Seinfeld
Seinfeld (/ˈsaɪnfɛld/ SYNE-feld) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, with a total of nine seasons consisting of 180 episodes. The show's ensemble cast stars Seinfeld as a fictionalized version of himself and focuses on his personal life with three of his friends: best friend George Costanza (Jason Alexander), former girlfriend Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and neighbor from across the hall, Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards).
This article is about the American television sitcom. For other uses, see Seinfeld (disambiguation).Seinfeld
- Tom Cherones (seasons 1–5)
- Andy Ackerman (seasons 6–9)
- Various (seasons 1, 3, 6 & 8)
- Jerry Seinfeld
- Julia Louis-Dreyfus
- Michael Richards
- Jason Alexander
United States
English
9
180 (list of episodes)
- Larry David (1990–1996)
- George Shapiro
- Howard West
- Andrew Scheinman
- (1991–1993)
- Jerry Seinfeld (1996–1998)
- Alec Berg (1997–1998)
- Jeff Schaffer (1997–1998)
22–24 minutes
- Giggling Goose Productions (1989)
- Fred Barron Productions (1990, season 1)
- West/Shapiro Productions
- Castle Rock Entertainment
July 5, 1989 –
May 14, 1998
Seinfeld is set mostly in the titular character's apartment building in Manhattan's Upper West Side in New York City. It has been described as "a show about nothing", often focusing on the minutiae of daily life.[1] Interspersed in earlier episodes are moments of stand-up comedy from the fictional Jerry Seinfeld, frequently using the episode's events for material.
As a rising comedian in the late 1980s, Jerry Seinfeld was presented with an opportunity to create a show with NBC. He asked Larry David, a fellow comedian and friend, to help create a premise for a sitcom.[2] The series was produced by West-Shapiro Productions and Castle Rock Entertainment and distributed by Columbia Pictures Television.[nb 1] It was largely written by David and Seinfeld and script writers. A favorite among critics, the series led the Nielsen ratings in Seasons 6 and 9 and finished among the top two (along with ER of the same network) every year from 1994 to 1998. Only two other shows—I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show—have finished their runs at the top of the ratings.[3]
Seinfeld is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential shows of all time. It has been ranked among television's best shows in publications such as Entertainment Weekly,[4] Rolling Stone[5] and TV Guide.[6][7] Its most renowned episodes include "The Chinese Restaurant", "The Soup Nazi", "The Parking Garage",[8] "The Marine Biologist", and "The Contest".[9] In 2013, the Writers Guild of America voted it the second best-written TV series of all time (second to The Sopranos).[10] E! named it the "Number 1 reason [why] the '90s ruled".[11] Quotes from numerous episodes have become catchphrases in popular culture.
Plotlines[edit]
Many Seinfeld episodes are based on the writers' real-life experiences, with the experiences reinterpreted for the characters' storylines. For example, George's storyline in "The Revenge" is based on Larry David's experience at Saturday Night Live.[17] "The Contest" is also based on David's experiences. "The Smelly Car" storyline is based on Peter Mehlman's lawyer friend, who could not get a bad smell out of his car. "The Strike" is based on Dan O'Keefe's dad, who made up his own holiday: Festivus.[18] Other stories take a variety of turns. "The Chinese Restaurant" consists of George, Jerry and Elaine waiting for a table throughout the entire episode.[19] "The Boyfriend", revolving around Keith Hernandez, extends through two episodes. "The Betrayal" is famous for using reverse chronology and was inspired by a similar plot device in a Harold Pinter play, Betrayal.[20] Some stories were inspired by headlines and rumors, as explained in the DVD features "Notes About Nothing", "Inside Look" and "Audio Commentary". In "The Maestro", Kramer's lawsuit is roughly similar to the McDonald's coffee case.[21] "The Outing" is based primarily on rumors that Larry Charles heard about Jerry Seinfeld's sexuality.[22]
Themes[edit]
The series was often described as "a show about nothing".[1][23] However, in 2014, Seinfeld stated: "The pitch for the show, the real pitch, when Larry and I went to NBC in 1988, was [that] we want to show how a comedian gets his material. The show about nothing was just a joke in an episode many years later, and Larry and I to this day are surprised that it caught on as a way that people describe the show, because to us it's the opposite of that."[24] David similarly commented: "I like taking the worst qualities that a person has and trying to make something funny out of it. Doesn't everybody do terrible things and have terrible thoughts? Just by trying to be as funny, you're going to deal with a lot of things that are real, so the show's really about something. The whole thing about the show being about nothing is ridiculous."[25]
Much of the show's humor is based upon repeated use of irony, incongruity and (oftentimes unfortunate) coincidences. Additionally, guest characters are frequently introduced with little to no context, with a humorous focus on atypical names of these characters, which often contain alliteration. In keeping with Jerry Seinfeld's reputation as a clean comedian,[26] though the show frequently contains dialogue around sexual themes, the show notably avoids using almost all explicit sexual terminology. Notably, in the popular episode "The Contest", whose plot-line concerns a contest amongst the main characters to see which one can go the longest without masturbating, the word 'masturbation' is never mentioned. Seinfeld broke several conventions of mainstream television. David is credited with refusing to follow a predictable sitcom formula which would have a romantic relationship develop between Jerry and Elaine.[27]
The show offers no growth or reconciliation to its characters and eschews sentimentality.[28] An episode is typically driven by humor interspersed with the superficial conflicts of characters with peculiar dispositions. Many episodes revolve around the characters' involvement in the lives of others with typically disastrous results. On the set, the notion that the characters should not develop or improve throughout the series was expressed as the "no hugging, no learning" rule.[28] The characters are "thirty-something singles with vague identities, no roots, and conscious indifference to morals."[29] Also unlike most sitcoms, there are no moments of pathos; the audience is never made to feel sorry for any of the characters. Even Susan's death in "The Invitations" elicits no genuine emotions from anybody in the show.[30] Seinfeld does not shy away from making light of tough topics, from death to illness to disability.[31][32]
The show frequently engages in fourth-wall breaking humor and self-satire. One such example is the story arc where the characters promote a TV sitcom series named Jerry. The show within a show, Jerry was much like Seinfeld in that it was "about nothing" and Seinfeld played himself. The fictional Jerry was launched in the Season 4 finale, but unlike Seinfeld, it wasn't picked up as a series. Jerry is one of many examples of metafiction in the show. There are no fewer than 22 fictional movies featured, like Rochelle, Rochelle.[33] Because of these several elements, Seinfeld became the first TV series since Monty Python's Flying Circus to be widely described as postmodern.[34]
Seinfeld is an avid Abbott and Costello fan, and has cited The Abbott and Costello Show as an influence on Seinfeld: "Everybody on the show knows I'm a fan. We're always joking about how we do stuff from their show. George and I will often get into a riff that has the rhythm from the old Abbott and Costello shows. And sometimes I'll hit George in the chest the way Abbott would hit Costello." The series includes numerous references to the team. George Costanza's middle name is "Louis", after Costello.[35] "The Old Man" episode features a cantankerous character named "Sid Fields" as a tribute to the landlord on the team's TV show. Kramer's friend is named Mickey Abbott. A copywriter for the J. Peterman catalog is named Eddie Sherman, after the team's longtime agent. In Episode 30, Kramer hears the famous Abbott and Costello line, "His father was a mudder. His mother was a mudder."
Catchphrases[edit]
Many terms were coined, popularized, or re-popularized in the series' run and have become part of popular culture,[36] including "Yada, yada, yada",[37] "No soup for you!", "Master of my domain", and "Not that there's anything wrong with that." The lexicon of Seinfeldian code words and recurring phrases that evolved around particular episodes is referred to as Seinlanguage, which is also the title of Jerry Seinfeld's best-selling book on humor.[34] These terms include "man hands", "shrinkage", "regift", and "double dip".
Production[edit]
Seinfeld began as a 23-minute pilot titled The Seinfeld Chronicles. Created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, developed by NBC executive Rick Ludwin, and produced by Castle Rock Entertainment, it was a mix of Seinfeld's stand-up comedy routines and idiosyncratic, conversational scenes focusing on mundane aspects of everyday life like laundry, the buttoning of the top button on one's shirt, and the effort by men to interpret the intent of women spending the night in Seinfeld's apartment.[106] Each episode of the series used to cost $3 million to $3.5 million.[107]
The pilot was filmed at Stage 8 of Desilu Cahuenga studios, the same studio where The Dick Van Dyke Show was filmed (seen by the crew as a good omen),[108] and was recorded at Ren-Mar Studios in Hollywood.[109] The pilot was first screened to a group of two dozen NBC executives in Burbank, California, in early 1989. It did not yield the explosion of laughter garnered by the pilots for the decade's previous NBC successes like The Cosby Show and The Golden Girls. Brandon Tartikoff was not convinced the show would work. A Jewish man from New York himself, Tartikoff characterized it as "Too New York, too Jewish" (a sentiment which would also lead to the Cosmo character's later surname change from the more Jewish-sounding Kessler to Kramer).[110] Test audiences were even harsher. NBC's practice at the time was to recruit 400 households by phone to ask them to evaluate pilots it aired on an unused channel on its cable system. An NBC research department memo summarized the pilot's performance among the respondents as "weak", which Warren Littlefield, then second-in-command in NBC's entertainment division, called "a dagger to the heart".[106] Comments included, "You can't get too excited about two guys going to the laundromat"; "Jerry's loser friend George isn't a forceful character"; "Jerry needs a stronger supporting cast"; and "Why are they interrupting the stand-up for these stupid stories?"[109] Seinfeld and David did not see the memo for several years, but after they became aware of it, they hung it in a bathroom on the set. Seinfeld comments, "We thought, if someone goes in to use this bathroom, this is something they should see. It fits that moment."[106]
Around the time the show's pilot was filmed, Castle Rock Entertainment, which produced the show, had also produced another pilot for NBC that featured Ann Jillian in her almost-similarly eponymous TV series. When The Seinfeld Chronicles tested poorly with audiences, Castle Rock focused on Jillian's series, which tested better with audiences and received a full-season order. Ann Jillian lasted only a single season of 13 episodes and was off the air by the end of 1990.[111]
When NBC announced its 1989–90 (primetime) schedule in May 1989, The Seinfeld Chronicles was not included, but the show's supporters did not give up. The pilot first aired on July 5, 1989, and finished second in its time slot against the CBS police drama Jake and the Fatman,[106] receiving a Nielsen rating of 10.9/19.[109] The ratings did not exhibit the regional skew Tartikoff predicted, much to the encouragement of the show's supporters. Ludwin canceled one of the Bob Hope specials budgeted for that season so the entertainment division had the money to order four more episodes of The Seinfeld Chronicles, which formed the rest of the show's first season (the series was by then retitled to Seinfeld)[106][112]—a move without which Chicago Tribune columnist Phil Rosenthal later said there "would be no Seinfeld".[113] Although this was a very low order number for a new series—and the smallest sitcom order in TV history[109]—Castle Rock failed to find any other buyers when it shopped the show to other networks, and accepted the order.[106] Seinfeld did not return to the airwaves until May 30, 1990, and it was another three years before it became a Top 5-rated show. Preston Beckman, in charge of NBC's research department at the time, reminisced, "The show was different. Nobody had seen anything like it. It wasn't unusual for poor-testing shows to get on the air, but it was very rare that they became hits."
When it was first repeated on July 5, 1990, it received a rating of 13.9/26. These ratings were high enough to secure a second season.[109] NBC research showed that the show was popular with young male adults, a demographic sought after by advertisers. This gave NBC an incentive to keep broadcasting the show.[114] One DVD reviewer, Britt Gillette, wrote that "this initial episode exhibits the flashes of brilliance that made Seinfeld a cultural phenomenon."[115]
Other than the pilot, the series was filmed at CBS Studio Center, in Studio City, Los Angeles. The first three seasons were filmed on soundstage 19; it then moved to the larger Stage 9 for the remainder of its production.[116] Despite numerous establishing shots taken in New York City,[117] all scenes of the actors walking in New York were also filmed at CBS Studio Center, on their New York Street backlot.[118] Other locations on the CBS lot were also used, as well as scenes filmed at Paramount Studios and Warner Brothers Studios Hollywood. Street scenes and park scenes were filmed in the CBS Studio Centre's New York Street and Central Park backlots, respectively.[119]
A source of problems for the cast was the small sets, especially that of Jerry's apartment; Alexander noted "If you knew you were doing a series for nine years, you would never build that set". Adding to the problem was that the scripts contained only minimal physical direction, leaving the actors struggling to come up with actions to perform while speaking. Eventually, they got into a routine of directing each other on how to make their movements look natural. Alexander said this helped them build chemistry with each other.[120]
Filming usually went long, as the cast and David were perfectionists. If a joke did not elicit the reaction they hoped for, they rewrote it and performed it again. In at least one case, "The Marine Biologist", this led to David writing an entirely new scene requiring Alexander to memorize a monologue in only a matter of minutes.[120] Laugh tracks were used only for matching shots, not for artificially adding laughter.[120]
Various locations used for establishing shots included Tom's Restaurant at 112th Street and Broadway (Monk's Cafe), Midtown West's Roosevelt Hospital (recurring exterior emergency room scene, and indoor scenes in 'The Junior Mint' and 'The Bris'), Cornell Medical Centre at 525 East 68th Street, 22-39 37th Street, Queens (The Costanza's house), the Taconic State Parkway exit to the Hopewell Junction, Dutchess County, New York (driving scene in 'The Bubble Boy'), and the Amagansett farmers market, Long Island ('The Hamptons'). The exterior shot used for Jerry's New York apartment building was actually located at 757 S New Hampshire Avenue, Los Angeles. The real-life exterior of Pendant Publishing, Elaine's workplace, is located at 1325 Ave of the Americas, New York. The live stand-up comedy performed by Seinfeld at the beginning of most episodes was truly filmed at The Improv, a comedy club at 358 West 44th Street, Manhattan; though it closed in 1993, a new comedy club still operates at this site today.[121][122] The Yankee stadium exterior seen in the show has now been demolished. Most office building establishing shots are real businesses and locations. Various real street locations can be gleaned from the car windows during driving scenes.
More than 120 episodes make reference to the Superman franchise.[123] Teri Hatcher, who played Lois Lane on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, plays Jerry's girlfriend Sidra. Paula Marshall, who played Christina Riley on the Superboy TV series, portrays the journalist Sharon, who Jerry says reminds him of Lois Lane. Sherman Howard, who played Lex Luthor on Superboy, portrays Roy. Superman logos and figurines frequently appear in Jerry's apartment. Seinfeld and Superman later appear in an American Express commercial. The show was written by David and Seinfeld, along with writers who included Larry Charles, Peter Mehlman, Gregg Kavet, Carol Leifer, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer, Steve Koren, Jennifer Crittenden, Tom Gammill, Max Pross, Dan O'Keefe, Charlie Rubin, Marjorie Gross, Alec Berg, Elaine Pope, and Spike Feresten.
High-definition versions[edit]
There are two high-definition versions of Seinfeld. The first is that of the network TV (non-syndicated) versions in the original aspect ratio of 4:3 that were downscaled for the DVD releases. Clips from this high-definition version in its upscale were seen on NBC during The Seinfeld Story special.[124] Syndicated broadcast stations and the cable networks TBS and Comedy Central (and also Fox) began airing the syndicated version of Seinfeld in HD. Unlike the version used for the DVD, Sony Pictures cropped the top and bottom parts of the frame, while restoring previously cropped images on the sides, from the 35mm film source, to use the entire 16:9 frame.[125]
Consumer products[edit]
A recurring feature of Seinfeld was its inclusion of specific products, especially candy, as plot points. These might be a central feature of a plot (e.g., Junior Mints, Twix, Chuckles, Jujyfruits, bite-size Three Musketeers, Snickers, Chunky, Oh Henry!, Drake's Coffee Cake and PEZ), or an association of candy with a guest character (e.g. Oh Henry! bars) or simply a conversational aside (e.g., Chuckles, Clark Bar, Twinkies). A large number of non-candy products were also featured throughout the series.
The show's creators claim that they weren't engaging in a product placement strategy for commercial gain. One motivation for the use of real-world products, quite unrelated to commercial considerations, is the comedy value of funny-sounding phrases and words. "I knew I wanted Kramer to think of watching the operation like going to see a movie", explained Seinfeld writer/producer Andy Robin in an interview published in The Hollywood Reporter. "At first, I thought maybe a piece of popcorn falls into the patient. I ran that by my brother, and he said, 'No, Junior Mints are just funnier.'"[149]
Many advertisers capitalized on the popularity of Seinfeld. American Express created a webisode where Jerry Seinfeld and an animated Superman (voiced by Patrick Warburton, who played the role of Puddy) starred in its commercial. The makers of the Today Sponge created the "Spongeworthy" game, on their website, inspired by "The Sponge". An advertisement featured Jason Alexander in a Chrysler commercial. In this, Alexander acts much like his character George, and his relationship with Lee Iacocca plays on George's relationship with Steinbrenner. Similarly, Michael Richards was the focus of a series of advertisements for Vodafone which ran in Australia where he dressed and acted exactly like Kramer, including the trademark bumbling pratfalls. In addition, the show occasionally incorporated fictional products like a Scotch brand called "Hennigan's" (a blend of "Hennessy" and "Brannigans") and a canned meat product called "Beef-a-reeno" (a parody of "Beef-a-roni").
Home media and streaming[edit]
VHS release[edit]
The hour-long, two-part clip show episode "The Highlights of 100" became the first Seinfeld episode available on home video when it was released on VHS in 1995 by food company General Mills.
DVD releases[edit]
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (formerly Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment) released all nine seasons of Seinfeld on DVD in Regions 1, 2, and 4 between 2004 and 2007.[150] On November 6, 2007, Seinfeld: The Complete Series was released on DVD. The complete series box set includes a 2007 "roundtable" reunion of the four main cast members and Larry David; only highlights of this were also included in the Season 9 set.
In Australia (Region 4), the first complete series boxset was released on October 24, 2007. This set contained "The Coffee Table Book" and slipcase packaging and was a Limited Edition. In late 2007/2008, all the individual seasons were re-released in a single Amaray style case. The second boxset was released on December 2, 2008, and was a Collectible Fridge design packaging. On August 5, 2009,[151] another Limited Edition boxset was released, similar to the first boxset but does not include the book and the packaging was slightly different. On November 23, 2011,[152] another Limited Edition boxset was released, appearing to be almost identical to the 2009 version with some minor differences. On November 14, 2018,[153] a Festivus Celebration Edition was released which contained napkins and cups, playing cards and thumb wrestle gadgets. On August 12, 2020,[154] another The Complete Series boxset was released, this time the box is blue and contains 8 Amaray style cases.
After Seinfeld[edit]
Another scene[edit]
On the November 1, 2007, episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld mentioned the possibility of shooting one last scene, after the characters leave jail. He mentioned that he was too busy to do it at the time, but did not announce what the scene would entail, as its production is not a certainty.[193] In a commentary from the final season DVD, Seinfeld outlines that he and Jason Alexander spoke about this scene being in Monk's Cafe, with George saying "That was brutal" about the foursome's stint in prison.[194]
On an episode of Saturday Night Live that Jerry Seinfeld hosted on October 2, 1999, a sketch was produced that showed what life was like for Jerry behind bars after being transferred to the fictional prison portrayed on the HBO series Oz.[195] The roughly four-minute sketch shows the opening credits for the HBO series with clips of Jerry mixed in doing various activities around the prison. The sketch continues and mixes in different storylines from both Oz and Seinfeld and has Jerry interacting with various characters from the show in his typical quick-witted, sarcastic way.[196]
The Seinfeld "curse"[edit]
Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander, and Richards have all tried to launch new sitcoms as title-role characters. Almost every show was canceled quickly, usually within the first season. This gave rise to the term Seinfeld curse: the failure of a sitcom starring one of the three, despite the conventional wisdom that each person's Seinfeld popularity should almost guarantee a strong, built-in audience for the actor's new show. Shows specifically cited regarding the Seinfeld curse are Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Watching Ellie, Jason Alexander's Bob Patterson and Listen Up, and Michael Richards' The Michael Richards Show. This phenomenon was mentioned throughout the second season of Larry David's HBO program Curb Your Enthusiasm, which aired in 2001. In real life, David has repeatedly dismissed the idea of a curse, saying, "It's so completely idiotic. It's very hard to have a successful sitcom."[197][198]
The success of Louis-Dreyfus in the 2006–2010 CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine, which included winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2006, led many to believe that she had broken the curse.[199] In her acceptance speech, Louis-Dreyfus held up her award and exclaimed, "I'm not somebody who really believes in curses, but curse this, baby!"[200] The show produced enough episodes to air in reruns in syndication for several years, something the other shows did not achieve.[201] The Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Louis-Dreyfus made references to the curse. Nevertheless, the series ratings declined soon after and it was cancelled after the fifth season. She went on to win six further Emmys (for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series) for her acclaimed performance as Vice President Selina Meyer in the HBO comedy series Veep.[202]
