Seinfeld

Co-created by comedian Jerry Seinfeld, and his friend, also a stand-up comic, Larry David, Seinfeld (1989–1998) ran for nine seasons on NBC. The show was initially designed around Jerry (Seinfeld, playing a version of himself), but his three friends, George (played by Jason Alexander and based loosely on Larry David), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and Kramer (Michael Richards) would feature just as prominently. The four unmarried characters would gather at Jerry’s Upper West Side apartment or the neighborhood diner to commiserate on the challenges of their social and professional lives, talking and scheming their way through failed relationships, crazy parents, annoying acquaintances, and eccentric bosses. Television critics picked up on the show’s quality almost immediately, but a larger audience was slow to find Seinfeld. After the pilot scored infamously low with a test audience, NBC was about to pass on the show before its late-night division stepped in to fund it for primetime programming, providing a budget for a meagre four-episode first season. The next year, NBC remained cautiously supportive with a twelve-episode order, and by season three, the first full season, the show was catching on. Season four, which included a serialized, self-referential plot about Jerry and George creating a sitcom for NBC, won the show its only Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. By season five, it reached third in the Nielsen ratings, finishing either first or second in every season thereafter. The language of the show entered the cultural zeitgeist, and terms like “soup Nazi” and “sponge-worthy” remain part of the American lexicon. The much-hyped final episode ultimately scored the fourth largest audience for a series finale in history—over 75 million viewers. The episode eschewed a happy ending in favor of a more deserved fate for the four characters, who are punished for their nine seasons of selfish behavior. The finale received mixed reviews from critics and fans, and is remembered as a letdown. Overall, Seinfeld is considered one of the greatest sitcoms in television history, lauded for its writing, which was groundbreaking for its complex and interwoven plots, and for its comedic style, finding humor in the minutiae of daily life—it was known affectionately as a “show about nothing.” However, as the multifaceted scholarship on Seinfeld reveals, that nickname is misleading.