Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Richards starred in a comedy before their NBC series

41 years ago, HBO, then the most subscribed pay cable network in the United States, decided to expand its original programming (which had largely consisted of comedy and boxing specials) with upbeat programming based on real life. Film “The Terry Fox Story”. Although it didn’t set the world on fire, the film received good reviews, giving competing premium cable channels the desire to try their hand at making films of their own.

Thus, in 1984, Showtime began producing films with a comedy called “The Ratings Game.” While this film was notable at the time for being the channel’s first original film, it is now even more significant for being Danny DeVito’s directorial debut. If this is the first time you’ve heard about “The Ratings Game,” there’s a good reason why. It’s a sporadically funny movie based on a dated Nielsen ratings scam Basically Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” for television. DeVito plays a New Jersey trucking magnate who moves to Hollywood to pursue his dream of becoming a sitcom writer and producer. He then goes out of his way to get a terrible series called “Sittin’ Pretty” on the air, and with the help of a ratings company employee (Rhea Perlman), he devises a scheme that makes it look like one of the more popular shows. on the air.

The fake performance clips generate the biggest laughs in the movie. However, DeVito is getting some help from two future stars of one of the most beloved sitcoms to ever hit prime-time television.

Early in the “ratings game,” None other than Jerry Seinfeld appears As a CBS executive he informed DeVito that his ideas were not in line with what was popular in Hollywood. “Networks aren’t buying Italians, Jews and Puerto Ricans this season,” he tells DeVito. “They buy gays, alcoholics and pedophiles.”

Seinfeld was completely unknown when “The Ratings Game” first aired in 1984. He made his first appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” three years earlier, and became a familiar face there and on “Late Night With.” David Letterman.” Meanwhile, he was not as well-known as soon-to-be Seinfeld star Michael Richards, who was involved in an infamous altercation with Andy Kaufman on the short-lived ABC sketch comedy series “Friday.” Richards also appears in “The Ratings Game” in a slightly more significant role as one of the people DeVito hires to break into the Nielsen house and watch “Sittin’ Pretty.”

If you’re interested in “The Ratings Game,” it’s currently available for streaming on Prime Video. Again, it’s amusingly outdated in the streaming age, but there are enough funny bits to probably justify 102 minutes of your time. It may also have been the film that made Hollywood realize this DeVito isn’t just an angry dispatcher from the movie Taxi.