First Mario Lopez lives out some sort of 21st century version of his lingering romance with Kelly Kupowski by getting with Britney Spears, THEN, Kramer goes crazy! Maybe Jerry Seinfeld can start sleeping with 16 year olds again, just for old times sake.

I think in any culture in any region when you choose to tape a dildo to your arm and wave it around in front of a movie camera you should expect to live with the end product.

I think all of the people sueing should do a panel discussion on ali G's show. They can air their complaints there.

I would say, Does everyone in Hollywood suddenly have Tourette's syndrome but I don't want to be disrespectful to people who suffer from that malady.

I'm totally shocked that people like "Kramer" who are performing in public and/or have benefited immensely from their artistic lives are harboring such unbelievable resentment and hostility. I was a huge fan of Mel Gibson, and I still try to separate his great work from "the incident," and it's hard to do when his comments were so egregious. But Michael Richards' hair-raisingly shameful tirade was not only in public, but carried out against people who had paid to see him!! Maybe if "Kramer" had spent more time in the trenches before his success he'd have learned that if you can't hold an audience, it's the performer's fault, not the audience members'. A real pro knows that when people make noise, etc., sure it's a drag; but WE are there to entertain THEM -- not vice versa.

While it's certainly true that neither fame nor money buys happiness (MR is clearly a very unhappy guy), these blessings certainly ought to engender some degree of gratitude and civility.

Apparently the culture of celebrity for its own sake is finally revealing that these literally are, just people -- and it's sad to learn in some cases, not very nice ones, at that.

Is he on something? I watched the disturbing video, and he repeated many of his statements three times. It's bizarre to watch, and I would have been even more disturbed if I had been there in person. In fact, I think that I would have been a little scared.

This is good news and the right thing to do. I hope many more stations follow suit; the only way to combat this garbage is to turn your back on it and ignore completely. Happily my local station, Fox 12 Oregon, will not be airing the program. First time I ever had occaision to send a TV station a thank you note!

Ericp

Portland, OR

do you think dave will ask him about it?

By Michael Richard's outburst. I've heard second-hand that he's a real son-of-a-bitch, a complete asshole, and always has been. He nearly attacked Andy Kaufman when the latter pulled one of his infamous "stunts" on the show "Fridays" back in '80 or '81.

While I'm at it, there has always been something deeply unpleasant about the whole Michael Richards-Jerry Seinfeld-Larry David axis. Although "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has been funny at times it has also had more cringe-worthy moments than even "Seinfeld" - which is saying something.

While I'm hardly defending his tirade, if you'd ever seen a stand-up go horribly wrong, and the stand-up knows it (nothing can be done if the comic thinks he's hysterical even when he's not), it can get ugly. Turning on the audience is the last resort, when the comic thinks if they can turn the audience's hate toward someone else, it won't be as bad for him. The racist thing - there's a fine line between comedy and offense. Don Rickles has been using racial slurs for 40 years, but no one really wants to ride him out of town. You get the feeling Rickles was doing it only to get a rise, not to jump off the Titanic that was his act. Of course, if you've ever met any stand-up or sketch comedians, you know those are the most needy, insecure, unbalanced performers - and that's saying something.

Then again, maybe Richards was trying to emulate Larry David's early stand-up where he would verbally attack every member of the audience.

And a couple of corrections from the previous letters- Michael Richards had been toiling in obscurity for years before Seinfeld, so his success didn't "come early" as someone pointed out.

And the bit on "Fridays" with Andy Kaufman, Richards simply grabbed the cur cards and threw them in front of Kaufman, as if to say "just do the lines, and save the performance art for your club act." The person who charged Kaufman was a producer.

This incident reminds me of Bill Hick's tirade at an apparantly intoxicated female heckler in Chicago many years ago. He repeatedly called her a c***, adding that the reason she was heckling him was BECAUSE she had a c***. To Hicks, she wasn't a jerk, or a drunk, or an idiot- she was a c***. I don't remember any big backlash because of this, or Hick's use of the term in other instances--(to describe the abused wife who won't leave her abusive husband.) Yeah, Hicks was brilliant- but being called a c*** feels like being called a n*****. Those words are meant to remind you that you aren't as equal as you thought- the white guy's still in charge. Not very funny, is it?

I see Richards has apologized.

So what?

Now we know who he really is, just like we know who Gibson really is.

Please. When we have a bad day we don't suddenly become an anti-Semite or racist for an accidental moment. We reveal who we really are. And apologies may be accepted, but that cat's out of the bag, and now we have a choice.

I never thought "Seinfeld" was funny anyway, and when I tuned in once to see Richards' character buring a Puerto Rican flag for humor I simply had my suspicions confirmed.

I'm not interested in applying a litmus test to our celebrities, but once you tell us you're full of shit, please don't expect me to keep paying your salary.