Seinfeld: Classic or Dud

It's weird how much of my generation (born in the mid 80s) have gotten into this show 6-7 years after it ended (myself included), considering most of us hated it when it was on. It's one of the few sitcoms that most teenagers (esp. those aged 13-16) wouldn't be able to understand why it was so funny.

― frogbs, Thursday, January 6, 2011 2:03 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i was born in '81, and enjoyed it from about the age of 13/14 when they started showing it on bbc 2 in the evenings. it did take me a while to get into it though, didn't really get it at first. although NOBODY else in my entire school as far as i know watched the show. either never seen it, or just didn't get the humour.

It wasn't really a flop in the UK. On terrestrial TV it was only really aired late at night (around 11pm) on BBC2 midweek, and never really promoted.

It got a cult following, and it became a cliche to moan about how shabbily the BBC treated it. I once heard that it was because Alan Yentob, then the controller of BBC2, just didn't like it.

If it had had a 9 or 10pm slot on Fridays on Channel 4, which was the classic slot for US sitcoms, I suspect it would have been a hit.

i'm not sure. even most people i know who like "curb" have never really gotten into it. i can only think of one other person i know irl who's a fan.

Yeah only time I saw it,being a young child at the time,was when I had the flu and so was allowed to have telly on that late. I remember finding it funny but not getting a lot of it,the sponges for instance.

Yeah I know hardly anyone who watches it yet know plenty who watch curb.

i'm always flabbergasted by US sitcom literacy when UK sitcom literacy in America usually stops at "Are You Being Served"

Most of my friends in Glasgow were fans. Odd.

Xp. Not really that surprising surely? Majority of films at the cinema are american and tv,and sitcoms most of all,is done a lot better in america.

"Americans make the BEST shit sandwiches!"

if that metallica song, "sad but true", was a gif, I'd post it right here.

It's weird how much of my generation (born in the mid 80s) have gotten into this show 6-7 years after it ended (myself included), considering most of us hated it when it was on. It's one of the few sitcoms that most teenagers (esp. those aged 13-16) wouldn't be able to understand why it was so funny.

― frogbs, Thursday, January 6, 2011 3:03 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

are you kidding i was watching the shit out of seinfeld when i was 11... it was pretty much the comedic landmark of my early-mid teens

I wouldn't say British sitcoms are widely popular in the US but there's definitely a strong cult audience. I discovered Father Ted through my local video store when I lived in Richmond, Va., you can find the ILX thread where lots of American posters were sure the U.S. "Office" wouldn't live up to the UK "Office," etc.

father ted is probs my fave sitcom, seinfeld is top 5 for sure, tho.

i remember when the finale aired i was in like 7th grade and i tried bringing it up to classmates and they were all 'huh?'

Is there a UK version of seinfeld? I always thought of coupling as a UK version of friends (similarly insipid but about 1000x more cleverly written).

http://www.sitcom.co.uk/sitcoms/baddiels_syndrome.shtml

alan yentob otm imo

A lot of the appeal of Seinfeld comes from New York attitudes & culture. It's not going to translate well to pish-posh London.

But somehow appealed to the rest of america?

I didn't say it was exclusively New Yorker affair, but it was definitely there. I remember the episode about locks, in which everybody knew the make and model number of their locks and what was the latest kind or whatever - and this wasn't part of the joke.

although NOBODY else in my entire school as far as i know watched the show. either never seen it, or just didn't get the humour.

Ha, I totally bonded with a girl in 9th grade b/c she was the only other person I knew who watched it. (She was also the only Jewish person I knew.) That started to change about a year later -- not sure whether because my peer group was getting older or because the show had started to attract more fans across the board.

i think the jewish connection is otm. all my peers and i watched this really from like 5th grade and on (went to an all jewish school)

I loved Seinfeld when it was on but it was always second to NewsRadio IMO. I haven't watched it much since it ended but I've definitely seen every episode multiple times. Some of the living-in-NYC jokes of course fell flat to me, but the show had a lot more than just "lol new york!" going for it.

I have never been able to enjoy Curb Your Enthus. though.

And its definitely a cultural touchstone for Millennials so I don't know wtf this "my generation hated it" shit is all about...

It took me years to discover that Seinfeld was absolute fucking genius. I think what did it for me was watching it on an acid comedown. Specifically, this scene had me in absolute hysterics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BurZnaBas6U

ah, maybe that needs to be contextualized to understand.

LOL just write-it-off!! A classic bit!

According to the "making of" documentary that comes with the season one DVD's, all the major networks turned down the pilot in part because the humor was "too Jewish." WTF does that even mean?

completely irrelevant, yet relevant:

Journalist/critic Frank Lovece in Newsday contrasted the humor tradition of Groening's two series, finding that, "The Simpsons echoes the strains of American-Irish vaudeville humor — the beer-soaked, sneaking-in-late-while-the-wife's-asleep comedy of Harrigan and Hart, McNulty and Murray, the Four Cohans (which, yes, included George M.) and countless others: knockabout yet sentimental, and ultimately about the bonds of blood family. Futurama, conversely, stems from Jewish-American humor, and not just in the obvious archetype of Dr. Zoidberg. From vaudeville to the Catskills to Woody Allen, it's that distinctly rueful humor built to ward away everything from despair to petty annoyance — the 'You gotta do what you gotta do' philosophy that helps the 'Futurama' characters cope in a mega-corporate world where the little guy is essentially powerless".[32] Animation maven Jerry Beck concurred: "I'm Jewish, and I know what you're saying. Fry has that [type of humor], Dr. Zoidberg, all the [vocal artist] Billy West characters. I see it. The bottom line is, the producers are trying to make sure the shows are completely different entities".[32]

ok hold on, lemme give you the gift of indentation:

Journalist/critic Frank Lovece in Newsday contrasted the humor tradition of Groening's two series, finding that, "The Simpsons echoes the strains of American-Irish vaudeville humor — the beer-soaked, sneaking-in-late-while-the-wife's-asleep comedy of Harrigan and Hart, McNulty and Murray, the Four Cohans (which, yes, included George M.) and countless others: knockabout yet sentimental, and ultimately about the bonds of blood family.

Futurama, conversely, stems from Jewish-American humor, and not just in the obvious archetype of Dr. Zoidberg. From vaudeville to the Catskills to Woody Allen, it's that distinctly rueful humor built to ward away everything from despair to petty annoyance — the 'You gotta do what you gotta do' philosophy that helps the 'Futurama' characters cope in a mega-corporate world where the little guy is essentially powerless".[32]

Animation maven Jerry Beck concurred: "I'm Jewish, and I know what you're saying. Fry has that [type of humor], Dr. Zoidberg, all the [vocal artist] Billy West characters. I see it. The bottom line is, the producers are trying to make sure the shows are completely different entities".[32]

triple post, but "petty annoyance" stands out most. 95% of seinfeld episodes are about trivialities and making an extremely huge deal about them.

I was watching seinfeld pretty much from almost the beginning (first episode I remember seeing that made an impression on me was when George tried to poison his boss). I was 13 at the time (and non-jewish and not a new yorker) and it quickly became my second favorite show after the Simpsons, though I'm sure a lot of the humor went right over my head. So I don't really understand why people think teenagers wouldn't get this show.

If I remember correctly, the reason I started watching it in the first place was because it played immediately following Night Court.

I remember being a fresman in HS and this dorky friend of mine kept asking me if I was watching this new show 'Seinfeld' and how it was so funny. I think it was a year before I actually saw an episode. But this show is epic and should easily win this poll!

it played immediately following Night Court.

My recollection was it was Unsolved Mysteries.

So I don't really understand why people think teenagers wouldn't get this show.

My three best friends in high school were fucking obsessed with this show and talked about it incessantly. I was the only one who didn't think it was exceptional-- maybe because it was too popular or something stupid like that. Boy, I really came around a decade-and-a-half later.

i actually remember when it was the seinfeld chronicles --i think i was in jr high & watched a shit ton of television & i was recommending it to my parents friends

I thought the first two seasons were kind of weak. I don't think this show would have survived into its maturity in the current cutthroat climate of network television.

I think the first two seasons look weak now, but at the time I thought they were incredible. This was just on a whole other level compared to most sitcoms at the time.

most dudes I know were watching this in middle-school, under influence of their parents

that was kind of my case. mom got really into it around '94-'95 when i was in 5th grade. followed the last few seasons and watched the hell out of the re-runs. i know and love Seinfeld pretty thoroughly.

Well I'm not saying that teenagers in general wouldn't like it. High school students, I understand. When the last two seasons of Seinfeld were aired, I was 12-13 and thought the show was boring and couldn't understand what was supposed to be so funny about it. My parents watched it all the time. The "final episode" hysteria was huge. On the other hand, I did enjoy pretty much all the other sitcoms that were big ...Cosby, Home Improvement, Fresh Prince, etc. etc. Obviously your results may vary but nobody in my age group that I know ever liked the show when it aired, but in the last few years I'm seeing a huge wave of obsession over this show, something I've never really seen before. It's like if there was a sudden revival of interest in Arrested Development in 6-7 years from people who will then be in their early 20's. Looking back, it totally makes sense. A lot of the jokes are character based and deal with subtle social interactions and sex, stuff the average 13 year old knows nothing about.

aside from Jerry Seinfeld's shoes, I think it's aged quite well.

I still find it odd people are still going on about Seinfeld's finale and yet seem relatively at ease about the scam that was Lost's. Like, I'm surprised no 4chan hackers or whatever sort took to arms and hacked into Damon Lindelof's...whatever thing.

I feel a lot like Cunga - in the US this show just became part of the fabric and furniture of life in the late 90s. There were reruns EVERY DAY, several times a day, for years and years after the last episode aired.

as bad as the seinfeld finale was, it was nowhere near as bad as the lost finale, which most Lost fans are mostly just trying to erase from their memory

of course, now I'm imagining a Seinfeld finale where they figure out that they're in purgatory and have been dead all along

I didn't the Seinfeld finale was bad at all. It was poking fun at the inherent ridiculousness of the show's premise.

I can kind of understand the obsession with the fashion sense at the top of the thread. When I finally started getting into the re-runs I was almost fascinated and distracted by how plain all the characters were for people who lived in NYC. Not saying people like that don't exist in NYC, but they just seemed SO regular. Obviously if it was intentional it was so the show wouldn't alienate any viewers... just my theory.

it's not a really moving or cathartic finale (like maybe MASH or Friends or ST:TNG which resolve major storylines), but i think it certainly holds its own against like Bob Newhart or St. Elsewhere for shticky conclusions and even better than St. Elsewhere where the finale didn't really fit the tone of the show it def fit Seinfeld's tone to have an irreverent take on the show finale. If it were any better an episode it wouldn't be that good. Were Elaine and Jerry going to finally become a couple again? Obv not.

I was almost fascinated and distracted by how plain all the characters were for people who lived in NYC

As the series progressed they got much slicker, especially Elaine. I think part of it was fashion - the early 90s were still very much the 80s - but also part of it was higher budgets and a richer cast.

..and the general cult of affluence which took hold in the 90s, especially in New York.

i still watch the re-runs, they are broadcast on tnt and fox here.

tbs