Jerry Seinfeld did an interview on “The Rich Eisen Show” (scroll down to watch the interview) on YouTube and he made an interesting revelation about “Seinfeld” almost not making it on the air because executives at NBC didn’t like the show at first.
“They gave us a pilot. They didn’t like the pilot. And then Rick Ludwin said, You know what, I think this show isn’t that bad. Everyone disliked it. And Rick Ludwin said I’m gonna take some money from Saturday Night Wrestling [sic]. In those days professional wrestling replaced Saturday Night Live once a month. And he took the money from one of those, and it was enough money for us to make four episodes. We made four episodes, they still didn’t like it…”
Saturday Night’s Main Event aired in place of Saturday Night LIve when the season was over of in lieu of airing SNL reruns. SNME featured big name wrestlers during an era when you rarely saw top talent facing each other unless you bought a ticket to a show or ordered a pay-per-view. Based on what Jerry Seinfeld said, it sounds like the TV show “Seinfeld” might have never existed if not for WWE.
