seinfeld
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the show
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself. Set predominantly in an apartment block on Manhattan’s Upper West Side (but shot in Los Angeles), the show features a host of Jerry’s friends and acquaintances, in particular best friend George Costanza, former girlfriend Elaine Benes, and neighbor across the hall Cosmo Kramer. Seinfeld was produced by Castle Rock Entertainment in association with Columbia Pictures Television in syndication the series was distributed by Columbia Pictures Television and Columbia TriStar Television; Sony Pictures Television has distributed the series since 2002. It was largely co-written by David and Seinfeld with input from numerous script writers, including Larry Charles, Peter Mehlman, Gregg Kavet, Andy Robin, Carol Leifer, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer, Steve Koren, Jennifer Crittenden, Tom Gammill, Max Pross, Charlie Rubin, Marjorie Gross, Alec Berg, Elaine Pope, and Spike Feresten. A critical favorite, commercial blockbuster and cultural phenomenon, the show led the Nielsen ratings in its sixth and ninth seasons and finished among the top two (along with NBC’s ER) every year from 1994 to 1998. In 2002, TV Guide named Seinfeld the greatest television program of all time. In 1997, the episodes “The Boyfriend” and “The Parking Garage” were respectively ranked #4 and #33 on TV Guide’s 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. And in 2009, “The Contest” was ranked #1 on the same magazine’s list of “TV’s Top 100 Episodes of All Time”. E! named it the “number 1 reason the ‘90s ruled.” Seinfeld stood out from the many family and group sitcoms of its time. None of the principal Seinfeld characters were related by family or work connections but remained distinctively close friends throughout the seasons. Unlike many other sitcoms, Seinfeld focused less on a plot-driven story than on minutiae, such as waiting in line at the movies, going out for dinner, buying a suit and dealing with the petty injustices of life. The main characters and many recurring characters were based primarily on Seinfeld’s and David’s real-life acquaintances. Two of the most prominent recurring characters were based on well-known people: Jacopo Peterman (based on John Peterman), and George Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees.
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season rundown
SEASON ONE premiered as The Seinfeld Chronicles on July 5, 1989. After it aired, a pickup by NBC did not seem likely and the show was actually offered to Fox, which declined to pick it up. Rick Ludwin, head of late night and special events for NBC, however, diverted money from his budget, and the next four episodes were filmed. These episodes were highly rated as they followed Cheers on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m., and the series was finally picked up. At one point NBC considered airing these episodes on Saturdays at 10:30 p.m., but instead gave that slot to a short-lived sitcom called FM. The series was renamed Seinfeld after the failure of short-lived 1990 ABC series The Marshall Chronicles. After airing in the summer of 1990, the series’ second season was bumped off its scheduled premiere of January 16, 1991, due to the start of the Persian Gulf war. It settled in a regular time slot on Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. and eventually flipped with veteran series Night Court to 9:00. Seinfeld was championed by television critics in its early seasons, even as it was yet to cultivate a substantial audience. For the first three seasons, Jerry’s stand-up comedy act would bookend an episode, for a while even functioning as cut scenes during the show. A few episodes set a benchmark for later seasons. “The Deal” shows the only time Jerry and Elaine tried to become a couple by setting rules about sleeping together. “The Parking Garage” is really the first episode shot without an audience for the entire run. In connection between Season 3 and 4, “The Keys” makes a breakthrough between NBC and CBS showing Murphy Brown as rival networks working together and opening up that the main cast is not going to be tied to Jerry’s apartment all the time. The episode, “The Busboy” really introduces George, Kramer and Elaine as having their own storylines for the first time. Although Glenn Padnick thought Jerry Seinfeld was being too generous, it became a unique trademark that showcased his co-stars comedic talent throughout the series. An episode in Season 2, titled “The Bet” written by Larry Charles, showed Elaine buying a gun from Kramer’s friend. This episode was, however, not filmed because the content was deemed unacceptable and was hastily replaced by the episode “The Phone Message”. An episode “The Stranded” which was aired in Season 3 was originally intended to air in Season 2. In the beginning of this episode, Jerry clears up the continuity error over George’s real estate job. SEASON FOUR marked the sitcom’s entry into the Nielsen ratings Top 30, coinciding with several popular episodes, such as “The Bubble Boy”, in which George and the bubble boy are arguing over Trivial Pursuit, and “The Junior Mint” in which Kramer and Jerry accidentally
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fumble over the mint in the operating room. This was the first season to use a story arc, in which Jerry and George try to create their own sitcom, Jerry. Also at this time, Jerry’s stand-up act slowly declined, and the stand-up segment in the middle of Seinfeld episodes was cut. Much publicity followed the controversial episode, “The Contest”, an Emmy Award-winning episode written by co-creator Larry David, whose subject matter was considered inappropriate for primetime network television. To circumvent this taboo, the word “masturbation” was never used in the script itself, instead substituted by a variety of oblique references. Midway through that season, Seinfeld was moved from its original 9:00 p.m. time slot on Wednesdays to 9:30 p.m. on Thursdays, following Cheers again, which gave the show even more popularity. The move was also sparked by ratings, as Tim Allen’s sitcom Home Improvement on ABC had aired at the same time and Improvement kept beating Seinfeld in the ratings. NBC moved the series after Ted Danson had announced the end of Cheers and Seinfeld quickly surpassed the ratings of the 9:00 p.m. Cheers reruns that spring. The show won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1993, beating out its family-oriented and time-slot competitor Home Improvement, which was only in its second season on fellow network ABC. SEASON FIVE was an even bigger ratings-hit, as it consisted of many popular episodes such as “The Puffy Shirt” in which Jerry feels embarrassed wearing the “pirate” shirt on The Today Show, “The Non-Fat Yogurt” featuring Rudy Guilani who was the Republican mayor of New York at the time and “The Opposite” in which George begins his career with the “New York Yankees” and Elaine quits “Pendant Publishing”. Another story arc has George returning to live with his parents. In the midst of the story arc, Kramer creates and promotes his coffee table book. The show was again nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series, but lost to the Cheers spin-off Frasier, which was only in its first season. Seinfeld was nominated for the same award every year for the rest of its run but always lost to Frasier, which went on to win a record 39 Emmy Awards. SEASON SIX remained well-regarded and produced some of its most famous episodes, such as “The Race” in which the Superman music theme is used as Jerry raced, “The Switch”, when Kramer’s mother revealed that his first name is Cosmo and “The Understudy” in which Elaine meets Peterman for the first time. Story arcs used in this season were Elaine working as a personal assistant to her eccentric boss Justin Pitt as well as George’s parents’ temporary separation. This was also the first season in which Seinfeld reached Number 1 5
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in the Nielsen Ratings. Jerry’s stand-up act further declined with the end stand-up segment no longer in use as the storylines for all four characters got more dense. SEASON SEVEN involved a story arc where George got engaged to his former girlfriend, Susan Ross. He spends most of the season regretting the engagement and trying to get out of it. Two notable one-hour episodes where aired, including “The Cadillac” in which George plans to date an award winning actress Marisa Tomei and “The Bottle Deposit” with Elaine and Sue Ellen participating in a bidding war to buy JFK’s golf clubs in an auction. Following the anthrax scare of 2001, the episode, “The Invitations” was temporarily not shown in syndication due to the concern that it might seem objectionable and insensitive to portray Susan’s death due to licking toxic envelopes. SEASON EIGHT ratings were still going strong, even though Larry David left at the end of Season 7, so Seinfeld assumed David’s duties as showrunner, and, under the direction of a new writing staff, Seinfeld became a more fast-paced show. The show no longer contained extracts of Jerry performing stand-up comedy, and storylines occasionally delved into fantasy, absurd humor. An example being “The Bizarro Jerry”, when Elaine is torn between exact opposites of her friends or when Jerry dates a woman who has the now-famed “man hands”. Notable episodes include “The Little Kicks” showing Elaine’s horrible dancing, and “The Chicken Roaster” which depicts the Kenny Rogers Roasters chicken restaurant which opened during that time. A story arc in this season involves Peterman going to Burma in “The Foundation” until he recovered from a nervous breakdown in “The Money”, followed by Elaine writing Peterman’s biography in “The Van Buren Boys” which leads to Kramer’s parody of Kenny Kramer’s Reality Tour seen in “The Muffin Tops”. SEASON NINE included episodes such as “The Merv Griffin Show” in which Kramer converts his apartment into a talk-show studio and play the character of talk-show host, “The Betrayal” that follows in reverse chronology order what happened to Sue Ellen’s wedding in India and “The Frogger” where George pushes a Frogger machine across the street. The last season included a story arc in which Elaine has an on/ off relationship with David Puddy. Despite the enormous popularity and willingness from the rest of the cast to return for a tenth season, Seinfeld decided he should end the show after its ninth season in an effort to maintain quality and “go out on top”. NBC offered him $110 million but he declined the offer. 7
themes
Seinfeld broke several conventions of mainstream television. The show, often described as being about “nothing”, became the first television series since Monty Python’s Flying Circus to be widely described as postmodern. Several elements of Seinfeld fit in with a postmodern interpretation. The show is typically driven by humor interspersed with superficial conflict and characters with strange dispositions. Many episodes revolved around the characters becoming involved in the lives of others to typically disastrous results. On the set, the notion that the characters should not develop or improve throughout the series was expressed as the “no hugging, no learning” rule. Unlike most sitcoms, there are no moments of pathos; the audience is never made to feel sorry for any of the characters. Even Susan’s death in the series elicits no genuine emotions from anyone in the show. The characters were “thirty-something singles with no roots, vague identities, and conscious indifference to morals.” Usual conventions, such as isolating the characters from the actors playing them and separating the characters’ world from that of the actors and audience, were broken. One such example is the story arc in which the characters promote a television sitcom series named Jerry. The show within the show, Jerry, was much like Seinfeld in that it was “about nothing” and Seinfeld played himself. The fictional Jerry was launched in the Season 4 finale, but unlike the real Seinfeld, it was not picked up as a series. Many Seinfeld episodes are based on its writers’ real-life experiences. For example, “The Revenge” is based on Larry David’s experience at Saturday Night Live. “The Contest” and “The Phone Message” are also based on David’s experiences. “The Smelly Car” is based on Peter Mehlman’s lawyer friend, who could not get a bad smell out of his car. “The Strike” is based on Dan O’Keefe’s dad, who made up his own holiday - Festivus. Other stories take on a variety of different turns. “The Chinese Restaurant” consists of the main characters (excluding Kramer) simply waiting for a table throughout the entire episode. “The Boyfriend”, revolving around Keith Hernandez, extends through two episodes. “The Betrayal” is famous for using reverse chronology, and was inspired by a similar plot device in a Harold Pinter play. Some stories were inspired by headlines and rumors, which are explained in the DVD features “Notes About Nothing”, “Inside Look”, and “Audio Commentary.” In “The Maestro”, Kramer’s lawsuit is roughly similar to the McDonald’s coffee case. “The Outing” is based mainly on rumors that Larry Charles heard about Jerry Seinfeld’s sexuality.
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jerry seinfeld
Portrayed by Jerry Seinfeld Occupation Stand Up Comedian Aliases Dylan Murphy Kel Varnsen Slappy White Joy Boy Religion Judaism
Jerry grew up in New York with George, who, according to “The Outing”, were friends ever since an encounter in gym class in their school days, although in “The Betrayal,” Jerry mentions that he once beat George up in the fourth grade. Jerry and George attended school together at Edward R. Murrow Middle School, John F. Kennedy High School and university at Queens College. After college, Jerry briefly worked as an umbrella salesman and reportedly invented the “twirl” to make the umbrella look more attractive. He eventually quit the job in order to focus more on his comedy career. In the show’s setting, Jerry is the straight man, a figure who is “able to observe the chaos around him but not always be a part of it.” Plot lines involving Jerry often concern his various relationships - Jerry often finds “stupid reasons to break up” with women which, according to Elaine, occurs “every week.” Jerry is generally completely indifferent to what goes on in his friends’ lives, seeing their misery as an entertaining distraction, as well as an opportunity for joke material. He often plays along with their hare-brained schemes, often just to see them fail. In the episode “The Serenity Now”, Jerry lets out his emotions and cries, and is perplexed by the experience (“What is this salty discharge?”). In “The Foundation” Elaine points out that he has “never felt remorse,” to which Jerry replies, “Yeah, I feel kinda bad about that.” He will often nonchalantly state, “That’s a shame” when something bad happens. Jerry, George and Elaine all share a general trait of not letting go of other character’s remarks and going to great lengths to be proven right. In one episode, Jerry goes out of his way to rent a house in Tuscany just because “The Maestro” told him there weren’t any available. Another example was when he bought his parents the same car over and over again, at great financial loss. 9
you ever d? 3 n i m a e r d e it’s like th is n a m e i g o o b ht g i r g n i m o c at you.
Cosmo Kramer ‘The Gymnast’ Season 6, Episode 6 10
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elaine benes
Portrayed by Julia Louis-Dreyfus Occupation Editor, PA to Mr. Pitt, Copy Writer for J. Peterman Religion Atheist
Elaine is normally intelligent and assertive, but also quite superficial. She is one of the boys, and despite the troubles they go through as a group, she remains the closest female friend to the main male cast throughout the entire series. Her traits are usually edgy and neurotic and she has a tendency to easily get angry with almost everyone. She has ruined her friends’ ambitions, like throwing George’s toupee out the window after trying to explain the irony behind it in “The Beard” or revealing what Jerry said in “The Cheever Letters” about the “panties her mother laid out for her”. Elaine is a serial dater, a trait lampooned in Season 7’s “The Sponge”, where she is desperate to buy a cache of discontinued contraceptive sponges before they are all bought up. She coins the word “spongeworthy” debating her then-boyfriend’s prospects of intimacy at the expense of her inventory. Her neuroses often interfere with her relationships, leading to the premature end of a blossoming relationship. For example, in “The Stall”, Elaine is dating Tony, a very good-looking athletic type. After a rock climbing accident mangles Tony’s face, Elaine admits to Jerry that she can’t date someone who isn’t attractive and wonders how long she is obligated to stay with him post-accident. Later, in “The Couch” after proclaiming her love for new boyfriend Carl, she immediately ends the relationship upon learning that he does not share her opinions on abortion. Elaine also is attracted to men with lucrative jobs, particularly doctors. Unlike Jerry, Kramer, and George, Elaine is not a native of New York, having grown up in the affluent Baltimore suburb of Towson, Maryland, and is shown in the series to be a fan of the Baltimore Orioles. She attended finishing school, and completed her undergraduate education at Tufts University, revealed to be her safety school in “The Puerto Rican Day Parade”, as a French Literature major.
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george costanza
Portrayed by Jason Alexander Occupation Real-estate agent Manuscript reader Screenwriter Hand model Aliases Art Vandelay Body Suit Man Buck Naked Biff Loman Mr. Weatherbee Liar Man T-Bone Koko the Monkey Gammy Cantstandya Religion Latvian Orthodox
George is neurotic, self-loathing, and dominated by his parents. Throughout Seinfeld’s first season, George was portrayed as a moderately intelligent character – at one point, he mentions an intellectual interest in the American Civil War and, in some early episodes, appears almost as a mentor to Jerry – but gets less sophisticated, to the point of being too lazy even to read a 90page book (Breakfast at Tiffany’s), preferring to watch the movie adaptation at a stranger’s house instead. However, one Chicago Tribune reviewer noted that, despite all of his shortcomings, George is “pretty content with himself”. George exhibits a number of negative character traits, among them stinginess, selfishness, dishonesty, insecurity, and neurosis. Many of these traits stem from a dysfunctional childhood with his squabbling parents Frank and Estelle, and often form the basis of his involvement in various plots, schemes, and awkward social encounters. Episode plots frequently feature George manufacturing elaborate deceptions at work or in his relationships in order to gain or maintain some small or imagined advantage or (pretend) image of success. He had success in “The Opposite”, in which he begins (with Jerry’s encouragement) to do the complete opposite of what his instincts tell him to do, which results in him getting a girlfriend and a job with the New York Yankees. George’s occasional impulsive bouts often get him into trouble, such as when he flees a burning kitchen, knocking over several children and an elderly woman in the process, so he could escape first during his girlfriend’s son’s birthday party in “The Fire”. However, there are moments where George exhibits remarkable courage, but usually accidentally, and usually because of inane lies which have brought trouble to George. 13
cosmo kramer
Portrayed by Michael Richards Occupation Generally unemployed Actor Non-fiction author Entrepreneur Model Aliases The Assman H. E. Pennypacker Dr. Martin van Nostrand Kessler The K Man Andre
Kramer has conflicting personality traits. A painting of him was described in “The Letter” by an art patron as “a loathsome, offensive brute”; he is sometimes shallow, callous, and indifferent. Though eccentric, Kramer is more often than not caring, friendly and kindhearted; he often goes out of his way to help total strangers, and tries to get his friends to also help others and to do the right thing even when they do not want to. His most incredible act of heroism is probably in “The Fire”, where he fights an armed criminal off a city bus and proceeds, after the driver passes out, to drive it across town himself, to save the severed pinky toe of a friend, all the while continuing to make the bus’ designated stops. Kramer is also known for his quirkiness and strange body movements which has become his trademark. Paradoxically, Kramer also gets his friends directly into trouble by talking them into unwise or even illegal actions such as parking illegally in a handicapped space (“The Handicap Spot”), urinating in a parking garage (“The Parking Garage”), committing mail fraud (“The Package”) or even hiring an assassin (who turns out to be Newman) to get rid of a dog (“The Engagement”). Kramer is also known to mooch off his friends, particularly Jerry. Kramer regularly enters and uses Jerry’s apartment without his consent or knowledge, and he often helps himself to Jerry’s food. Kramer is also known to use tools/appliances of Jerry’s, only occasionally with permission, and sometimes returning them in a broken state. Kramer is known for his extreme honesty and lack of tact; in “The Nose Job”, he tells George’s insecure girlfriend that she is as pretty as any girl in New York City; but needs a nose job. Instead of being horrified, many characters end up thanking Kramer for his candor.
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the cast
Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer Jason Alexander as George Costanza Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Benes Jerry Seinfeld as Jerry Seinfeld
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Larry David was the original voice of Newman in “The Revenge,” but Wayne Knight overdubbed the voice for syndication.
trivia
The restaurant exterior belongs to Tom’s Restaurant, which is the same restaurant that was immortalized in the Suzanne Vega song “Tom’s Diner.” It is near the Columbia University campus in Manhattan at West 112th Street and Broadway. The original script was called “Stand Up”. It was to be a 90-minute mockumentary about how a stand-up comedian writes his jokes based on his everyday life. It was to air in place of Saturday Night Live for one night. NBC liked the script so much that they decided to develop it into a pilot instead. The costume department always gave Michael Richards clothes that were one size too large, to make Kramer appear laid-back and loose. Conversely, they gave Jason Alexander clothes that were one size too small, to make George look uncool. The show’s often-repeated phrase, “Yada, yada, yada,” was ranked #1 in TV Guide’s list of TV’s 20 Top Catchphrases. Jerry is the only character to appear in every episode. Elaine does not appear in “The Seinfeld Chronicles” and “The Trip (Parts 1 and 2)”, Kramer does not appear in “The Chinese Restaurant” and “The Pen”, and George does not appear in “The Pen”. In the very first episode, the first conversation was between George and Jerry about a button. In the very last episode, when they were sitting in jail, the last conversation they had was the same thing. In the episode where Elaine dates a man named Joel Rifkin, she tries to have him change his name, since Joel Rifkin is also the name of a man involved in a notorious New York City murder case. One of the initial suggestions for a new name was O.J. This episode was shot in 1993, a year before O.J. Simpson was accused of murdering his exwife Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Voted the #1 top TV series of all time, beating out #2, I Love Lucy, and #3, The Honeymooners, in the list of 50 shows chosen by TV Guide editors, April 2002. Jerry Seinfeld turned down an offer from NBC that would have made him $110 million for a tenth season of the show.
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Out of the four main characters, Kramer is the only one to have never had an “inner monologue”. Rosie O’Donnell, Patricia Heaton, and Megan Mullally auditioned for the role of Elaine. Before the show was set to air, Jerry Seinfeld asked Jason Alexander what he thought their chances for success were. Alexander said he thought they “didn’t have a chance.” When asked why, Alexander responded, “Because the audience for this show is me, and I don’t watch TV.” Director Steven Spielberg once commented that while filming Schindler’s List, he got so depressed that he would watch tapes of Seinfeld episodes to cheer himself up. Jerry’s girlfriend’s infamous “man hands” were actually those of one of the show’s producers. Larry David based George Costanza on himself. Many of the situations George gets himself into are based on David’s real-life experiences. George is named after Jerry Seinfeld’s friend, Mike Costanza. George’s middle name, Louis, is an homage to Lou Costello of The Abbott and Costello Show which was a major influence on this series. Jason Alexander originally based his portrayal of George on Woody Allen which is why he wore glasses. When he realized that George was actually based on Larry David, he began basing his performance on David’s mannerisms. Jerry says “Hello, Newman” only 15 times in the entire series. Throughout the run of the series, Kramer rarely says “Yes”. Nearly all of his positive responses are slang variations (“Yup”, “Yeah!”, “Giddyup” etc). Two episodes where he does actually say “Yes” are “The Puffy Shirt” and “The English Patient”. Jerry Seinfeld was inspired to end the show after nine seasons by The Beatles, who broke up after nine years together.
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these e r a s l e z t pre making me thirsty.
Cosmo Kramer ‘The Alternate Side’ Season 3, Episode 11 18
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yada yada yada
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