It’s been nearly 30 years, but the comedian still remembers the conversation.
His former neighbor, a successful television writer, had created a sitcom and based one character after the comedian, even giving him his last name.
Great, said the comedian — as long as he got to play the part.
Nope, sorry, the neighbor said.
The part went to another guy — butKenny Kramer managed to forgive Larry David, his former neighbor and the man who co-created “Seinfeld” and the scheme-loving iconoclast who shares his last name.
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“I thought he was a genius,” declares Kramer, 74, of David. “And it’s a good thing. If I had played Kramer, the show would have been a failure!”
Although rubber-faced actor Michael Richards went on to play the fictional Kramer, the real-life Kramer has cheerfully spun his association with the classic NBC comedy “into a second career,” with “Kramer’s Reality Show,” a popular stage show and tour of the New York City sites seen in the show.
“I thought, ‘If I don’t cash in on this, I’m an idiot,’” says Kramer, laughing. “In New York, when I wear the baseball cap backwards and walk around with the hair, everyone says ‘Hey, Kramer!’ I’ve been quite a publicity slut, as opposed to a publicity whore, because whores get paid.”
He also takes a version of the show, “Kramer on ‘Seinfeld,’” on the road, which is what brings him to Boca Raton, where he performs at theBoca Black Box Center for the Arts on Thursday.
And just like the TV Kramer, who was dubiously employed but always figuring out a hustle, the real Kramer knows a way to make this tour work for him.
“My grandkids live down here, so it was a way to be able to tax deduct this trip,” he says, chuckling, during an interview at Boca’s Blaze Pizza.
“Seinfeld” has been famously hailed as a “show about nothing,” but in 180 brusquely hilarious episodes, it covered a whole lot of something, from the minutiae of skinny mirrors to losing your car in a parking garage to ordering soup. The delicious randomness of its plots even finds its eccentric way into this Boca pizza joint today.
“There’s an episode where Kramer and Poppie were going to start a pizza business, where you make your own pizza,” the real Kramer says, working his way through the line at Blaze, where diners do indeed custom-build their own personal pies like they’re ordering a sub. “But Poppie gets mad because Kramer wants to put cucumber on the pizza.”
He gestures toward the ingredient case, which is missing the controversial green veggie.
“See? It’s just like a ‘Seinfeld’ episode!”
Similarities, differences
There are some basic physical similarities between Kramer and actor Richards, who made a point of not meeting the original Kramer before creating his version so that his interpretation would be his own.
Both are tall and lanky, with distinctive hair, although Richards’ stood straight up on his head like an eraser and Kramer’s flows down his shoulders under his Yankees cap. And, as the real-life version points out, both are fond of creative ways to make a buck.
But under the surface, there are differences.
For one, Kenny Kramer is more tethered to reality.
As much as he enjoys the show, “I was a little put-out that (TV’s Kramer) was such a buffoon,” he says.
While the fictional Kramer has negligible family ties, the real one is a single dad who raised a daughter alone and is now a doting grandfather.
“Never would have worked,” he says about what “Seinfeld” would have been like if Kramer had been toting a kid around. “Would have changed the whole dynamic.”
True, but Kenny Kramer’s family dynamic and career aspirations are what put him in Larry David’s orbit.
For years, the stand-up was “on the rock circuit,” traveling around the country as the opening act for bands like Three Dog Night and KISS. But he came off the road to care for his then-5-year-old daughter, Melanie, whose mother had a substance-abuse problem and had left the girl with her parents in Arizona.
“Getting custody of my little girl saved my life,” Kramer says matter-of-factly in a way TV’s wacky Kramer could never have mustered. So he got his daughter and moved to Miami’s Coconut Grove, where he could do gigs on the beach, but still “be able to take her to school and pick her up.”
At some point, Kramer had to travel north for a gig in Philadelphia, and he left Melanie with his mother in New Jersey while he worked. While there, he happened to find out about new government-subsidized residences in New York City for artists.
“So I cancelled my flight and put in an application,” he says. And right across the hall, just like on TV, was a funny, cynical comedian. This one was named Larry David, and he was already showing signs of the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” curmudgeon we’ve come to know.
The building manager put on a cabaret featuring the talented residents, and selected Kramer to be the MC. Everyone “was thrilled to do it except Larry,” he remembers. “So I badgered him. He was such a hit. I said ‘You were the hit of the night!’ and he said ‘I was afraid of the manager seeing my act and kicking me out of the building!’”
Kramer says that at first, network suits doubted “Seinfeld’s” relatability, because “‘Who wants to watch a show about a bunch of New York Jews?’” Kramer says.
It took a while for it to become a fixture in the then-powerhouse “Must See TV” Thursday night lineup, but then became a runaway success.
“Funny is funny,” Kramer says of the show’s appeal. “It was a hit in Tennessee, and it was a hit in South Beach.”
It was such a hit that eventually writers and fans wanted to know about the real Kramer. He says he was tracked down by a so-called “gonzo journalist” who actually looked him up in the New York phone book from the years that Kramer and David would have been neighbors.
“He called me and said ‘Kenny Kramer? You’re the real Kramer! I found you!’” he says.
Capitalizing on fame
Like the fictional Kramer, the real one concocted a plan: He
rented a theater and a van and created his tour.
His tour groups are usually “60 percent national tourists, 30 percent international tourists” — including “10 to 15 Aussies,” probably stemming from time he spent touring Down Under — and “four or five New Yorkers, because New Yorkers are too cool to go on a tour.”
Because it’s him, there were Kramer-esque repercussions to his new-found fame.
New York Times writer John Tierney noted the number 1-800-KRAMER, which he had set up to forward calls through his own phone. Kramer says he hadn’t quite considered the feedback he’d get from a story that ran “front page of the Metro section, with my picture, above the fold,” but he says Tierney warned him that “after today your life will never be the same.’”
Or at least, his phone bill. In 72 hours, Kramer got 7,000 calls to that number, at 35 cents a call. Mind always working, he says he told AT&T that all of these strange calls from like “a fax or a modem” had come in, leading the nice people there to reduce his bill to his usual $17.
“I guess the statute of limitations has run out by now?” he says, smiling.
Although “Kramer on ‘Seinfeld” has made its way around the country, this is its first trip to Florida, where, Kramer hopes “to get it into the circuit of gated communities. Like ‘Seinfeld’ my show is so cross-generational, cross-cultural. You could bring your kids, your grandkids.”
If that happens, he could potentially see his own grandkids more often. What else comes of it? That’s an interesting possibility that both Kramers would find promising.
“I’m blessed that this whole thing happened,” Kramer says. “It really is such a joy. It’s certainly better than working for a living.”
