IT was Jerry Seinfeld whotaught late-night’s newest talk-show host, Spike Feresten, how to accost people at an ATM.

The gag works simply because you’d think Jerry would be the last person on earth who needs to mug folks at the cash machine.

“We did a little piece that had him out in the street teaching me to how to interact with the public, now that I’m going to be famous,” he says. “Jerry was pointing things out like, you can walk up to any stranger at an ATM and they will give you money. And he went up to a woman at an ATM and said, ‘Give me $20, I’m Jerry Seinfeld,’ and she did.”

He insists it wasn’t staged.

Granted, it was for a sketch that ultimately ended up as the network presentation pitch that landed Feresten his new late-night hosting gig, “Talkshow,” a half-hour sketch/talk show premiering on Fox next month.

Its Sunday midnight airtime will pit “Talkshow” directly against “Saturday Night Live.”

Feresten is a former writer for his idol, David Letterman, and (while he’s sick to death of the notoriety) also wrote the famous “Soup Nazi” episode of “Seinfeld.”

At least one sketch on the show will refer to the episode, although it’s a parody of A&E’s “Biography” about Feresten and features Larry Thomas, the actor who played the infamous immigrant chef who coined the phrase “No soup for you!”

The show will have a much looser format than typical late-night fare. Feresten will sit behind a desk (“We can’t afford a band or a sidekick,” he says), sometimes interviewing guests. The interviews will then dovetail into sketches featuring the guests.

Or not, he says.

“We’re kind of silly,” he says. “And we’re not locked into any format.”