125\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3697394480\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><\/div>\n<p>Proudly, he also said how Jerry Stiller told him, &#8220;You&#8217;re very funny,&#8221; which has remained as an honor for Letts.<\/p>\n<p>Tracy Letts also pointed out that Jerry Stiller&#8217;s speech at the dining room table was much longer, but they &#8220;had to cut it down because we just couldn&#8217;t get through it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s another Festivus miracle!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1501\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1501\" style=\"width: 2073px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1642.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1501 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1642.jpg\" alt=\"Tracy Letts pointed out that Jerry Stiller's speech at the dining room table was much longer, but they &quot;had to cut it down because we just we couldn't get through it.&quot;\" width=\"2083\" height=\"1323\" srcset=\"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1642.jpg 2083w, https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1642-300x191.jpg 300w, https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1642-1024x650.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1642-768x488.jpg 768w, https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1642-1536x976.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1642-2048x1301.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2083px) 100vw, 2083px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1501\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tracy Letts pointed out that Jerry Stiller&#8217;s speech at the dining room table was much longer, but they &#8220;had to cut it down because we just couldn&#8217;t get through it.&#8221;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"festi-content-placement\" id=\"festi-3403866319\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- FestivusWeb Responsive -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3297689279938125\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3697394480\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jerry Stiller&#8217;s speech at the dining room table was much longer, but they &#8220;had to cut it down because we just couldn&#8217;t get through it.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-festivus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1506,"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions\/1506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivusweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}