Seinfeld: Classic or Dud

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

I was really really into this show from about the beginning, which would mean i must have started watching it around 10 or at the latest right before i became a teenager. I'd never been to New York or known any Jews but it was still LOLtastic to me. I think it speaks to the success of the show that you can make something a 13-year-old kid will find fucking hilarious, even if he doesn't understand half of it. I don't remember not getting any parts of the show, but that is probably because it was so funny and i was laughing so consistently that even if i did miss something, it didnt affect my enjoyment one bit.

I think the only other show i looked forward to was the Simpsons, which kinda makes sense. Both are relentlessly witty and somewhat bitter, and both shows exuded a joyful surrealism that somehow felt more real than any watered-down traditional sitcom could hope to.

A friend of mine made this interesting observation about Seinfeld: It's the one show where at the end of every episode, no one comes out better and everyone pretty much comes out worse. Their associations with each other never help each other, and only serve to drag them all down further. Nothing ever works out, and all their lives end up sucking.

No lessons, no hugs.

Two shows that came close to that: Larry Sanders and (surprisingly) Cheers. People often behave creepily on Larry Sanders, and only on rare occasions would the show cross the line into pathos (sometimes brilliantly). Cheers had a habit of going right up to the line where things turn maudlin, then there'd be a joke to undercut everything. They crossed the line, too, but far less often than most pre-Seinfeld sitcoms; I thought of it almost as a precursor to Seinfeld in that regard.

there are lots of shows like that now - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, for one. but yeah it was original at the time.

The structure/characters/feel of It's Always Sunny always make me think of Seinfeld if all the characters were even less empathetic and stupider

I just hope Always Sunny will never have to forever live in the shadow of Seinfeld, written off in pop-culture lit by nostalgia fetishist whom find it heresay that something so well liked could actually be not that good. See videogame phenomenon: Halo.

I assumed this revive was due to the death of an actor who played some character Sid Fields on an episode, obv named after the character/actor/writer from David & Seinfeld's fave The Abbott & Costello Show. (Fields was their apoplectic landlord.)

re: sunny, huh?
1. popularity is a pretty good indicator of crap (see weekly TV ratings)
2. Always Sunny isn't that popular (see weekly TV ratings)

Their getting short shrift from critical attention is more likely that it isn't popular enough, no matter how many dick towels they sold.

Morbs, I don't remember that guy from Seinfeld, but I just watched a West Wing episode a few days ago that he was in. Dude got steady work.

Looked at a picture of Fields and recognized him immediately as the ornery old guy who owned all the LPs that Kramer and Newman tried to sell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE_WXM93WdU

so

do beckham and posh watch Seinfeld?

yes

idgi

its just a comical misunderstanding

Oh god I thought our Hannah was joking about her being called 7???

Ohhh really? Seven?!

harper seven

Hannah told me first thing this morning when I was half asleep and I thought the kid was called Harper and was 7 pounds something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRUdaWZ4FN0

Would've preferred Mug Beckham tbh

Missed a chance to go with Mulva imo

^^^I always found it curious that Jerry never considered "Regina" as a plausible name in that episode

Posh and Becks were beaten to the name by Andre 3000 and Erykah Badu, anyway.

god dammit Myonga i've wondered for years what the actual name was but i think you've cracked it

i think the actual name was 'dolores'

Yeah, I was gonna say.

don't remember that bit

does that rhyme in a New York accent?

it rhymes when i say it in my head?!

its the tag to that episode fwiw - he sticks his head out of his window and sorta ruefully shouts 'DOLORES!' at her after shes presumably stormed out

oh god yeah now i remember

iirc they never had a name for her during the show, but as it was being taped they asked the audience what they thought it should be and some woman came up w/ Dolores

haha i didnt know that! i do think that dolores is a better joke than regina: sneakier and dirtier but still obvious enough once he shouts it

yeh dolores is better really. impressed i cd forget something like that for years

Idgi

dolores/clitoris

iirc, Jerry was with a girl and he couldn't remember her name, she told him it rhymed with a part of a woman's body, so he spent the episode trying to guess a female name that rhymed with a body part. at the end of the episode, after she storms out in disgust, he throws open his window and yells "Dolores"

I never got that. They don't even approach rhyming in my head.

It always kind of bugged me because it only rhymes if you pronounce clitoris a certain way which I think is the less common way of doing so. I don't pronounce it like that and that pronunciation sounds strange to me even though I think both are technically correct.

Weird because I feel like 90% of the time I've heard someone say it, its the way that rhymes with Dolores.

i think they took some "artistic license"

still p funny if you ask me

Wait, maybe not, maybe only like 65%. The more I keep trying out both in my head, the more confused I get as to which way I more often hear it.

^^^I always found it curious that Jerry never considered "Regina" as a plausible name in that episode

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Monday, July 11, 2011 1:21 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark

Americans pronounce Regina as Regeena so that wouldn't have worked.