Seinfeld on DVD

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The first three seasons of Seinfeld came out in the UK on monday, i got mine today. Watched one episode, the pilot, which i'd never seen before. It's *dreadful*! Here's hoping the extras make up for it...

stevie (stevie), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:48 (twenty years ago)

its on in syndication in the us at least 6 episodes a day. no need for me to buy the dvd.

Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:59 (twenty years ago)

It's a long time since i saw it so can't remember it's goodness or otherwise but one *dreadful* episode does not require great extras to attone for it when there are another 39 eps of excellence in the box set.

mms (mms), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 16:09 (twenty years ago)

the pilot is crap but if you didnt already know that seinfeld is genius why did you spend 50 quid on the box?

jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:23 (twenty years ago)

I'll probably get this for my dad, but I really want it too. I don't have tv, so I haven't even seen a re-run in a couple years.

Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:24 (twenty years ago)

Watched the documentary on the fourth disc last night and Larry David finds it tough to watch the pilot too because the network had rewritten a chunk of what they had done and Larry and Jerry then had to fight to get their own stuff back in and they were only partially successful. David also had a problem with the director that was used. Very interesting doc and worth a watch.

mms (mms), Friday, 5 November 2004 11:24 (twenty years ago)

I so want this, but I lack an income, or indeed any money whatsoever.

Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Friday, 5 November 2004 11:26 (twenty years ago)

what series are worth forking out for? i mean, simpsons 1&2 are okay and 3 is better but 4-9 is essential genius. how does seinfeld break down? i've watched it loads but never know which season they come from and not being a completist i don't like filling my house with junk i don't need.

Pete W (peterw), Friday, 5 November 2004 11:37 (twenty years ago)

I think most aficionados rate Season 4 as the best Seinfeld season, I disagree because I found they got progressively more surreal after that right up until Larry David stopped inputting. I actually like seasons 6 and 8 the most.

Season 9, good grief, has some absolute corkers, but it has some stinkers too.

Of the ones that are already released, get season 2. The Chinese Restaurant, The Pony Remark and The Apartment, etc etc.

edward o (edwardo), Friday, 5 November 2004 12:00 (twenty years ago)

thanks!

Pete W (peterw), Friday, 5 November 2004 12:10 (twenty years ago)

Season 9's the best! Easy!

Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 5 November 2004 12:12 (twenty years ago)

season 3 is pretty cool - it has The Limo and The Pez Dispenser... which is the season where they film their own sitcom?

stevie (stevie), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:41 (twenty years ago)

Seasons 1-3 are only packaged together, right?

Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:45 (twenty years ago)

I didn't like S1 or S2 and only liked a handful of S3 episodes. Curb Your Enthusiasm to me is like a version of Seinfeld S1-S3 that works. S4-S9 are absolutely genius though, save an episode here and there.

I kind of agree there's no reason to buy the DVDs in the US though...

Vinnie (vprabhu), Friday, 5 November 2004 17:01 (twenty years ago)

The show only came into its stride in Season 3, but I have a lot of respect for what they were trying to do in the first two seasons. Those first few couple dozen shows were all about an entire episode in one location -- and hence, one storyline. Apparently, the idea of using disparate storylines that magically came together at the end was a lightbulb idea for Seinfeld and David.

jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 5 November 2004 17:12 (twenty years ago)

From the feature on Larry David in The New Yorker:

The show’s pivotal moment came in the third season, in 1991. Charles remembers walking with David from the “Seinfeld” offices in Studio City up to Fryman Canyon to try to break a story: the library-cop episode, in which Jerry is investigated for keeping a book out for twenty years. “We had a couple of strands, and I don’t know if it was the oxygen from the walking, but we were very exhilarated,” Charles said. “We went, ‘What if the book that was overdue was in the homeless guy’s car? And the homeless guy was the gym teacher that had done the wedgie? And what if, when they return the book, Kramer has a relationship with the librarian?’

“Suddenly it’s like—why not? It’s like, boom boom boom, an epiphany—quantum theory of sitcom! It was, like, nobody’s doing this! Usually, there’s the A story, the B story—no, let’s have five stories! And all the characters’ stories intersect in some sort of weirdly organic way, and you just see what happens. It was like—oh my God. It was like finding the cure for cancer.”

jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 5 November 2004 17:15 (twenty years ago)

(Actually, I meant to say the show hit its stride in Season 4.)

jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 5 November 2004 17:16 (twenty years ago)

i love how Kramer is always the mack daddy. the lab chick, the librarian....

Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Friday, 5 November 2004 17:19 (twenty years ago)

He's got the Kavorka.

nickn (nickn), Friday, 5 November 2004 20:07 (twenty years ago)

cable boy... what have you done to my beautiful cable boy???

stevie (stevie), Tuesday, 9 November 2004 10:11 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...
rented series 1. wow: this is the fugliest thing ever. is the betterness of later seasons related to improved clothing/decor/hair? i can hardly bare to watch as is.

henry miller, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 15:33 (twenty years ago)

got season 3 a couple days ago, busy watching them all like 3 times in a row.

m. (mitchlnw), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

I watched seasons 1-3 recently, except for the pilot. Season 1 is kinda painful, yeah, but by 3 it's rollin'. I can't wait for the next season, they're such delicious little 21 minute chunks of comedy.

Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:27 (twenty years ago)

The show only came into its stride in Season 3

Season 1 is kinda painful

but i disagree! i love 'em all!!! the busboy is a stone cold classic! and the pony remark is great, too. and the chinese restaurant. and the revenge! sure, you can see how the series undergoes changes from being jerry's schtick to becoming an organic mess of them all four, but seasons 1-2 are still GREAT. even the pilot:

Jerry's friend: "I can't wait to get on that boat!"
Jerry: "Me too!"

Jay-Kid (Jay-Kid), Friday, 14 January 2005 14:45 (twenty years ago)

true the clothes and decor haven't aged well but come ON, it's all about the knowledge it'll soon blossom into sth great. the first few episodes are just good, later on they hit their stride.

"MAYBE THE DINGO ATE YOUR BABY!"

"What did you say?"

stevie nixed (stevie nixed), Friday, 14 January 2005 15:42 (twenty years ago)

"MAYBE THE DINGO ATE YOUR BABY!"

Funniest damn line in the first 3 series if not the whole thing. Just about coughed up a lung first time I watched that ep.

mms (mms), Friday, 14 January 2005 15:46 (twenty years ago)

I watched a couple of episodes with Ally C the other night. I started off by gnashing my teeth every time that stupid bass music came on, but in the end I found that doing a silly dance to it diminished the agony somewhat.

Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 14 January 2005 15:48 (twenty years ago)

i've come to love that slap bass.

Jay-Kid (Jay-Kid), Friday, 14 January 2005 16:16 (twenty years ago)

"MAYBE THE DINGO ATE YOUR BABY!"

the stranded is a classic, too.

Jay-Kid (Jay-Kid), Friday, 14 January 2005 16:17 (twenty years ago)

i've come to love that slap bass

Stockholm syndrome right there.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 14 January 2005 16:18 (twenty years ago)

you got that right. but then again, i'm completely uncritical when it comes to anything that has got to do with jerry s.

Jay-Kid (Jay-Kid), Friday, 14 January 2005 16:34 (twenty years ago)

There is a real indie quality to the Seinfeld backstory; how the show was even allowed to be made and the continual battle pitched by industry and critical uber-fans to keep it from being cancelled.

I guess it was around season 4, which I feel is the peak of the show's creative output, with the (in)famous "masturbation contest" that the show became a watercooler show that blew up in popularity and became a mainstream smash.

Most of us Seinfeld fanboys monomaniacally insist the best years were 1-4, before the series broke into the stratosphere. Its just like the whole indie rock thing, when your favorite band breaks and you run around sniffing that "yea, they are really great, but you should have seen them before they got big, when they had nothing to lose" or something like that.

I think what I love most about the show, particuarly in the early years (there I go again), is the organic braininess due mostly to the vision of Larry David. It's the same quality that makes me revere the first 5 seasons of MST3K with Joel Hodgson and lose interest as the show got bigger and less intimate.

j.m. lockery (j.m. lockery), Saturday, 15 January 2005 03:49 (twenty years ago)

Elaine became progressively sexier, with a sharper wardrobe and better hairstyles, as the series progressed, don't you find?

My favourite cameo actor was the wooden rabbi. Was that a later or earlier episode?

thee music mole, Saturday, 15 January 2005 06:28 (twenty years ago)


I don't know which season he was on (how many shows was he in?), but
that wooden rabbi was Bruce Mahler, who was on the ABC show Fridays with Larry David and Michael Richards.

nickn (nickn), Saturday, 15 January 2005 08:46 (twenty years ago)

Elaine became progressively sexier, with a sharper wardrobe and better hairstyles, as the series progressed, don't you find?

Very true - or, as louis-dreyfus says on the commentary track on one of the first episodes on the dvd, when she sees herself:

"Those over-sized clothes - it's painful!"

Jay-Kid (Jay-Kid), Sunday, 16 January 2005 16:24 (twenty years ago)


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