The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with
Unfrosted
co-writer and producer Spike Ferensten about the movie’s Netflix release.
Ferensten discusses Jerry Seinfeld’s inspiration for his feature directorial debut, working over Zoom on the script, and the casting process.
The longtime collaborator and
Seinfeld
writer also shares stories from the sitcom’s writers’ room, discusses working with Larry David on episodes like “The Soup Nazi,” and what he’s “cooking up” next.

As a longtime collaborator on Seinfeld, Spike Ferensten was brought on to co-write and produce for Jerry Seinfeld’s feature directorial debut, Unfrosted. Having pitched the ideas for and worked on some of the most iconic episodes from the sitcom’s wildly successful nine-season run, Feresten worked alongside the director, writer, and actor, and other Seinfeld alum, Andy Robin, to cook up an absurd historical fiction about two warring breakfast cereal companies in the 1960s.

The premise for Unfrosted began when Seinfeld set out to “…make a comedy the way [they] used to make comedy, the way [they] used to write Seinfeld episodes.” To tell the partially fabricated history of the Pop-Tart, they enlisted the help of an ensemble comedy cast that includes Jim Gaffigan (Peter Pan & Wendy), who Ferensten says they always wanted for the fictional Edsel Kellogg III, Hugh Grant (Wonka), Melissa McCarthy (The Little Mermaid), Bill Burr (Old Dads), Amy Shcumer (Life & Beth), and many others.

During this interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Feresten discusses the casting process, the surprise cameos, and how Matthew Weiner’s award-winning series, Mad Men, may have actually inspired Seinfeld to write Unfrosted. Check out the full interview in the video above, or in the transcript below, for his memories of the Seinfeld writers’ room, working with Larry David, and pitching for episodes like “The Soup Nazi” and “The Little Kicks.”

Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story Michigan 1963, business rivals Kellogg’s and Post compete to create a cake that could change breakfast forever.Release Date May 3, 2024 Cast Jerry Seinfeld , Melissa McCarthy , Jim Gaffigan , amy schumer , Hugh Grant , Max Greenfield , Christian Slater , Daniel Levy , Bill Burr , James Marsden , Jack McBrayer , Thomas Lennon , Bobby Moynihan , Adrian Martinez , Sarah Cooper , Fred Armisen Runtime 93 Minutes Main Genre Comedy Distributor(s) Netflix

COLLIDER: You’ve done a lot of cool stuff in your career. If someone has never seen anything you’ve done, what is the first thing you’d like them watching and why?

SPIKE FERESTEN: Boy, that’s a good question. I’m not the type of person that tries to put my stuff in front of anybody, but if people ask me what I’ve done, I kind of size them up quickly — age and what they look like — and I pick a project. I’ll go, “Oh, I was an intern on Saturday Night Live,” [laughs] and I’ll start there. Or maybe, “You look like folks that might watch Seinfeld. I worked on that show, and I wrote an episode where Elaine danced.” So, I kind of go that way. What I get most excited about people knowing is anything from my late night show that I did. That was really fun for the three years I was running Late Night on Fox. That I really love talking about. I actually just like talking about all of it. I grew up on TV, I grew up with people making me laugh, and it’s pretty fun that I get to do it now.

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Jerry’s been obsessed with cereal for, I guess his entire life. If you could only eat one or two cereals for the rest of your life, what are those cereals?

FERESTEN: Frosted Flakes and Trader Joe’s rip-off of Frosted Flakes. I like those two together. I’m really into that combo right now.

That’s interesting because I like mixing cereals together. So you mix two different types of Frosted Flakes together.

FERESTEN: Yeah, but one is the super, really bad for you Frosted Flakes, and the other one is the more human, sane Frosted Flakes that Trader Joe’s sells. One of them, right now, is their strawberry flake that’s got dried strawberries in it. It feels a little healthier.

I don’t think any cereal that has, like, 100% of your sugar for the day I’d call “healthy.” [Laughs]

FERESTEN: No. We’re not trying to sell this stuff to people. We’re just trying to make people laugh. We’re just selling laughs.

Exactly. So I wanna jump backwards before jumping into Unfrosted. You did work on Seinfeld, and I believe you joined in Season 7. What was it actually like joining a show that was so popular?

FERESTEN: Very intimidating. There were a lot of very intimidating things that were going on. One, I was leaving New York and coming out to LA. A week later, I’m on a lot in a small bungalow with Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David and all these famous writers. I had not written many half-hours. I mean, the whole thing was a little terrifying, and as a writer, you might know that. Even on Letterman, there’s a lot of fear when you’re starting out a job like this because in your contract it is literally down to the week, “This is the week they can fire you if you’re not working out.” And you never quite know if you’re working out.

But very quickly that little writers’ building that we were all in became a very comfortable place because Larry and Jerry said, “Look, we don’t want you to make up stories. We don’t want to make up dating stories about our characters. We wanna hear real things that happened to you, especially you, Spike, living in New York. You just came over. What are the things that happened to you where you just went, ‘What was that?’” [Laughs] Why was the parking garage guy casually telling me prostitutes were sleeping in my cars and then blaming it on me because my door didn’t lock? This weird soup guy that would scream at me and other people… That suddenly was a very liberating idea, because I go, “Well, I’ve got a lot of stories like that. I’ve been living in New York for quite some time and I am a little neurotic, and I’ve got a little net set up for these etiquette things. If you’re saying you’re looking for that, here’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t do it, but here’s what I wanted to do.” And it became so much fun and therapeutic in a way to kind of get these stories out and write about them.

‘Seinfeld’s “The Soup Nazi” Episode Originated From Small Talk With Larry David
Image via NBC

I believe you are the writer of “The Soup Nazi” episode.

FERESTEN: Yeah, but to call me the sole writer is not accurate. I went in, I pitched a bunch of stuff that first day, and it wasn’t going that well, even though some of those ideas I did later on. Larry said, “Well, what’s happened in New York?” And I go, “What do you mean?” He goes, “Where do you get lunch? What do you do?” It was just small talk. I said, “I go to this guy called the “Soup Nazi.”” And the two of them just fell over, and they go, “Tell us about him.” I started telling them, “You’ve got to order or you get kicked out,” and they’re like, “That’s your first episode.” I was like, “Okay…” and then was shown the door and went out, and Tom [Gammill] and Max [Pross] were there, and they were like, “Hey, that sounded like it went well.” And I said, “I don’t know what just happened. They said “The Soup Nazi” is my first episode.” “Yeah, go start outlining!” It was really confusing.

So then you would meet with the writers, and they go, “Here’s what they’re saying,” and we started outlining together. You would get the outline up on the board, you’d write the first draft, you’d hand it over to Larry and Jerry, the other writers would contribute. It was really a group effort that made that, and it’s really Larry and Jerry that take it home in the end, in that year in the seventh season. There’s a Friday night where it goes, “Okay, Spike, you’re done. We’re gonna take this script and rewrite it, and Monday there’s going to be a new script.” There was a lot in from my original script and there was a lot of new stuff. Occasionally, you’d get a call, like I remember Larry called up, and he goes, “Well, you’ve got this armoire on the sidewalk. Tell me more about that.” And I go, “Well, it happened to me. I bought something at the 26th Street flea market.” He goes, “But who steals that? Who cares about antiques that they’re gonna take it?” And that’s where those two characters would come from. He goes, “Okay, I have everything I need,” and hangs up the phone. But it was so much, so much fun, that show.

Jumping into Unfrosted, one of the many things that I enjoyed about the film is that it’s silly and goofy at times and it’s just trying to make you laugh. It’s not trying to follow the conventional structure of it needing to be serious all the time. Can you talk about that tone and finding it, because it’s a tricky tone?

FERESTEN: I keep hearing that, and it’s really interesting, but it’s really Jerry’s tone. He set out, and he said, “I want to make a comedy the way we used to make comedy, the way we used to write Seinfeld episodes.” If you look closely and you kind of imagine this idea, if you had a Seinfeld episode, and you blew it out to 90 minutes, and you had a much bigger budget, this is what that would have looked like. None of us were interested in an origin story, but it was really Jerry the whole time. I mean, the tone you’re talking about is Seinfeld, and Jerry Seinfeld as a director, a writer and an actor. That’s the tone. He dictated it from the very start based on what we all thought was funniest. That was always the guiding principle, and it was exactly what was happening on Seinfeld back in the day. It would come up in the writers’ room all the time; we’d be working a story and it would just keep coming back, “Well, what’s the funniest thing we could do? Oh, that. Let’s just do that.” “Well, that doesn’t make sense.” “Let’s do it anyway.” “Well, why?” “Because we’re trying to make people laugh and we all find this funny, and maybe somebody else will find it funny.” It’s a simple idea, but you look around, and if you’ve developed as much as I have, it’s really hard to stay on that path, but Jerry and Netflix let us do it.

[Spoiler Warning]

Jerry Seinfeld Lived Out His ‘Mad Men’ Fantasy in ‘Unfrosted’
Image via AMC

There’s a lot of homages or nods to other things. I especially loved the Mad Men thing. Talk a little bit about the nods you guys were thinking about when you were writing it. What was it like actually finding out you could do the Mad Men bit?

FERESTEN: While we were writing it was during the pandemic, so not unlike what we’re doing right now, except four or five squares. We would work, we would write, the script would be up on the screen, and we would take food breaks and we would watch clips from Mad Men on YouTube. [Laughs] It, to us, has always played as a comedy. Jerry had just rewatched the entire season again because of the pandemic — which may have led him to making this movie, by the way — and he goes, “I don’t know why these guys take advertising so seriously. They’re yelling at their clients.” So we’d watch these scenes and just laugh, laugh, laugh at Jon Hamm and John Slattery and Matthew Weiner’s writing. It’s just brilliant stuff. And at one point, Jerry said, “If they got to name this product, it is ‘63. The Mad Men would have been technically in business. Maybe they should come and pitch their ideas.” And I said, “Sure. That, in our crazy logic, actually works. It makes sense.” If it’s ‘63 with the Mad Men, why wouldn’t Kellogg’s call New York and get the best ad man they could find? And that was the origin of the scene.

By the way, that’s the thing. It totally does work. In the film, when I was watching it, and they talked about getting the best, I was like, “Oh my god, are they about to do this?” And then Jon and John.

FERESTEN: I think that’s a little bit of Jerry getting to touch something he wasn’t a part of, Mad Men. I think him in that scene and working with these actors, and lighting it and some of the furniture in that scene is from the series of Mad Men, he was able to have like a fantasy camp scene experience with those guys. It was super fun to watch while we were shooting it.

Hugh Grant Kicked Off the ‘Unfrosted’ Ensemble With a Glass of Wine
“It was bizarre. We were just stunned at how funny he was.”

One of the other things is it’s like a murderer’s row cast. Every side character is someone you’d recognize. So what was it like actually putting together this cast? I’m sure it’s Jerry just calling people and being like, “Do you wanna be in my movie? Yes? Great.”

FERESTEN: It was like that. He had a very high batting average. Occasionally we’d get a no, or, “I’m not available,” and he’d feel a little down about it. I’d go, “You’re hitting 98% in casting.” [Laughs] When I’m casting, I’m at about 12%. 98% of people are saying [yes], or leaving jobs to come help and work with you. Really, we had this little room with pictures and parts up there, and we had nobody in the beginning other than Jim Gaffigan, who we always kind of knew would play this part. It started with Hugh Grant; we wanted Hugh Grant to play Thurl Ravenscroft. We reached out, checked his availability, and Jerry got on the phone with him and Hugh sent us this brilliant set of auditions from his couch with a glass of wine in his hand. It was bizarre. [Laughs] We were just stunned at how funny he was, and then he signed on.

Then things took off from there — Melissa McCarthy, and some people were friends of Jerry’s. He could call up Amy Schumer, they hang out together, and she would do it. Other folks had grown up on the show and wanted an opportunity to just work with Jerry — Max Greenfield. Everyone just thought, “We’d love to come to the set and maybe not play a part as big as we’re used to playing.” A lot of these folks are leads in other projects, and it became our pitch: come hang out with us. We’re gonna have fun. You get in, you get out, and you’ll get to work with Jerry, do a scene with Jerry.

You were one of the co-creators of The Michael Richards Show, back, I believe, in 2000/2001. A, will that ever be released on streaming or DVD, and B, what do you actually remember about the making of the show?

FERESTEN: [Laughs] Why? Why would you release something that was canceled after nine episodes?

I think everything should be available. There’s so many shows that are just missing in action.

FERESTEN: You know, it was a crazy time. I don’t remember much about it other than I was working with Andy [Robin] and Gregg Kavet from Seinfeld, and Michael, and having a lovely, lovely time. It shows you that there’s just an element to television, and having been in the business now for a long time and having heard this at the very beginning from David Letterman, who once said it, there’s an element of pure dumb luck to this thing. Some projects line up and they just fly and others don’t. This one, Unfrosted, has been one of the lucky ones for us. From top to bottom, beginning to end, it’s been just such a joy — the writing, showing up to set every day with these folks, and even this. It’s just cruising. One of the good ones. We’re very lucky.

I completely agree. There is a lot of luck, which people just don’t realize. Also the timing. You can make something, and when you’re filming it’s two years ago, and you don’t know what the world’s gonna be like when you’re releasing it.

FERESTEN: Exactly right. But this one has always felt special. We’ve always had the universe kind of tapping us on the shoulder with interesting developments. Even the loss of Bill Post, who invented the Pop-Tart. He just passed away a month ago, and we were like, “Good lord, the timing of some of this stuff is wild.”

Do you know what you’re working on next?

FERESTEN: Right now I’m wrapping up a video game that I’m working on with some folks in Silicon Valley. And then we’ve got something fun cooking up next. I can’t announce it here, but there’s something fun that’s going on.

Unfrosted is now available to stream on Netflix.