Unfrosted Co-Writer Spike Feresten Explains Jerry Seinfeld’s “Just Funny” Brand Of Comedy

The Pop Tart is an iconic part of breakfast, though not necessarily a nutritionally balanced one. The story of this toaster pastry’s development gets the rare ‘comedy biopic’ treatment via Unfrosted, directed by comedy legend Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld also stars in the movie, joined by a stellar cast that includes Christian Slater, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant, and Max Greenfield.

Ostensibly based on the real history of the Pop Tart, Unfrosted is inspired by a classic Seinfeld stand-up bit about the comedian’s childhood love of the tasty treat. The film is co-written by Spike Feresten, who previously collaborated with Seinfeld on 2007’s Bee Movie and the iconic sitcom, Seinfeld. He also hosted the cult late-night show, Talk Show with Spike Feresten, which ran for three seasons on the FOX network.

While promoting the May 3rd release of Unfrosted on Netflix, Spike Feresten sat down for an interview with Screen Rant. He spoke about the inception of the film, which had been bouncing around as an idea for the better part of a decade before the Coronavirus pandemic inspired them to commit to actually writing it. He also shared his simple philosophy of ‘finding the funny’ in a situation and dished on the one special guest star they wanted to include in the movie, but simply couldn’t find.

Spike Ferensten Breaks Down Unfrosted’s Unlikely Development

Screen Rant: Hello Spike! I’ve been a big fan for a long time. Talk Show was my “cool, hot comedy that my parents might not get.”

Spike Feresten: No, they definitely won’t! [Laughs] Thank you for saying that.

Can you tell me a little bit about getting the band back together? Getting the writing team that you have and being like, “What are we gonna do?”

Spike Feresten: I begged Jerry to give me two hours. I said, “Look, none of us are doing anything, there’s a horrible pandemic, just give me two hours and let’s see if we can get anywhere on this Pop Tart story we’ve been talking about for ten years.” He said, “Let’s do it!”

We got together on a Tuesday, we had a lot of laughs, it was really fun for all of us to be doing something in the middle of that mess. And he said, “Let’s get together Thursday and keep talking.” And that momentum just continued. The story started developing. We never thought we were going to pitch it, let alone make it. At some point, Jerry said, “Well, maybe George Clooney could play the lead in it if we ever ended up doing it, but we’re not gonna do it… But let’s keep meeting!”

We had fun because we had no parental supervision. We had no studios, no agencies, it was just us. I was probably the only parent. And I was like, “Let’s write whatever we want.” We wrote, I think, 230 pages of a script that might cost a billion dollars. Whatever we wanted to happen, we wrote. And it was liberating and really fun, and then at some point, Jerry said, “I think I want to direct this, and I think I want to star in it!” And I went, “Oh, alright… Then, let’s get serious and start writing this in a way that we could actually sell it.” And now here we are!

We cut it down, we looked at it like producers, we figured out what would actually help the story. And it wasn’t just us fooling around. And that’s the movie you just watched!

It still has such a sense of fun to it, such a sense of, “We don’t really care what anyone might think, we’re just gonna go for the laugh.”

Spike Feresten: I’m so happy that you’re saying that, because the writing of it and the shooting of it was that. Every day was really fun. And we were laughing like crazy, and we couldn’t believe we got to make this movie, and I keep hearing that. Somehow, it’s giving off… People are sensing that. It was a joy. This one was really a joy.

There’s such a sense of that. It’s weirdly refreshing to see a movie that’s as pure as a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Spike Feresten: I keep getting questions today about, “How did you come up with the tone and make all these decisions? And you just answered the question right there: if it was funny, Jerry said we’re doing it. That’s it! When I first met Jerry and Larry [David] on Seinfeld, guess what they said: “If it’s funny, we’re going to do it!” It was such a simple idea, and I went, “Right. That’s it, we’re writing comedy, we should pursue funny things.” It’s unique. You’d think all comedies do that, but they don’t.

It’s tricky, because, the show had his name on it, where does the ego come into play or not come into play, like, “Oh, this is so funny, why isn’t this my line?”

Spike Feresten: Yeah, well, he’s not like that. But, ya know, I think what he is like is… Like anything, whatever we think is funny, if you’re part of the creative community, you’re hoping that you can do something that is entertaining to you, and other people feel the same way as you do, but you never know. Including this project! You never know. But Jerry’s a guy who’s got a pretty long track record of going, ‘what I find funny, a lot of people seem to find funny.’ And he just uses that as a guiding principle.

Daniel Day-Lewis Was One Prospective Unfrosted Cast Member Who Got AwayTell me a little bit about this incredible cast you assembled. Did you have any of the names in mind while you were writing it? At least in the latter part of writing it? Like, “This would be funny if Christian Slater was a milkman?”

Spike Feresten: No, that was inspired casting later on, that I think might have come our way by Kristy Carlson, who did our casting, who is amazing. But early on, the three big ones were Jim Gaffigan. He looks like a Kellogg. We don’t even know what that means, but he looks like someone who would have been handed the keys to a company, six generations down, and would blow it. And Melissa McCarthy, we were like, she’s gotta do something in our movie. I think, originally, we were thinking of different parts, but then we thought, well, wouldn’t she be good as our George character, next to our Jerry character?

And then the third one was Daniel Day-Lewis, who we didn’t get in the movie. [Laughs] We thought, why don’t we bring hiim out of retirement and give him a part in this film? I think he’s a cobbler now. I think he’s making shoes. Wouldn’t that be fun? We were watching, like, I think a lot of us were doing, we were watching a lot of YouTube! And that was a lot of Mad Men, and a lot of There Will Be Blood. And for us, there was nothing more entertaining than those two: that series, and that movie. Like, we would watch There Will Be Blood, and that end scene, where they’re beating each other up with bowling pins, all that’s happening there is that they just ran out of money and the director came in that day and said, “Look, just do something. We’ve got an hour left. Kill each other, I don’t care. But it ends today!” So we would take these long breaks while we were writing and watch different parts of those movies on YouTube and just, ya know, “I’m gonna bury you underground, Eli.” And just laugh and go, “Maybe we should just put him in this movie? Maybe we should just get these guys and put them in?”

And it ends up, you’ll see when you watch the movie, especially those two projects, kind of infuse certain moments of this comedy.

Were you ever actually able to reach out to him?

Spike Feresten: We didn’t know how to find him! I was like a detective, trying to figure it out! No agency had a contact for him. We went to the highest levels. At some point, I heard that (Adam) Sandler knew him and was buddied up to him, so I reached out to Robert Smigel, who was working with Sandler in Paris, and he goes, “He might. Hold on… No, he doesn’t know. He’s not even hanging out with him, I don’t know where you got that information!” We tried and tried. Maybe the next one.

Can you say what role you thought of for him? Or is it something that’s not in the movie?

Spike Feresten: I think we wanted to find out what part he wanted to play. That’s all. We were just interested in having him in the movie in any way, and we were going to start with, “How much time can you give us?”

I guess that’s a good place to start.

Spike Feresten: Yeah, without stepping on any other parts and actors. It was just more important to get a guy like that in the movie. I can think of, like, four or five parts we would have offered him. But we couldn’t talk to him! We couldn’t! Jerry couldn’t get on the phone with him. We were ready to fly to Ireland or wherever the hell he was!

It’s his loss at the end of the day! This would have been a feather in the cap of his career!

Spike Feresten: I’m sure he’s very upset. May 3rd on Netflix, he’s going to be, like, “Awww!” He’s putting together his clogs.

He’s gonna make a competing movie about Toaster Strudels.

Spike Feresten: Sure! Have at it!

About Unfrosted

Michigan, 1963. Kellogg’s and Post, sworn cereal rivals, race to create a pastry that will change the face of breakfast. A tale of ambition, betrayal, sugar, and menacing milkmen, UNFROSTED stars Jerry Seinfeld in his directorial debut.

Check out our other Unfrosted interviews here:

• Hugh Grant
• Jerry Seinfeld & Jim Gaffigan
• Christian Slater, Sarah Cooper & Max Greenfield

Source: Screen Rant Plus