The idea for “Bee Movie” began with just the title: “I thought B-movie was a good idea for a movie about bees,” he deadpans. When he saw the animation technology at DreamWorks, he was hooked. “I love technology, so–comedy, technology, cartoons.” In his New York office, Seinfeld is connected to the studio in California via computer screens on which animators display the images they’re working on with him. “I think I’m bringing a different humorous sensibility to an animated movie,” he says. “There’s a lot of attitude in the jokes, the same way it was on the show.”

After nine years of living in Los Angeles while doing the series, he moved back to New York. “I really feared for my sense of humor if I stayed in L.A.,” he says. So he roams his neighborhood and buys bagels at the same place he did when he was a struggling stand-up comic and used to smear one with peanut butter and call it dinner.

Performing live is the discipline he won’t let go. “I tried laying off the stand-up, and I felt like I lost a primary connection,” says Seinfeld. “I think there’s actually a brain muscle in doing stand-up, and it felt kind of flabby.” Seinfeld still slips into small clubs to try material, and he’s constantly nursing new bits. Reaching into his backpack, he pulls out a little black leather notebook in which he jots down ideas. He opens a page: “Why don’t the walls go to the ground in toilet stalls?” he asks. “My job is to pick up on that thing that’s just below your conscious level.”

And what about that even deeper well of pure inspiration in his personal life? “There’s no way to even describe the gold mine in the comedic arts that family life is,” says Seinfeld, 52, who married at 45. “I can’t believe I missed it for so long. If my life was total misery–which it’s not, it’s heaven –but if it was total misery, it would still be worth it for the jokes.”

So now that “Bee Movie” is almost done and he gears up for what he calls “the Bataan death march” of publicity, what’s he going to do next? “Oh, God, I have no idea. My life? Just drink this cup of coffee, that’s as far as I’m going.” Spoken just like “Seinfeld.”