Get past those slap bass interludes between scenes and you’re left with pure gold.
We never loved the theme music but that’s a minor gripe for the greatest American sitcom of them all.
Every time we see an episode of Friends, or How I Met Your Mother, or (groan) Rules of Engagement, we wish we had Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer for company instead.
1) What’s it about?
Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David were less about character development and narrative than having their four main players learn absolutely no life lessons.
You know those saccharine moments in Friends that leave you gagging on the couch (Ross and Rachel’s first kiss; Chandler’s proposal to Monica; any scene involving the two lesbians)?
Yeah, Seinfeld has none of that schlock and is far funnier for it.
2) It’s almost like…
Walking into a room, forgetting what you went in there for, then remembering, then getting the thing you went in there for, then telling three friends about it, then somehow ending up naked on a boat.
3) It’s worth your time because…
You end up loving Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine purely because they’re all completely unlikable.
The writers ensure there’s a strict ‘no learning, no hugging’ rule – the humour never comes from pathos, more from the situations the four characters find themselves in, a bit of slapstick, and the chemistry between the cast.
4) Did you know?
It’s not about nothing. It was originally pitched as a show about where a comedian might get his material, rather than about ‘nothing,’ but the latter tag attached itself to the show during a story arc in which Jerry and George write a sitcom for NBC.
The whole ‘sitcom about nothing’ thing stuck, but it’s actually about something. But nothing in particular.
5) One episode and you’re hooked…
‘The Soup Nazi.’
“No soup for you!” So good, it was even recreated in an episode of Scrubs.
6) If the show was a person…
It would be former Manchester United centre-back Gary Pallister. Or Dolly Parton. Or the abandoned lovechild of David Lynch and Gwen Stefani.
Our point within the above line of gibberish is that Seinfeld made a point of never fitting inside a category, so comparisons are pointless.
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Here, apropos of nothing, is Jerry Seinfeld talking about political correctness.
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