Seinfeld: Classic or Dud

Jason Alexander was barely thirty for season one!

And Julia Louis-Dreyfus was two years younger than Ilana Glazer is now

they ended it right before it started to suck

One of my all-time favorite shows, but I've gotta disagree with that -- final two seasons sucked. I haven't watched those episodes enough to tell how much of it is the acting and how much is the writing, but the drop in quality was pretty dramatic.

the cast was Marx brothers level unbeatable.

you have a lot of insane opinions but this is next level

Everyone in old movies and tv shows look 15+ years older than they actually were.

I marvel at how I am the age of the Walshes and the other kids' parents in 90210, they look like they come from a different planet.

I think the hardest thing to identify with about Seinfeld the show is how often attention is drawn to Seinfeld the character needing to spend lots of money, but never ever enough to affect him negatively.

"oh well guess I gotta buy new washing machines for the laundromat"
"installed this new kitchen but it sucks, rip it all out"
"I've got to fly to Florida like 4 times this week! Yeesh"

I mean they did have that one scene where Kramer is shocked by how well Jerry is doing, but I always was distracted by how much money Jerry was comically forced to spend in the background and foreground most episodes without any financial consequence.

It definitely got weaker or less consistent in the last couple seasons, and the canonical classic eps are pretty much all in seasons 1-5. There's lots of good stuff later on but it got goofier, more surreal, and more aware that any little thing they included was practically a catchphrase already. Also the ground-level parking-garage observational stuff and comedy-of-manners material started taking a back seat to high-concept hijinks. The latter were still pretty well-done and I don't think it ever hit anything like the lows the Simpsons found after its peak, but it was definitely good that it wrapped when it did.

i still like the last couple seasons a lot, though any further move in that direction would have been lame. i actually think the first few seasons are the weak spot.

my recollection of Seinfeld's run was that like the Simpsons, the first couple seasons are fine, but it really peaks for those five seasons in the middle. it seemed like for awhile there every single episode was outstanding, pretty much.

it definitely dipped a bit towards the end but i think unlike the Simpsons it did trend back up a bit as it finished.

Season 8 is great, I think that's when the show was at peak surreal humor. There's a scene in "The Yada Yada" which is I think is brilliant, Jerry's in the confessional booth and George just randomly bursts in at the end and says, "Jerry I've got to talk to you". Always found that hilarious. Plus the Bizarro Jerry episode. Season 9 doesn't quite hold up as well but I think they're still plenty funny. I mean I definitely don't think the show should've ended sooner than it did.

and yeah if you haven't seen it the Curb/Seinfeld reunion season is amazing. I actually wish there was more fanservice stuff there, it's odd to bring back so many characters and only give them like one line. but the amount of meta-referencing that goes on there is incredible, beyond anything Seinfeld attempted even in its "fake pilot" days

I still think season 4 (where Jerry and George are working on the pilot for Jerry's show) is one of the best seasons of television ever.

I still think season 4 (where Jerry and George are working on the pilot for Jerry's show) is one of the best seasons of television ever.

― this is ridcolus (Old Lunch), Wednesday, September 27, 2017 11:29 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i find season 4 a weird outlier. they've fully established the characters and they're now perfectly formed, which took at least a couple of seasons to really happen. but the narrative arc throughout the season seems odd to me, it's not really what I'm looking for out of Seinfeld. also the joe davola stuff is too scary lol

and by ever you mean since 1980

xp

I'm finally digging into Broad City and getting my own NYC-life-recognition buzz off that. Seinfeld for me was more like trying to grasp what adults did and how they lived.

thank god seinfeld doesn't have weed smoking dubstep montages

xpost Well, since tv before 1980 wasn't generally interested in constructing season-long arcs, yeah, that is what I mean.

(Plus that thing where tv wasn't even good until, what, the mid-'90s?)

yadda yadda yadda

eff arcs

stand-alone episodes forevah

pictures morbs watching the phil silvers show and sugarfoot constantly

xpost I mostly only watch Rockford Files and Alfred Hitchcock Presents these days so I am largely inclined to agree with u atm.

the 70s columbo episodes are a lot better than the 80s/90s revival episodes. maybe morbs is right

lol Sugarfoot, that's a nice one jim but i have never seen it

the past week i have been bouncing between Twin Peaks 1990 and Dick Van Dyke

George wanting his coworkers to start calling him "T-Bone" is the funniest thing to me

Speaking of Seinfeld season 4, I just saw this supercut the other day:

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

they ended it right before it started to suck
One of my all-time favorite shows, but I've gotta disagree with that -- final two seasons sucked

i meant in the context of, say, The Simpsons, which just kept going. in a way i agree and those last seasons of Seinfeld are pretty bad but not _really bad_. certainly they were sliding in quality and getting more cartoonish. i think the tail end of "golden era" Simpsons had a lot of crap on the level of the last two seasons of Seinfeld (certainly Homer/Kramer parallel sliding further into surreal mascot status).

both were headed to the same arc, what do you do with these characters who already have hundreds of stories, whose characters have catchphrases and fans and expectations? maybe they parachuted out right as plane was starting to crash.

re "since 1980," i have seen and loved plenty of classic tv and seinfeld is right up there w/ the best of it, i'd rate it as the finest ever u.s. sitcom just behind the honeymooners. season four is glorious because the various little story arcs really do deepen the comedy and lead to incredible moments (like george's dumb story idea about the guy sentenced to be someone's butler -- and then a couple episodes later, george becomes that guy) whereas on other, lesser sitcoms it'd just be some soap-opera shit. and yes, elaine trapped in joe davola's apartment is genuinely scary and actually kind of hard to watch.

i had an eerie realization a while back: seinfeld ended in may 1998, the same month they aired the last episodes of simpsons season 9, which is probably the last gasp of "golden era" simpsons before the rot really sets in. now imagine if seinfeld were still on the air in 2017, with the same cast but all-new writers, and that's how bizarre it really is that the simpsons is still chugging away almost two decades later. puts me in mind of the stephen king story w/ the kid who gets stuck in limbo for millions of years and goes insane.

There’s a certain point where if you’re making too much money doing something you start to suck at it.

well, unless you're Spielberg

Ok, I'm on that script website, and looking over the episodes from the last two seasons "sucked" is probably too harsh -- remembering lots of decent bits and some great lines from them now, though as I replay them from memory the humor is blunted somewhat by the actors really over-doing their characters. The car dealership episode genuinely sucked.

I think I do agree they ended at the right time, noting that season 8 was fantastic.

I think the hardest thing to identify with about Seinfeld the show is how often attention is drawn to Seinfeld the character needing to spend lots of money, but never ever enough to affect him negatively.

"oh well guess I gotta buy new washing machines for the laundromat"
"installed this new kitchen but it sucks, rip it all out"
"I've got to fly to Florida like 4 times this week! Yeesh"

I honest to god never ever wondered about this. Perhaps because Jerry is the most 'cartoonish' character of the show (more so than Kramer even imo). It's part of the deal between the viewers and the creators; in order for it to be so good and so surreal at times, it's 'allowed' to not have to account for things like this. And for "a show about nothing" they spent way more time and detail on the mundane, the "excrutiating minutiae" to make up for leaving this be.

well, unless you're Spielberg

true, he sucked from the beginning

jerry is a successful comedian who appears on tv and plays lucrative club gigs. he lives in a one-bedroom apartment in a rent controlled building. within the show he is supposed to have quite a lot of disposable income. this doesn't really stretch credulity for me.

Kramer has to sit on the couch, he's so shocked.
KRAMER: My god, you're rich.
JERRY: (taking back the check) Oh yeah.
KRAMER: I didn't know you made that kinda money. (subdued) Jeez.
JERRY: What?
KRAMER: I don't think I can talk to you any more. I feel inferior.
JERRY: I never shoulda told you.
KRAMER: You know, Jerry, I think this changes the relationship. I mean, I
feel it. Do you feel it?
JERRY: No, I can't feel anything.
KRAMER: Well, what're you gonna do with all that money?
JERRY: Actually, I was thinking of donating a large portion of it to
charity.
KRAMER: (pleased) Really?
JERRY: (deadpan) No.

brutal

There's a weirdly Bojerry Horsefeldian quality when you see it written out like that.

julia louis-dreyfus has breast cancer

Just when you thought... pic.twitter.com/SbtYChwiEj

— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) September 28, 2017

dammit

in order for it to be so good and so surreal at times, it's 'allowed' to not have to account for things like this.

The grand living quarters of Friends was more of a distraction.

Bojerry Horsefeldian

lmfao

IT WAS MONICA’S GRANDMOTHER’S APARTMENT AND IT WAS RENT CONTROLLED AND THEY WERE SUBLETTING IT ILLEGALLY

IT WAS MONICA’S GRANDMOTHER’S APARTMENT AND IT WAS RENT CONTROLLED AND THEY WERE SUBLETTING IT ILLEGALLY

― sciatica, Thursday, September 28, 2017 11:26 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

huge if true

whoaa, squatter's rights

that is canon in the Friends universe

why was their apartment so huge and spacious and then joey and chandler's is just like a regular 2 bed apartment?

i am aware of different floor plans between apartments in a building obv because I'm not insane but that drastic a difference just across the hall on the same floor?

ok I started rewatching the series from the beginning on Hulu and you're right, all the stand up in the netflix special is pretty much taken from his his early standup (didn't realize it was more than two jokes, but the laundry one seemed familiar), all of which is used in the first three episodes of the series.

v sad news about JLD

There's lots of good stuff later on but it got goofier, more surreal, and more aware that any little thing they included was practically a catchphrase already. Also the ground-level parking-garage observational stuff and comedy-of-manners material started taking a back seat to high-concept hijinks.

The best episodes/seasons hit the right middle-point between these 2. 1st season can be very prosaic "so Jerry, do you tip the delivery man?" stuff and yeah like Cheers the last season or 2 was basically live-action cartoon.

the other day i overheard a young man explaining 'heLLLOOOOOOO' to a coworker, it was so quaint

JERRY: No, I can't feel anything.

haha

I thought that Netflix special was pretty good. You see music documentary/shows where an artist goes back and plays a gig in their original haunts with the material that made them, but I can't ever remember seeing a comedy special like that one. Considering it was 30+ year old material, it held up pretty well and was a unique way to do a documentary type show. Seinfeld's stand up style was always that more classic one bit into another type of comedy.