Seinfeld: Classic or Dud

it's only 5 episodes. kinda reminds me of the 1st season of The Simpsons, it's still pretty funny but the pacing is off and the dialogue is considerably less tight than it would be later on. also there is some early-season weirdness - Kramer is named Kessler, Jerry's Dad is played by a different actor, and George still has some hair on the top of his head. also like The Simpsons it really rounds into form in Season 2 but I think the show gets better from there, before getting a bit too weird and conceptual by Season 9. Seinfeld S9 >>>> Simpsons S9 though

Yeah the two shows (Seinfeld and Simpsons) follow extremely similar paths imo. Imagine what S33 of Seinfeld would be

have a very clear memory of getting mildly dunked on by my history teacher (high school football coach) and a couple of fellow students in 9th grade for stanning Seinfeld S1 when new tv shows came up in class. proud I was on the right side of history

the early episodes aren't that bad. they feel very slow-paced and quiet next to the later episodes, but it's fun to watch the characters gradually become themselves. and episode 2 or 3 has the beginning of george's "art vandelay" thing.

Imagine what S33 of Seinfeld would be

They tried to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqGo42jEXPw

love how future-jerry is wearing an ugly gold necklace there for some reason

did a full rewatch a couple years ago and one my favorite things that struck me is how the show leans into a completely childish view of the adult working world (i'm assuming jerry has never had a non-comedy job.) a huge portion of economic activity in Seinfeld World revolves around inventors and inventions, like a kid looking around the room and thinking that everything you see must have been invented by somebody, so it might be a perfectly normal thing in your daily life to encounter the inventor of the cobb salad or the soda can poptop or whatever. every job is either that or a completely mysterious and unknowable "office job", which are presented like a 3rd grader trying to imagine what his dad does all day when he leaves the house in a suit every morning.

The degree of realness is always part of the childishness: George's boss who picks on him, making other underlings laff--George's revenge prank plot, Elaine charging all sortsa toys, incl for friends, on her boss account, wheeee-'til called in by administrators, and of course Mr. Peterman eventually comes back from his Southeast Aisian playground, awww poor Lainie! George takes job and immediately wants perk of palacial bathroon eqipped for handicapped, so he cosplays as one, etc etc. (yer right)
Re Season 1 handicaps: Seinfield later said "Too much testosterone," didn't work 'til JLD showed up. and indeed, her debut ep immediately seems better overall. Also, not being from sketch comedy, he was struck by her improv experiments in rehearsal---especially pratfalls in a Chanel suit: "I could never do that."Her skillz gave actors Michael Richard and Jason something compatible to work with, a little further away from The Jerry Zone.

(Richard and Larry David and several actors who show up over the years on Seinfeld were on ABC's Fridays, a blatant lift of Saturday Night Live's format etc, but a good 'un, pretty often.)

OEO i do think you're on to something, but also this unreality of work is endemic to all sitcoms not set at a workplace (and even some of those i'd reckon).

well sure, i guess thats true. idk maybe it just struck me differently because i watched it all in one large dose, but it felt like there was something about the way that stuff is presented that felt very particular to his sort of weird blinkered view of the world, living a life being attended to by service workers, and imagining that all of them are as singlemindedly consumed with the object of their work as he is with comedy - his barber spends all day fantasizing about hair, his health club pool guy is obsessed with towels, etc

Oh yeah, deliberately so---I used to wonder if Larry David got the basic idea from Woody Allen's Manhattan, the black & white, white, affluent enough, though characters don't think so, insular. urban fretfest after cute, colorfully expansive Annie Hall---but it's an urban syndrome from way back, though mainly represented in movies before this---which is what NBC's Brandon Tartekoff worried about: would AMERICA take to "four Jews walking around New York complaining." Also, the rules were: "No hugging, no lessons learned," in "a show about nothing"---nothing for everyone, a comedy 2nite.

is it ever revealed what exactly it is George does with the Yankees? again kinda proves OEO's point, he just "works for the Yankees" and gets to meet the players and what not but never really does any work

love how future-jerry is wearing an ugly gold necklace there for some reason

for me the best part is that goofy head shake thing that Kramer does at the end. sometimes the funniest shit this show does is the most inexplicable. honestly one of my favorite jokes in the whole series is the one where Jerry is in the confession booth and when he pops out George is there for some reason and he just goes "Jerry I need to talk to you!!" as though George either knows where Jerry is at all times or never strays further than 500 feet from him.

xpost originally it was 'assistant to traveling secretary", but I think he got promoted?

nothing will ever top for me...

"you made all the stops?"
"THEY KEPT RINGING THE BELL!"

do people pronounce roof "ruff" like jerry and kramer in that clip

Season 1 is dire. it doesn't even feel like the same show, outside of one or two eps

― Cool Im An Situation (Neanderthal), Monday, November 29, 2021 5:57 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i like season 1. and it's only 5 episodes (because the network was so reluctant to give them a show). but maybe not a good place to start if you've never watched the show before

rewatching parts of the pilot the only thing I can think is "no network today would even consider picking this up"

is it ever revealed what exactly it is George does with the Yankees?

aside from the yankees, theres plenty of episodes where george & others have office jobs where they either do nothing or literally dont even know what their job is. thinking of the ep w/george and the 'pensky file', or the one where kramer starts showing up to an office ("i dont even really work here" / "thats what makes this so difficult"). by the last season when george works at Kruger Industrial Smoothing its to the point where even mr kruger doesnt seem totally clear on what they all are supposed to be doing. theres definitely a running thread of 'office jobs' being a weird interzone where nobody actually does anything yet jobs are sustained through some kind of strange alchemy. not hard to picture jerry & larry david waking up after late nights of standup, looking at crowds of commuting nyc office workers and thinking "what on earth could they possibly be doing all day thats so damn important?"

Holy crap, I didn't remember that this first episode broadcast w Elaine (second one filmed) was also the second ep of Season 1---took her a while to save the show, if she did (which was the one where she's yelling "STELLLAHHH" like Brando?)
Several reviewers quoted here were not so impressed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stake_Out_(Seinfeld)
Then,
"Male Unbonding" is the fourth episode of the first season of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld and aired on June 14, 1990. Despite airing fourth, it was the second episode produced.[1][2]
...This is the first episode written which stars the character of Elaine. The first version of the script does not include Elaine, despite the fact that one of the conditions given when Seinfeld was given a series was that a female character was included.[1] Originally, the character's name was Eileen.[6] Louis-Dreyfus claims that she was unhappy with only being given one scene in the first episode in which she appeared, but said that she performed well in the episode.[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_Unbonding

read this on Twitter but its crazy that one of the most popular sitcom episodes of all time has a scene where we know one of the main characters is jacking off

Wha?
xpost The one where she yells like Brando (having taking muscle relaxers or something, after sleeping on horrible thing in Seinfeld parental condo) is the first ep I remembered in which everything came into focus (in a way I enjoyed). Also, before she shows up in the condo, Jerry tells his parents that they broke up because the sex wasn't compatible, and parents for the first time look embarrassed, like they've suddenly met their match as hep parents of a rising star of today.

OEO, your nyc subway theory of the case totally sold it for me... you should probably pitch this article somewhere!

(no pressure)

I think Larry David is maybe an even worse actor than Jerry Seinfeld

― fetter, Monday, November 29, 2021 1:50 PM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk I think Larry is pretty good at playing a version of himself, Jerry on the other hand doesn't really seem to be playing an actual person

this scene from 'the busboy' s2e12, where elaine wakes up and realizes she slept through her alarm and the guy visiting her who she can't stand may miss his flight, and frantically packs, is one of the greatest elaine scenes imho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSJ7AKcHgLI

and this one--where george lies about the IQ test elaine helped him cheat on--is one of my all-time fav george scenes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12KOazXUobw

i don't think Jerry being a bad actor is a big deal. i disagree that he 'doesnt seem like he's playing a person' (not even sure what that means). it's a comedy where he plays himself, and he writes his own lines. i think it's safe to say he is playing a real person--namely, himself. imo his acting is only occasionally distractingly bad, and it's mostly noticeable because the other actors are so unusually talented for sitcoms. also, while he might be a bad actor, he's a master of cadence (from stand-up) and the show is mostly chatty conversations. so it plays to his strengths. his dialogues with George are pitch-perfect

yeah, he's very good at the smug, straight-man delivery, which is most of what the writers give him. I even kinda like the moments where his acting is noticeably bad (like the ep when he starts to "care"). I think the joke usually still comes across and his bad acting holds some humor in itself

jerry actually wrote the final draft of every episode with Larry David, so i don't know if it makes sense to think of his lines as something 'the writers gave him'

my understanding of the writing process is writers would constantly be pitching story ideas to larry david, and whenever he found one funny enough, they would write up a rough draft, and then after a table read jerry and larry would lock themselves in their office to write the final draft. apparently jerry's specialty was in polishing the dialogue (which is consistent with curb being mostly improvised) and giving it that signature seinfeld 'musical' quality

idk I think Larry is pretty good at playing a version of himself,

the greatest continuity between the two shows is the extremely unrealistic acting of the leads amidst a sea of more convincing professionals

public appearances since Seinfeld the show ended have made it clear that this aloof disconnection from human feeling is closer to IRL Jerry’s mien than a writing exaggeration or an acting flaw

But “the extremely unrealistic acting of the leads” is not a detriment of either show!

"Frank, come 'ere!"
"YOU come 'ere!"

— he "doesnt seem like he's playing a person" = he very often moves basically like a puppet (when he turns, when he runs), it's a kind of shtick yes, but it's also him signalling (for the joke of it) "i'm doing this instead of what an actor would do"
— he has no real idea what to do when others are speaking and generally stands like a bemused lump with his mouth slackly a little open
— the only way i can parse "he plays himself" as a deliberate move is that he's choosing to play as the show's writer-director standing on-stage with its actual players, and that's where the passivity comes from (but it's not a choice he's making, it's being made by his not knowing what else to do). and it works! bcz it's funny! so he had no good incentive to "get better" (probably if he got "better" he'd be worse i.e. less funny)

from early on all the others have a very clear idea of what their (silent) physical character is, which they inhabit while speaking (obviously) but also while others are speaking. they're all stylised weirdos obviously -- and over time become cartoons of themselves a bit -- but physically working at character even when they're quiet. elaine's mouth is also often open as others speak but she's extremely dynamic and alert phsyically with this, it's an active receptivity, it's the opposite of slack

Are ppl still watching seinfeld, the half-note show

"(but it's not a choice he's making, it's being made by his not knowing what else to do)"

it's also being made by his having a second larger job the others don't have, which is constantly judging the overall effectiveness of how everyone is delivering the material he's written -- but despite what flopson says i don't think he's "acting" this second dimension by choice

I think Seinfeld's approach to acting is in concert with his approach to the sitcom in that he doesn't seem to respect the medium and craft or it is irrelevant to his purposes.

This is made explicit by my favorite stretch of the show when they are selling the sitcom to NBC and then filming it - it has near Charlie Kauffman approaches to irony and identity (for instance, George's reactions to the actors auditioning for George) - highlighting the message "can you believe this shitty tv show we are making?". Seinfeld's acting delivers this same message as well as insulating Jerry from having to deal with his obvious acting limitations.

Yeah, season four is kind of astounding. One of my favorite seasons of a television show ever.

All the middle seasons blur together in my mind. Like some others, don't much like S1, and I remember it tailing off near the end. I liked the really surreal stuff the best, like the pilot within the show about the show about Larry David's life, or the Merv Griffin episode.

yeah idk if S4 is particularly better than the other ones (minus S1 of course) but as a whole it's a really cool accomplishment, especially since the Jerry show itself is basically awful

the season of Curb where they did the Seinfeld reunion was also really cool. I think they both realized an actual reunion could not help but be lame so if there was any way to actually do it this was it. by the final episode it probably got more meta than Seinfeld ever was

Was thinking again about childish views of "work," "jobs" on this, and as One Eye Open also observed, so many other sitcoms--but then realized there was a glorious exception: on King of Queens, everybody has jobs, and they always matter, one way or another, in each ep---even Arthur, Jerry Stiller's character, has jobs sometimes, and it's amazing, like watching Kramer at work would have to be. (The real life Kenny Kramer's hustles inspired some eps, like he was a hand model agent, and wrangled a creative consultant's stipend for the series, also ran Kramer's Seinfeld Reality Tour, which maybe should have been in series finale, run by Kosmo Kramer, of course).

criminal to put “glorious” in front of King of queens. best sitcom for depicting work is Taxi imo

Roseanne is good in this regard

when george works at Kruger Industrial Smoothing its to the point where even mr kruger doesnt seem totally clear on what they all are supposed to be doing. theres definitely a running thread of 'office jobs' being a weird interzone where nobody actually does anything yet jobs are sustained through some kind of strange alchemy

Reminded of course of the running joke in Friends where nobody is really sure what Chandlers job is

I still marvel at this scene and imagine how much fun it must have been to write:

JERRY'S APARTMENT
JERRY: Oh, I'm glad you're here, so we can get this all straightened out. Would you like a cup of tea?
BOOKMAN: You got any coffee?
JERRY: Coffee?
BOOKMAN: Yeah. Coffee.
JERRY: No, I don't drink coffee.
BOOKMAN: Yeah, you don't drink coffee? How about instant coffee?
JERRY: No, I don't have--
BOOKMAN: You don't have any instant coffee?
JERRY: Well, I don't normally--
BOOKMAN: Who doesn't have instant coffee?
JERRY: I don't.
BOOKMAN: You buy a jar of Folger's Crystals, you put it in the cupboard, you forget about it. Then later on when you need it, it's there. It lasts forever. It's freeze-dried. Freeze-dried Crystals.
JERRY: Really? I'll have to remember that.
BOOKMAN: You took this book out in 1971.
JERRY: Yes, and I returned it in 1971.
BOOKMAN: Yeah, '71. That was my first year on the job. Bad year for libraries. Bad year for America. Hippies burning library cards, Abby Hoffman telling everybody to steal books. I don't judge a man by the length of his hair or the kind of music he listens to. Rock was never my bag. But you put on a pair of shoes when you walk into the New York Public Library, fella.
JERRY: Look, Mr. Bookman. I--I returned that book. I remember it very specifically.
BOOKMAN: You're a comedian, you make people laugh.
JERRY: I try.
BOOKMAN: You think this is all a big joke, don't you?
JERRY: No, I don't.
BOOKMAN: I saw you on TV once; I remembered your name--from my list. I looked it up. Sure enough, it checked out. You think because you're a celebrity that somehow the law doesn't apply to you, that you're above the law?
JERRY: Certainly not.
BOOKMAN: Well, let me tell you something, funny boy. Y'know that little stamp, the one that says "New York Public Library"? Well that may not mean anything to you, but that means a lot to me. One whole hell of a lot. Sure, go ahead, laugh if you want to. I've seen your type before: Flashy, making the scene, flaunting convention. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. What's this guy making such a big stink about old library books? Well, let me give you a hint, junior. Maybe we can live without libraries, people like you and me. Maybe. Sure, we're too old to change the world, but what about that kid, sitting down, opening a book, right now, in a branch at the local library and finding drawings of pee-pees and wee-wees on the Cat in the Hat and the Five Chinese Brothers? Doesn't HE deserve better? Look. If you think this is about overdue fines and missing books, you'd better think again. This is about that kid's right to read a book without getting his mind warped! Or: maybe that turns you on, Seinfeld; maybe that's how y'get your kicks. You and your good-time buddies. Well I got a flash for ya, joy-boy: Party time is over. Y'got seven days, Seinfeld. That is one week!

joy-boy!

Yeah great scene

weird that he says he doesn't drink coffee though, isn't he always supping it in the Toms diner?

no television show in history had a better cast of one-off characters, right? I mean what even comes close

Xp it's pointed out elsewhere in the show that Jerry drinks decaf.

Really, well if that isn't justification for a full re-watch I don't know what is.

Actually decaf tea iirc.