I'm Telling You for the Last Time

Two months after wrapping his sitcom, Jerry Seinfeld decided to officially retire his act. I’m Telling You for the Last Time was pitched as a funeral for twenty years of material. He promised to take his jokes about scuba diving, airplane travel, and public restrooms and lock them away forever, forcing himself to write an entirely new set from scratch.

The show was broadcast live on HBO from the Broadhurst Theatre in New York. It functions as a final lap for the observational bits he honed from his early club days through the peak of his television fame. He works through routines about grocery stores, cab drivers, and the Olympics, executing the premises with the exact timing that made him wealthy. The broadcast earned an Emmy nomination and produced a Grammy-nominated album. Despite the central premise of the special, audiences who buy tickets to see him today will still recognize a fair amount of the jokes.