Bee Movie Mania

In the nine and a half years since 76 million people watched his TV show come to an end, Jerry Seinfeld has been busy with his two main passions: his family and standup comedy.

Friday, he takes his comedic talents into movie theaters as creator and star of the new animated film "Bee Movie."

Seinfeld stopped by The Early Show and spoke with Julie Chen about his first movie.

"It's very exciting; it's really exciting," Seinfeld said. "I wanted to do something very different than everything I had done before. That's why I went to animation, because I just thought these are very interesting images to play with."

The movie was born four years ago in a conversation between Seinfeld and Stephen Speilberg. The comedian told the director that he thought a movie about bees called Bee Movie would be funny.

But how hard was it to put on an entire performance with just his voice?

"For comedians, we're kind of used to that," Seinfeld said. "It's all about our voice. The microphone's the only thing that we have on stage, so I'm kind of used to that."

"The challenge was creating the visual to match the voice. So, you know, to get the gestures and the facial expressions," Seinfeld said. "That was the more time consuming part."

Did Jerry catch the 60 Minutes story last week about disappearing bee colonies?

"I know all about the disappearing bees," Seinfeld said. But when Chen said she was suspicious, Seinfeld promised his movie had nothing to do with real life bee problems.

"A lot of people think I did that as a publicity stunt for the movie, but we had that story and this phenomenon started happening in nature and that was really bizarre. It's like you're in "The Blob" - and making a movie about "The Blob" - and then you hear there's an actual blob on the street. And you go, how can that be?"

It turns out that making Bee Movie taught Seinfeld a lot about bees.

"The first thing I learned, bees can't fly in the rain. If it rains, they have to land because it cools them off and makes them heavier, and they can barely fly," he said. "Bees are the worst flying creatures in the world."

"In good weather?" Chen asked.

"In any weather," Seinfeld answers. "They are too fat."

Why don't they go on a diet?

"They do. They're dieting constantly," he said. "All they eat is honey, but they eat so much of it. And their wings are very small. They're very bad little planes, but they make the best of it. That's what I love about bees. They make the best of a bad situation."