YouTube Renews “Michael Richards Hates Ni**ers” for Second Season
Seinfeld curse finally overcome by hit Internet TV show
"There was no question," said YouTube spokesperson John Allan. "The ratings were through the roof. I'd say Richards has finally found his groove."
In the show, which is shot at a comedy club and runs approximately five minutes and 47 seconds, Richards plays a washed-up comic struggling with life on the stand-up circuit, including hecklers, impatient audiences, and his character’s deep-seated hatred of black people.
“We decided to film it before a live studio audience of Afro-Americans,” says YouTube executive Jeremy Siskel. “We wanted to keep it edgy, we wanted [Michael] to feel like he could adlib whenever he wanted to, if he felt like the scripts weren’t [astoundingly racist] enough.”
According to Siskel, Richards is a consummate perfectionist, who often spends days in his trailer, writing new material and yelling at imaginary black people in order to get his lines down.
“We knew we couldn’t make it a reality show,” added Siskel, chuckling to himself. “After all, nobody in their right mind would say half the things we have Michael’s character say.”
YouTube was persuaded to renew the show by the overwhelming response that Richards’ pilot season received. The season, which begins with Richards hilariously berating two black hecklers in the audience of a comedy club, calling them “*igger*” and telling them that “fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a fork up your ass,” and ends with him admitting that he is a wash-up and walking dejectedly offstage, was viewed by over 30 million people. The clip beat out another YouTube favorite, “Guy hitting stranger in testicles,” which YouTube says will not be renewed for a 568th season.
"What we have here is a really edgy kind of show," Siskel said. "It really makes you think about the undercurrent of racial hatred that is so deep-seated in Americans that they could just blow at any moment, and how that's obviously just a bunch of bullshit that could never really happen."
The success of the show has many signaling the end of the so-called “Seinfeld Curse,” which doomed many of the show’s cast following Seinfeld’s cancellation to a life of terrible follow-ups, including, “Bob Patterson,” “Watching Ellie,” and Richards’ previous comedy, “The Michael Richards Show.”
“We felt that, in that show, Michael really wasn’t able to be himself,” said Kyle Gumberg, creative consultant for Michael Richards Hates Nigg**s, and Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan’s fifth district. “We wanted him to feel like he could say whatever he wanted, as long as the camera phones were rolling.”
YouTube says they plan on releasing the first season on DVD as soon as possible. Extras may include the famed fake apology Richards delivered on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” in which, in classic Kramer fashion, Richards hilariously stumped, stuttered, fidgeted, and bojangled his way back into America’s hearts.
"That fake apology was some of the hardest acting Michael has ever done," Siskel added. "I saw him looking himself in the mirror every morning, trying to put on a convincing face while saying, 'I'm not even a racist,' but he would always break down laughing about halfway through. Most of the blooper reel is just Michael trying to keep a straight face while making the fake apology." Siskel then added, "Classic, classic Michael."
Richards was unavailable for comment on the upcoming project, but close friends say he is anxiously awaiting filming while barricaded in his home, two hundred feet below ground.
Fellow Seinfeld cast members have also attempted a Richards-esque revival. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who played Elaine, posted holiday videos of herself drunkenly berating and physically abusing a Latino maid, charging at her with a rolling pin and raising dark bruises on the elderly woman’s forearms.
“That show didn’t take off simply because the audience wasn’t expecting so much drama,” said Gumberg of Louis-Dreyfus’s show. "And the lack of racial epithets, I mean forget about it. That show was dead in the water. Which, coincidentally, is what Jason Alexander is considering calling his own side-project."
Formerly "George" from Seinfeld, Alexander’s self-shot home movie of himself getting into wacky situations, like dropping a toaster into the bathtub and giving the world a pitiful goodbye, was marred by the fact that the show did not have an accompanying laugh track.
"I mean, I guess it's funny," said Donald Cramly, an avid YouTube viewer. "But without the laugh track, I just didn't know when to laugh, whether it was appropriate or not. Now that silly Kramer's show - I can laugh along with that."
Gumberg echoed Cramly's sentiments, saying “Richards had a hit because he used the studio audience to his advantage; you know that when the audience is hooting along with Michael’s rants, that’s your turn to laugh too. And when they stand up and leave in outright disgust, that’s our way to signal that the show is over.”
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