Jerry Seinfeld Applauds Ted Sarandos’ Impact on Hollywood

The Television Academy welcomed seven new members into its Hall of Fame Thursday night, honoring a class that has spent decades defining television across comedy, drama, documentary, journalism and entertainment.

Actors Ted Danson and Jean Smart, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, documentary pioneer Sheila Nevins and the late broadcast journalist Ed Bradley made up the 2026 class, bringing together careers that have transformed television.

For Parker and Stone, the honor arrived on a fitting anniversary. South Park premiered exactly 29 years earlier, on Aug. 13, 1997. Since its debut, the Comedy Central juggernaut has become one of television’s longest-running animated series, earning five Emmys while establishing Parker and Stone as two of the most fearless satirists. The pair, who also created the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, have served as writers, producers, directors and lead voice actors on the series.

Stone credited the show’s longevity in part to deadlines. “You wouldn’t get anything done without a deadline,” he said. Meanwhile, Parker joked that he turned to AI for help with his acceptance speech. “No matter how hard I tried, ChatGPT just couldn’t seem to get it right,” he said before launching into a bit built around an AI generated speech. He ended on a more earnest note about the show’s commitment to skewering all sides. “We can’t stop laughing at ourselves, at each other,” Parker said, “because when any one group starts taking itself too seriously, really, really bad shit happens.”

Smart’s induction honored one of television’s most versatile performers. She first broke through as Charlene Frazier on the 80’s sitcom Designing Women before moving between comedy and drama in Frasier, 24, Samantha Who?, Fargo, Watchmen and Mare of Easttown. Her career has found another act in HBO’s Hacks, where her performance as veteran comedian Deborah Vance has earned her multiple Emmy wins.

Calling the induction “an amazing and truly unexpected honor,” Smart said being included among her fellow inductees was “a gift of a lifetime.” She also poked fun at her relationship with celebrity, recalling a recent elevator encounter in which a stranger asked, “Are you famous?” “Well, apparently not,” Smart recalled as the room burst into laughter.

One of the evening’s most poignant tributes belonged to Bradley, the groundbreaking CBS News journalist who died in 2006 after 25 years at 60 Minutes and reporting on more than 500 stories. Fellow correspondent Lesley Stahl remembered her longtime colleague as a journalist who always “searched for the human story” and cared deeply about people without power. Bradley’s widow, Patricia Blanchet, accepted the honor and reflected on his significance as one of the few Black journalists of his era with such broad national visibility. Bradley’s refusal to be defined solely by race or restricted to the “race beat,” she said, “was and remains a radical act.”

Blanchet also invoked her husband’s legacy while addressing current threats to journalism. “Let us pick up Ed’s baton and speak truth to power,” she urged. “Let us walk his walk and better safeguard all that is at risk that we hold so dear in our sacred democracy.”

Nevins, who could not attend after contracting COVID and pneumonia, delivered a taped acceptance speech. Actress and longtime friend Lily Tomlin introduced the longtime HBO documentary president, crediting her with making documentaries “must-see TV” and championing filmmakers who tackled subjects others avoided.

Jerry Seinfeld inducted Sarandos with a speech that doubled as a tribute to the Netflix co-CEO and a not-so-subtle campaign for his own Hall of Fame induction. “It’s hard for me to believe that I am not the one receiving this very special honor tonight,” Seinfeld joked, before comparing their résumés for the benefit of the Hall of Fame nominating committee.

“To give you some idea how fond I am of Ted, I flew from New York to do this, the longest flight I have ever done for a two-minute non-paying gig in my 50-year comedy career,” he said, before going on to emphasize, “50, Academy, 50!” But beneath the humor was genuine admiration for the executive whose tenure at Netflix helped transform Hollywood’s traditional television model.

Under Sarandos’ content leadership, the streamer moved aggressively into original programming with shows including House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, The Crown and Stranger Things, while helping popularize binge-watching and the release of full seasons at once. “To a lot of us in the industry, it’s not Netflix, it’s Tedflix,” Seinfeld said, calling Sarandos “not only the most respected, but also the most loved industry executive I have ever seen in my career.”

In his speech, Sarandos reflected on Netflix’s impact on the industry, tracing his instincts back to his teenage years working in a video store and discovering how much he enjoyed connecting audiences with stories. “Netflix put audiences in control and let you watch anything anytime you wanted,” Sarandos said. “It kind of changed the way we watch TV, but it also changed the way we create TV.” But Sarandos argued that technology hasn’t changed television’s fundamental appeal. “Television is the best way to tell great stories,” he said. “The relationship we have with people on TV is intimate.”

The final honor of the night went to Danson, whose induction capped a television career spanning more than four decades. His portrayal of Sam Malone on Cheers made him a defining sitcom star of the 1980s and ’90s, but he continued reinventing himself through Becker, Damages, CSI, Fargo, The Good Place and, most recently, Netflix’s A Man on the Inside.

Introduced by his wife, Oscar-winning actress Mary Steenburgen, Danson recalled discovering acting while a college student at Stanford. “The light bulb had turned on,” he said. “I was an actor, and all of my life made sense all of a sudden.” Decades later, his affection for television production and Hollywood appeared undiminished. “Thank you so much for everything we’re all doing to make sure that Hollywood stays healthy and vital,” he said. “It’s magic. We shouldn’t let our magic slide.”