@@myskateaddiction1833I agree. “The Puffy Shirt,” “The Lip Reader,” “The Nonfat Yogurt,” “The Cigar Store Indian,” “The Dinner Party,” “The Marine Biologist,” “The Raincoats,” and “The Hamptons” are all-time classics.
Other than a few slip-ups, the show had excellent continuity overs its run - I especially love how later seasons would pick right up from where the previous season left off.
@@zakdaviesa Those seasons are great, and don't really deserve all the hate they get. Matter of fact, Season 8 is the only season that doesn't have a single weak episode; all the other seasons have at least one or two.
The first season isn’t great. The pilot is god awful lol. Characters were stiff, there was hardly any humor in it. It needed time to develop. IMO season 3 is where they hit their stride.
Todd Ellison Exactly. Its a bell curve like most shows. Early seasons were dull, later seasons were too silly and overrated (George and Kramer were too over the top)...middle seasons were masterpieces.
@@freewilldoesntexist4075 No he did not. He did not like the bullshit in the first season and walked. He only came back because they gave him full control. Not everybody is a sell out.
They didn't care about making a show that got ratings, they cared about making a show that was good. Which is why they were successful. Far too many shows are so obsessed with numbers that they forget to actually make something of quality while they're in it.
Larry David is a legend, i dont know how he STILL manages to come up with some of the funniest premises and scenarios. there are times where i watch curb and you think you know where things are going and BAM it does a complete 180 and it all manages to come full circle in a Houdini kind of way
"I come home and find my son treating his body like it's an amusement park" is one of those lines that's only funny when someone says it in a funny way.
Almost everything on "Seinfeld" depended on precise timing and delivery. Think of all the different ways Sidra and Jackie Chiles could have said "They’re real and they’re spectacular!" and then how they DID say the line.
What was great about that scene was three things: 1. I think it was his mother's first appearance. 2. Then there was the nurse giving another woman a sponge bath in silhouette behind the curtain. 3. Then there was a callback to it about 6 episodes later with his mother in the hospital after reading an article that George is gay, where a male nurse gives a male patient behind the curtain a sponge bath in silhouette.
I remember back in about 1992 it was shown on Australian tv at about 10.30 pm in some random timeslot and I saw the episode where they got stuck in a car park and they couldn't find their car and Elaine was yelling abuse at everyone and it was one of the funniest things id seen. Soon after it was in the prime time slot of 7.30 pm on a Thursday and everyone was watching it.
random dude OH MY GOD YES! I just remembered this is how is discovered it as well as a teenager at about the same time. Totally forgot, thanks for jolting my memory
Quite possibly the most solid television ever produced. Excellent arc, every episode was strong on its own as well. The acting and comedic timing was perfect.
I was hooked on the show from the very first full season. I even remember watching the pilot episodes that happened over the summer a whole year earlier. I thought the show was smart and funny from the get-go. The dialogue between the 4 main characters was fluid and never seemed forced. The way the lines were delivered along with their facial expressions and body language just worked in a way not really seen before in sitcoms.
@@jimlinkowskl1438Did you hear about the guy who scared away the mountain lion by yelling "You want a piece of me?!" at him after watching this episode.
The 39 second montage from 7:10 is amazing. _All that brilliance_ in one season of a TV sitcom. It makes you realize all over again that yes, eventually it would catch on, as Larry Miller said.
Ohhhh, gosh....my youth! I was 18 years old, only a few months out of high school when Season 1 premiered sometime in 1990 or 1991, I think. Just sheer dumb luck that I stumbled onto episode three one night but I was INSTANTLY hooked and never looked back. I searched for it every week for a YEAR before it was on again and I made it a point to tell everyone I knew about it and how great it was but it would be another two years -- fall of 1993 while I was at college in Virginia -- before I finally got my three roommates totally into it as well. I was a part of that original audience that "got it" right from the beginning. And it felt sooooo good. And I can remember that Season 5 explosion, too! By 1995-96, EVERYONE was watching it. If you weren't, you were a total loser with NO freaking life man. Best TV show ever made. Even better than I ❤️ Lucy. Which is saying something. There'll never be anything else like it again. What a marvelous time it was to be under 30!!!
I was just a kid. For s6 '94-95, I was 9. I think I started watching some time later, maybe s7 or s8 thanks to my Dad who must have been the reason the show was on in our house. Even at that age, maybe you didn't pick up on certain references but you laughed at the acting, at the yelling by the Costanzas or the circumstances George and Kramer put themselves in. You laughed at characters like Peterman and Puddy, Newman and Watley, the Soup Nazi. I don't think you had to be an adult to really get the humor. It made sense to me growing up the way I grew up. I really wish I would've been able to catch on sooner at a little bit older of an age but with the syndication, I guess it doesn't matter.
At one stage in my life I was George Costanza ... 'worlds colliding !!!' ... getting engaged etc ... at the age of 54 I look back and appreciate this piece of TV artistry more than ever :)
I’ve always thought of it as a show about YOU! Especially with those “Seinfeld moments” in real life, the show seems to be trying to portray the viewer’s life in a comedic way. Genius
I've been watching sitcoms since "I Love Lucy" in the '50s. I later thought nothing could ever be better than "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in the mid-'60s, then "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in the '70s, then "Cheers" in the '80s, but it's now 2020 and there hasn't been anything as good or better than "Seinfeld" since.
While I am glad I can watch Seinfeld in it's entirety. I do have to admit, it would've been cool to be around as it was airing. Like when they talk about how "The Contest" was on everyone's mind the next morning, it would've been cool to experience that feeling with other viewers!
I was in high school watching in season two or three. Somehow I discovered it, as did a couple of my friends. We would talk about each episode at lunch. When I went to college in 1993, and it was a major university, only a couple of other people in my dorm knew of the show. Soon everyone was watching. But when The Contest aired, it was MAJOR conversation when trying to get someone to watch the show. I also went to a spring training game in 1993 and joked with Roger McDowell being the second spitter. He looked at me and said something like you watched that?
@cylon6 could you name some of the other greatest seasons of sitcoms you consider brilliant? I know I have my favs and season 4 of Seinfeld is definitely on my list :)
@Frank Dux well, actually The Simpsons is considered to be an animated sitcom so it still counts. Season 4 of The Simpsons is a good choice, most would says seasons 5 and 6 but 4 was truly something special
It's incredible that even the co-writer/ creator of the show is a character all his own, and is just as funny, if not funnier than the rest. Then gets his own show which becomes iconic in itself.
Seinfeld was my favourite show. Elaine and Kramer were my favourite characters. I wish the show lasted longer so we could see their lives continue and move forward it was a really unique comedy and interesting show. Way better then other comedy shows.
Nah,..they had the sense to know that it's smarter to finish up just before the wave breaks rather that be remembered as the show that used to be great but ran out of ideas and fizzled out. You gotta leave them wanting more.
When Jerry and George are in the meeting room at NBC you can see the Empire State building in the background and Rockafeller center would be about that same distance away. Nice little touch they did there to be extra accurate 👌
@@cylon6 Mostly by the older generations, you can ask any millennial and 9 times out of 10 they have seen seinfeld episodes but have never seen an episode of cheers.
@@cylon6 It's just cause cheers didn't age well and it's target audience is very small in this day and age, it targeted social issues that are just outdated now as well, cheers was funny for it's time but not now. That's why seinfeld has stuck around a generation after release cause most of the stories are still relatable now cause it was a situational sitcom about stuff that happens to everyone, also think of how many seinfeld phrases we use still "yada yada" "shrinkage" "regifter" etc. It's just something cheers never had.
To me, this 4th Season was absolutely the peak season of the show. Every episode was an absolute home run. After this season, the show went from #40 to #1 or 2 for the rest of its run.
I watched Seinfeld from early on. Not quite the beginning but not too far in. I was obsessed with it. When the network started moving it around to different nights and times I remember thinking, “Well that’s the kiss of death. Why don’t more people watch this? It’s really funny.” That was, of course, right before the move to Thursday night and the rest is, as they say, history.
Amazing sitcom. I was a teenager and young adult in the 1990's, and it was something I could watch with my parents and we both found it funny. It crossed generations.
What comedic genius it took in Larry and Jerry to come up with the idea to do the arc...I luved it...the show imitating the show which was real but the arc wasn't which led to the not real arc being a real hit... :)
Still actually laugh at the reruns/clips etc. even though I've seen them many times I don't say, "oh, hear comes that bit again", it's just as enjoyable as the first time around........maybe better!
That's what made the show so brilliant and they even managed to get some oral sex humor in there too with the Saxophone player. The most adult humor made appropriate for tv and I haven't seen anything to that level of genius yet.
A show being a breakthrough in it's 4th season is something that probably can't happen today. No way does a network give a show that much time to build an audience anymore.
I was thinking the exact same thing. The dawn of the streaming era gave birth to a cancel culture on television. Imagine the pressure now to make something click in the first shot.
It’s worth noting the show wasn’t bad in the first 3 seasons it just wasn’t huge. Like they said it was on the bubble of being successful. And that what really made them huge was a time slot move. Now days shows don’t have to compete for time slots.
@@Mrcaffinebean I wasnt' talking about hte quality of the show. Theres great shows like Freaks and Geeks that only go one season then you have garbage like Keeping Up With the Kardashians on their 37th season.
They were right to focus on "The Contest". That was the show that truly convinced me about Seinfeld. I continue to think that it is the funniest episode ever aired on a network sitcom.
Great video! This was the season where I started watching (The Pitch was the very first episode I saw, which was good timing). The energy and confidence of the characters and the writing really shone through. Going back to watch previous seasons, I enjoyed those too, but this season was my favorite. It's not just about the NBC pilot arc that made it unique, but all of the other ones that complete that season (The Contest, The Junior Mint, The Bubble Boy, The Cheever Letters, The Implant, The Handicap Spot, The Pick, The Outing, etc.). For me, it's the strongest season, and certainly the one that made Seinfeld a way of life for me during my college years. My friends and I spoke in quotes, almost entirely from this season. Probably still unconsciously do to this day! I feel like the characters became less likable in future seasons, and the cast had that self-aware "we know we're in a hit show" thing going, which gave it a different, less jovial vibe. Maybe that's just a natural part of something becoming wildly popular though.
Seinfeld moments . So true. They somehow covered every thing that’s happened in my life so far. Most recently i had my first quiet talker gf. And i actually just nodded and agreed with her sometimes not knowing what she said 😂
It's gonna catch on was a true concept. I remember not really being into Seinfeld while friends of mine were into it. I remember the Kramer scenes where he would come crashing and sliding onto the set then one night I thought everyone was into it I'd better check it out and BINGO I was hooked.
It is valued at 3.1 Billion. And Jerry Seinfeld is the only comedian that is worth over a Billions dollar. That is unbelievable to be worth the kind of money.
@@patstokes3615 Seinfeld once said the show's total focus was on how funny it was. No one involved's ego or how a character might be perceived mattered. It was all about making the show as funny as possible - and in this they succeeded stupendously. Also the episodes were stories surrounding funny things that actually happened to the show's writers or someone they knew in real life. Once a writer ran out of funny true stories, they were replaced.
"Seinfeld" did not start off as a show about nothing. The concept behind it initially was to display how stand-up comedians come up with their material. That concept was later abandoned, and then it became the show about nothing it is now synonymous for.
It was always about the stand up. Jerry, after all, is a stand up comedian in the show and his character's act would incorporate little elements from the lives of the characters. As the show went on they cut his stand up clips out to fit more story in but you still understand that that's what he was doing. The whole "show about nothing" comes from Larry when the original pitch was done, but I never thought about it that way. Like Jerry says, nothing is still something. It's about the minutiae of life and how any little thing can be a funny anecdote, or a reason to dump a boyfriend/girlfriend!
Right now we have two long form comedy writers, the D'Agostino Brothers, who are on their verge of breaking through big time. Critics reviews of their novels are stunning so far: "NASA's 1st Mission to Mars - for What?!" "Back to Sovietsky," "Too Good For The Hood." And then there is "Beasts Shall Reign Over the Earth," number one on Amazon's Free Ebooks list, Sept 17. Can't wait to see their first movie.
He's right. I worked in a factory and EVERYBODY was talking about the masturbation episode the next day. There was no office and no water cooler - It was a factory. Filled with hard scrabble factory type guys. Still, EVERYBODY was talking about it around the coffee machine and everywhere else. Most crazy episode of network TV anybody had ever seen, even surpassing the Chinese restaurant. In my memory after that, Seinfeld became required viewing.
The whole "show about nothing" thing is so legendary that when I saw that Warren Littlefield was an exec producer on Fargo, my mind immediately produced an image of Bob Balaban. Seinfeld is now part of the popular culture, not that there's anything wrong with that.
I agree that Season 4 was a real breakthrough. To be honest, the first two seasons of Seinfeld I found to be hit or miss with the third season starting to become more consistently funny. The seasons 4-6 is just one classic episode after another. 7-9 I felt were still fairly strong by there was a slight decline with each one.
The last truly great episode was The Merv Griffin Show at the start of Season 9. Every episode after that was so poorly written that the show became almost unrecognizable.
Todavía me mato de la risa con Seinfeld. Han pasado tantos años y aún está tan vigente .además las situaciones son perfectamente chilenas o más bien se pueden dar en cualquier grupo humano.
+Chita Chandía "perfectamente chilenas" --tengo noticias para tí, esta serie es de los EEUU, y sí, hay muchos otros países en el planeta, contrario a lo que le enseñaron tan fervientemente durante la dictadura a tu generación
I personally feel like the real breakthrough seasons were 5 and 6, not 4. Season 4 really only had a small handful of good episodes towards the end, but Seasons 5 and 6 were when the show really started to come alive. Season 5 expanded the writing team beyond Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld (even though they would write the final draft of each script), and the addition of new writers helped breathe some new, fresh blood to the show. Season 6 is when the budget increased, and the production values improved greatly: we had the addition of the New York Street set, and the format of the show really expanded to where it broke beyond the confines of your traditional multi-camera sitcom that plays out like a televisual stage play - it almost felt like a hybrid of a multi-cam sitcom and a more cinematic single-cam sitcom.
You’re mistaking the term “breakthrough” with “best”. The fourth season is when the show broke through and became very well known. It’s also when the show really became itself. The formula in the first three seasons was different; those episodes mostly have a different pace and style.
@@randall-king Not necessarily. "Best" is definitely subjective, and in spite of what I said about Seasons 5 and 6, I wouldn't consider either of them to be the best seasons, because that's not my personal opinion. They're good, yes, but my personal opinion is that Seasons 7-9 are the best.
Wonder if anyone was enough of a visionary to have videotaped these early years? It would be fascinating to find those advertisers that stayed on board..
YIKES....the comment room is ON FIRE!! I stopped by to enjoy the video...but stayed after the credits for the carnage........"Stay Hostile My Friends". Cheers
Started out with Nothing Made a hit show about Nothing Their bank accounts have way more than Nothing How many episodes are they making now ? Nothing I get to watch reruns that now are worth Nothing But years later I still love them.... better than Nothing So when life gives you Nothing (Now the bass line plays in my head at this point) You've got Seinfeld... now that's Something!!! Giddy Up
i watched seinfeld from the beginning. told my friends about it but they didn't care. as fate would have it, my brother watched it for the first time and it was the contest. i couldn't watch that night. my brother loved it and then all my friends started watching it. snowballed from there.
I liked it right from the get go. There was another competing show called Tool Time or something and I hated it and never could understand why it was so popular. But I figured that was just me. I always felt like the odd one in any room.
Home improvement. I actually enjoy both, but Home Improvement was definitely geared more towards a blue collar Middle America audience, and seinfeld was aimed more at the northeastern and west coast audiences.
Substitute Rush for Seinfeld...record executives for TV executives...Thursday night for 2112 Will quality like this ever have a chance to rise again in our increasingly milquetoast pop culture?
what made seinfeld so brilliant is they let or sought the B actors (guest actors) to be ernest t bass...howard morris was only on 5 episodes of the andy griffith show but you would think he was part of the show as a regular...THAT is the stamp all tv shows should strive for...and seinfeld did...those B actors make everyone else shine...
I didn't watch TV when this series was on. I only watched it from a historical perspective, because the show was lingua franca among the guys I worked with. They spoke Seinfeld, the way pilgrims quoted the Bible. So I had to learn what they were talking about. "Master of your own domain"? No idea what that meant.
The exact same thing happened with "Its always Sunny in Philadelphia" they didnt get an audience until like season 5. But after that, it was one of the most popular FX shows. And its funny cuz "Sunny" is the exact same concept. Just more modernised/raunchier. And THAT'S what made Sunny fresh ( in a way ). I always tell people who havent seen the show. " its like Seinfeld, but on crack" both gold and some of my all time faves.
Only show you can watch each episode 5 times without losing interest and still laughing
Simpsons? Always sunny? Arrested development? C'mon.
*5,000 times
Right, because you always find something that you missed the last time. Good stuff, I still watch reruns
@@Meltedcheese567 Always Sunny did a take on this episode. Seinfeld is one of their biggest influences, but the Clip Show wasn't that funny.
And the only show you can stop watching during middle of an episode and not give a shit about continuity. Seinfeld is in a class of its own.
“Why am I watching it?”
“Because it’s on tv!”
Larry David predicted future television
"Not yet it isn't" LOL
Not yet!
Larry David did not 'predict' television so much as he simply stated television. Before TV we literally 'watched' the radio.
@BLAIR M Schirmer Apparently you did not notice that the 'vulgar, crass, stupid' was there from day one. they just turned it up a notch.
byron p pp
Every single episode of season 4 except for one episode is a masterpiece. No television season will ever be as perfect as season 4 of Seinfeld.
I'd argue they took that streak all the way into the first part of season 6
Season 5 is for sure as good if not better than season 4 imo
@@myskateaddiction1833 Season 5 is not better than 4 my personal favorites are Seasons 4-9 but Season 3 is not bad
Which is the exception in season 4?
@@myskateaddiction1833I agree. “The Puffy Shirt,” “The Lip Reader,” “The Nonfat Yogurt,” “The Cigar Store Indian,” “The Dinner Party,” “The Marine Biologist,” “The Raincoats,” and “The Hamptons” are all-time classics.
@@FoldTrace My guess is the Going to the Movies episode with that awful one-off character named Buckles.
I must say, if it's one thing I love about 'Seinfeld' is its consistency. Hands down. Top to bottom.
Other than a few slip-ups, the show had excellent continuity overs its run - I especially love how later seasons would pick right up from where the previous season left off.
what about season 8-9?
@@zakdaviesa Those seasons are great, and don't really deserve all the hate they get. Matter of fact, Season 8 is the only season that doesn't have a single weak episode; all the other seasons have at least one or two.
The first season isn’t great. The pilot is god awful lol. Characters were stiff, there was hardly any humor in it. It needed time to develop. IMO season 3 is where they hit their stride.
Todd Ellison Exactly. Its a bell curve like most shows. Early seasons were dull, later seasons were too silly and overrated (George and Kramer were too over the top)...middle seasons were masterpieces.
absolutely positively the most original sitcom ever
“We were all worried about wether the show was going to make it”
Jerry and Larry: we never gave a shit
@@freewilldoesntexist4075 No he did not. He did not like the bullshit in the first season and walked. He only came back because they gave him full control. Not everybody is a sell out.
They didn't care about making a show that got ratings, they cared about making a show that was good. Which is why they were successful. Far too many shows are so obsessed with numbers that they forget to actually make something of quality while they're in it.
Larry David is a legend, i dont know how he STILL manages to come up with some of the funniest premises and scenarios. there are times where i watch curb and you think you know where things are going and BAM it does a complete 180 and it all manages to come full circle in a Houdini kind of way
He's so special truly.
they r not legends they r jews honey
I think the premises are similar to rabbinical arguments in Talmud, Midrash etc. The moral conundrums of real human existance.
@@bblp700 Umm... what exactly are you implying?
To this day, if I can't find my wallet, I yell, "my wallet's gone! My wallet's gone!"
Vibe Lands yeah m8?
I was in the pool! I was in the pool!
"I come home and find my son treating his body like it's an amusement park" is one of those lines that's only funny when someone says it in a funny way.
Almost everything on "Seinfeld" depended on precise timing and delivery. Think of all the different ways Sidra and Jackie Chiles could have said "They’re real and they’re spectacular!" and then how they DID say the line.
That's what makes a good movie or show great: when the delivery of the line is what makes it memorable.
Hu?
What was great about that scene was three things:
1. I think it was his mother's first appearance.
2. Then there was the nurse giving another woman a sponge bath in silhouette behind the curtain.
3. Then there was a callback to it about 6 episodes later with his mother in the hospital after reading an article that George is gay, where a male nurse gives a male patient behind the curtain a sponge bath in silhouette.
I remember back in about 1992 it was shown on Australian tv at about 10.30 pm in some random timeslot and I saw the episode where they got stuck in a car park and they couldn't find their car and Elaine was yelling abuse at everyone and it was one of the funniest things id seen. Soon after it was in the prime time slot of 7.30 pm on a Thursday and everyone was watching it.
random dude OH MY GOD YES! I just remembered this is how is discovered it as well as a teenager at about the same time. Totally forgot, thanks for jolting my memory
Quite possibly the most solid television ever produced. Excellent arc, every episode was strong on its own as well. The acting and comedic timing was perfect.
The best sitcom ever period
Joe Bilhete - Wait, this video was about 'Get Smart'?
Tee Dee I know
Simpsons was better.
"Simpsons was better." You're joking, right?
Joe Bilhete
The Office
The best serie of the word !!
CONGRATULATIONS, JERRY AND ALL TEAM !!!
Sorry my english....
Fábio
BRASIL.
In my mind the 4th season is where the show gets really good. But gosh darn i still love the first 3 seasons too
Season 3 was great! First 2 admittedly were still finding their feet but season 3 had some great eps.
Season 4 is DEFINITELY the turning point. They took it to another level with so many of the classics in that season
" No hugging, no learning," Words to live by.
"GET OUT!"
I was hooked on the show from the very first full season. I even remember watching the pilot episodes that happened over the summer a whole year earlier. I thought the show was smart and funny from the get-go. The dialogue between the 4 main characters was fluid and never seemed forced. The way the lines were delivered along with their facial expressions and body language just worked in a way not really seen before in sitcoms.
The guy who plays Kramer takes the box of raisins at the audition and George is incensed...classic!
"you saying you wanna piece of me?" Frank costanza
I can drop ou like a bag of dirt
@@greenrobot5 when I seen that episode I laughed my ass off !!!
@@jimlinkowskl1438Did you hear about the guy who scared away the mountain lion by yelling "You want a piece of me?!" at him after watching this episode.
The way he says "what the hell does that mean?" Bahaha
My George isn't clever enough to hatch a scheme like this.
You got that right.
The 39 second montage from 7:10 is amazing. _All that brilliance_ in one season of a TV sitcom. It makes you realize all over again that yes, eventually it would catch on, as Larry Miller said.
Ohhhh, gosh....my youth! I was 18 years old, only a few months out of high school when Season 1 premiered sometime in 1990 or 1991, I think. Just sheer dumb luck that I stumbled onto episode three one night but I was INSTANTLY hooked and never looked back. I searched for it every week for a YEAR before it was on again and I made it a point to tell everyone I knew about it and how great it was but it would be another two years -- fall of 1993 while I was at college in Virginia -- before I finally got my three roommates totally into it as well. I was a part of that original audience that "got it" right from the beginning. And it felt sooooo good. And I can remember that Season 5 explosion, too! By 1995-96, EVERYONE was watching it. If you weren't, you were a total loser with NO freaking life man. Best TV show ever made. Even better than I ❤️ Lucy. Which is saying something. There'll never be anything else like it again. What a marvelous time it was to be under 30!!!
closer71 but season 5 was the big bang after they won a emmy for best comedy show
I was just a kid. For s6 '94-95, I was 9. I think I started watching some time later, maybe s7 or s8 thanks to my Dad who must have been the reason the show was on in our house. Even at that age, maybe you didn't pick up on certain references but you laughed at the acting, at the yelling by the Costanzas or the circumstances George and Kramer put themselves in. You laughed at characters like Peterman and Puddy, Newman and Watley, the Soup Nazi. I don't think you had to be an adult to really get the humor. It made sense to me growing up the way I grew up. I really wish I would've been able to catch on sooner at a little bit older of an age but with the syndication, I guess it doesn't matter.
Love it man!
I loved Jerry before he had the show his humor was separate from other comedians I love them he was around for years before the show
I was 31 at the time! And I thought it was a wonderful time to be in my 30s!!!
At one stage in my life I was George Costanza ... 'worlds colliding !!!' ... getting engaged etc ... at the age of 54 I look back and appreciate this piece of TV artistry more than ever :)
I’ve always thought of it as a show about YOU! Especially with those “Seinfeld moments” in real life, the show seems to be trying to portray the viewer’s life in a comedic way. Genius
It took 4 years (!) for the show to pick up?? Never knew this, i thought it was an instant success. There´s no show quite like this, ever.
I've been watching sitcoms since "I Love Lucy" in the '50s. I later thought nothing could ever be better than "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in the mid-'60s, then "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in the '70s, then "Cheers" in the '80s, but it's now 2020 and there hasn't been anything as good or better than "Seinfeld" since.
Nobody can make a show like seinfeld ..its best ...the best show ever...only humour no emotion no love triangle nothing ...just pure comedy
The casting for that arc was genius as well! That helped to make it funny!
My son was born that year in 1992 and watches the reruns on HULU all day long. LOVES IT
While I am glad I can watch Seinfeld in it's entirety. I do have to admit, it would've been cool to be around as it was airing. Like when they talk about how "The Contest" was on everyone's mind the next morning, it would've been cool to experience that feeling with other viewers!
I was in high school watching in season two or three. Somehow I discovered it, as did a couple of my friends. We would talk about each episode at lunch. When I went to college in 1993, and it was a major university, only a couple of other people in my dorm knew of the show. Soon everyone was watching. But when The Contest aired, it was MAJOR conversation when trying to get someone to watch the show. I also went to a spring training game in 1993 and joked with Roger McDowell being the second spitter. He looked at me and said something like you watched that?
The plane is going down
George: I cheated in the contest
Jerry: Why??
George: Because I’m a cheater!!
It's 2019 and still is the best sitcom ever period
Friends and HIMYM are pretty close
@@ekklesiast if you're brain dead
@@ekklesiast not at all.
I was wondering why different streaming services were fighting over getting it. But if people still want to watch it....
Season 4 of Seinfeld is one of the greatest seasons of a sitcom ever made. It's perfect.
@cylon6 could you name some of the other greatest seasons of sitcoms you consider brilliant? I know I have my favs and season 4 of Seinfeld is definitely on my list :)
kendall rivers Not a sitcom, but season 4 of The Simpsons is really the most perfect, brilliant TV in history.
@Frank Dux well, actually The Simpsons is considered to be an animated sitcom so it still counts. Season 4 of The Simpsons is a good choice, most would says seasons 5 and 6 but 4 was truly something special
It's incredible that even the co-writer/ creator of the show is a character all his own, and is just as funny, if not funnier than the rest. Then gets his own show which becomes iconic in itself.
well, George is Larry David's stand-in. 90% of the time, things George does/says are things Larry would do
Larry's humor was the single biggest comedic influence on Seinfeld.
Seinfeld was my favourite show. Elaine and Kramer were my favourite characters. I wish the show lasted longer so we could see their lives continue and move forward it was a really unique comedy and interesting show. Way better then other comedy shows.
it was a significant season and a torch passing moment
Nah,..they had the sense to know that it's smarter to finish up just before the wave breaks rather that be remembered as the show that used to be great but ran out of ideas and fizzled out. You gotta leave them wanting more.
Snakefinger1000 but still a 4th season it was very significant how the build-up the popularity
You don't sound like a true fan. It's still my favorite show.
Awesome comedy👍
Season 4 was definitely better than the previous seasons, but season 5 is when I truly started enjoying the writing.
Love it. No comedies are made like this anymore. Total Classic
When Jerry and George are in the meeting room at NBC you can see the Empire State building in the background and Rockafeller center would be about that same distance away. Nice little touch they did there to be extra accurate 👌
No ones talking about Cheers. For years people will be talking about Seinfeld.
Cheers is still remembered.
@@cylon6 Mostly by the older generations, you can ask any millennial and 9 times out of 10 they have seen seinfeld episodes but have never seen an episode of cheers.
BlueOz It’s a damn shame!
@@cylon6 It's just cause cheers didn't age well and it's target audience is very small in this day and age, it targeted social issues that are just outdated now as well, cheers was funny for it's time but not now.
That's why seinfeld has stuck around a generation after release cause most of the stories are still relatable now cause it was a situational sitcom about stuff that happens to everyone, also think of how many seinfeld phrases we use still "yada yada" "shrinkage" "regifter" etc.
It's just something cheers never had.
I like Cheers, but Frasier is better.
71 people are not Masters of their Domain.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
yadda yadda yadda
Switching to a quote from another season - NO SOUP FOR THEM
This show was like...
Discovering Plutonium.. BY ACCIDENT!!
To me, this 4th Season was absolutely the peak season of the show. Every episode was an absolute home run. After this season, the show went from #40 to #1 or 2 for the rest of its run.
I watched Seinfeld from early on. Not quite the beginning but not too far in. I was obsessed with it. When the network started moving it around to different nights and times I remember thinking, “Well that’s the kiss of death. Why don’t more people watch this? It’s really funny.”
That was, of course, right before the move to Thursday night and the rest is, as they say, history.
What a time! New Seinfeld and Friends episodes every week!
And Frasier.
Amazing sitcom. I was a teenager and young adult in the 1990's, and it was something I could watch with my parents and we both found it funny. It crossed generations.
What comedic genius it took in Larry and Jerry to come up with the idea to do the arc...I luved it...the show imitating the show which was real but the arc wasn't which led to the not real arc being a real hit... :)
Thanks. I have seen this for the first time. Watched every episode on TV. One of my all time favorite shows.
Even all these years later, I'm still noticing "Seinfeld Moments" in my own life.
To me two little parts are best remembered; His standup routine and the audio bass riff.
Still actually laugh at the reruns/clips etc. even though I've seen them many times
I don't say, "oh, hear comes that bit again", it's just as enjoyable as the first time around........maybe better!
That's what made the show so brilliant and they even managed to get some oral sex humor in there too with the Saxophone player. The most adult humor made appropriate for tv and I haven't seen anything to that level of genius yet.
The reason is that the humor was so ahead of its time. People dint get it back then, except a small number. Im happy to be one of the original fans!
A show being a breakthrough in it's 4th season is something that probably can't happen today. No way does a network give a show that much time to build an audience anymore.
I was thinking the exact same thing. The dawn of the streaming era gave birth to a cancel culture on television. Imagine the pressure now to make something click in the first shot.
It’s worth noting the show wasn’t bad in the first 3 seasons it just wasn’t huge. Like they said it was on the bubble of being successful. And that what really made them huge was a time slot move. Now days shows don’t have to compete for time slots.
@@Mrcaffinebean I wasnt' talking about hte quality of the show. Theres great shows like Freaks and Geeks that only go one season then you have garbage like Keeping Up With the Kardashians on their 37th season.
This is gold, Jerry. *Gold!*
"Round-tine."
"What writer... were talking about a sitcom"... boy never has that been more true.
They were right to focus on "The Contest". That was the show that truly convinced me about Seinfeld. I continue to think that it is the funniest episode ever aired on a network sitcom.
Great video! This was the season where I started watching (The Pitch was the very first episode I saw, which was good timing). The energy and confidence of the characters and the writing really shone through. Going back to watch previous seasons, I enjoyed those too, but this season was my favorite. It's not just about the NBC pilot arc that made it unique, but all of the other ones that complete that season (The Contest, The Junior Mint, The Bubble Boy, The Cheever Letters, The Implant, The Handicap Spot, The Pick, The Outing, etc.). For me, it's the strongest season, and certainly the one that made Seinfeld a way of life for me during my college years. My friends and I spoke in quotes, almost entirely from this season. Probably still unconsciously do to this day! I feel like the characters became less likable in future seasons, and the cast had that self-aware "we know we're in a hit show" thing going, which gave it a different, less jovial vibe. Maybe that's just a natural part of something becoming wildly popular though.
Seinfeld moments . So true. They somehow covered every thing that’s happened in my life so far. Most recently i had my first quiet talker gf. And i actually just nodded and agreed with her sometimes not knowing what she said 😂
I think you mean low talker....
@@carpe996 Someone either get her a microphone or let's move on.
It's gonna catch on was a true concept. I remember not really being into Seinfeld while friends of mine were into it. I remember the Kramer scenes where he would come crashing and sliding onto the set then one night I thought everyone was into it I'd better check it out and BINGO I was hooked.
The other day at work I yelled out “these pretzels are making me thirsty” all the Millennials looked at me and told me to go drink some water 🤦♂️
George Costanza prophesied reality shows, I would reckon.....it's like life
Seinfeld, the TV show: The greatest continuously producing oil well in the history of entertainment.
It is valued at 3.1 Billion. And Jerry Seinfeld is the only comedian that is worth over a Billions dollar. That is unbelievable to be worth the kind of money.
Eloquently put
@@patstokes3615 Seinfeld once said the show's total focus was on how funny it was. No one involved's ego or how a character might be perceived mattered. It was all about making the show as funny as possible - and in this they succeeded stupendously. Also the episodes were stories surrounding funny things that actually happened to the show's writers or someone they knew in real life. Once a writer ran out of funny true stories, they were replaced.
"Seinfeld" did not start off as a show about nothing. The concept behind it initially was to display how stand-up comedians come up with their material. That concept was later abandoned, and then it became the show about nothing it is now synonymous for.
It was always about the stand up. Jerry, after all, is a stand up comedian in the show and his character's act would incorporate little elements from the lives of the characters. As the show went on they cut his stand up clips out to fit more story in but you still understand that that's what he was doing. The whole "show about nothing" comes from Larry when the original pitch was done, but I never thought about it that way. Like Jerry says, nothing is still something. It's about the minutiae of life and how any little thing can be a funny anecdote, or a reason to dump a boyfriend/girlfriend!
I haven’t seen the two final episodes of Seinfeld... I think the magic will go away 😔
Season 4 will always be the best season in my opinion, it's a true masterpiece. 👍
thank you, thank you so much! i have so many people i wanna thank i don't wanna forget anyone
Right now we have two long form comedy writers, the D'Agostino Brothers, who are on their verge of breaking through big time. Critics reviews of their novels are stunning so far: "NASA's 1st Mission to Mars - for What?!" "Back to Sovietsky," "Too Good For The Hood." And then there is "Beasts Shall Reign Over the Earth," number one on Amazon's Free Ebooks list, Sept 17. Can't wait to see their first movie.
Haha that ladies outburst at 16:51 . . .uh awkward! I think she thought Jerry was singling her out for a moment.
That was Elaine's stand in...she thought she had her big moment at last (hey it would have made a good episode in the "arc"...)
That bitch was pinky toe plastered.
I think she anticipated a big laugh, then stopped short when no one else reacted. We've all been there.
Meh, she'd be fun in the sack, just like Julia.
He's right. I worked in a factory and EVERYBODY was talking about the masturbation episode the next day. There was no office and no water cooler - It was a factory. Filled with hard scrabble factory type guys. Still, EVERYBODY was talking about it around the coffee machine and everywhere else. Most crazy episode of network TV anybody had ever seen, even surpassing the Chinese restaurant. In my memory after that, Seinfeld became required viewing.
Thanks ❤ my favorite show of all time
It's just so darn good to see good things happen to people that...good.
"The Contest" kids these days will NEVER understand how taboo that was in the 90's!!
It wasn't that taboo.
You know, maybe that’s why I don’t understand why older people consider “The Contest” as the best episode.
one of the few TV shows that gets better with age
These pretzels are making me thirsty!
Who put cookies in his mouth? ... You're not supposed to do that.
The whole "show about nothing" thing is so legendary that when I saw that Warren Littlefield was an exec producer on Fargo, my mind immediately produced an image of Bob Balaban. Seinfeld is now part of the popular culture, not that there's anything wrong with that.
"Seinfeld is now part of popular culture, not that there's anything wrong with that." Or right. I mean, look at popular culture.
Whenever I get annoyed these days, I think to myself, "SERENITY NOW!" LOL
Insanity later
I agree that Season 4 was a real breakthrough. To be honest, the first two seasons of Seinfeld I found to be hit or miss with the third season starting to become more consistently funny. The seasons 4-6 is just one classic episode after another. 7-9 I felt were still fairly strong by there was a slight decline with each one.
Coincidentally, Season 7 is when Larry left.
The last truly great episode was The Merv Griffin Show at the start of Season 9. Every episode after that was so poorly written that the show became almost unrecognizable.
Todavía me mato de la risa con Seinfeld. Han pasado tantos años y aún está tan vigente .además las situaciones son perfectamente chilenas o más bien se pueden dar en cualquier grupo humano.
+Chita Chandía "perfectamente chilenas" --tengo noticias para tí, esta serie es de los EEUU, y sí, hay muchos otros países en el planeta, contrario a lo que le enseñaron tan fervientemente durante la dictadura a tu generación
Seinfeld > Friends
Kramer is the best sitcom character ever
George and it isnt even close
@@funk44 Yep.
"All right everybody just go long" - and Kramer runs into the door! LOL
I can watch Seinfeld all day. I can also watch people talking about Seinfeld all day!
I personally feel like the real breakthrough seasons were 5 and 6, not 4. Season 4 really only had a small handful of good episodes towards the end, but Seasons 5 and 6 were when the show really started to come alive. Season 5 expanded the writing team beyond Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld (even though they would write the final draft of each script), and the addition of new writers helped breathe some new, fresh blood to the show. Season 6 is when the budget increased, and the production values improved greatly: we had the addition of the New York Street set, and the format of the show really expanded to where it broke beyond the confines of your traditional multi-camera sitcom that plays out like a televisual stage play - it almost felt like a hybrid of a multi-cam sitcom and a more cinematic single-cam sitcom.
You’re mistaking the term “breakthrough” with “best”. The fourth season is when the show broke through and became very well known. It’s also when the show really became itself. The formula in the first three seasons was different; those episodes mostly have a different pace and style.
@@randall-king Not necessarily. "Best" is definitely subjective, and in spite of what I said about Seasons 5 and 6, I wouldn't consider either of them to be the best seasons, because that's not my personal opinion. They're good, yes, but my personal opinion is that Seasons 7-9 are the best.
Wonder if anyone was enough of a visionary to have videotaped these early years? It would be fascinating to find those advertisers that stayed on board..
YIKES....the comment room is ON FIRE!! I stopped by to enjoy the video...but stayed after the credits for the carnage........"Stay Hostile My Friends". Cheers
Anytime we can’t sell something at work we call it a muffin stump. Seinfeld is awesome.
Started out with Nothing
Made a hit show about Nothing
Their bank accounts have way more than Nothing
How many episodes are they making now ? Nothing
I get to watch reruns that now are worth Nothing
But years later I still love them.... better than Nothing
So when life gives you Nothing (Now the bass line plays in my head at this point)
You've got Seinfeld... now that's Something!!! Giddy Up
Shows about human foibles, done well, will always sell. And they will prove to be timeless. Because human foibles are timeless.
i watched seinfeld from the beginning. told my friends about it but they didn't care. as fate would have it, my brother watched it for the first time and it was the contest. i couldn't watch that night. my brother loved it and then all my friends started watching it. snowballed from there.
When Rob Reiner shows up at 17:29, I can't help but think, "What is Marty DiBergi doing on a Seinfeld video?"
There will never be a bitter sitcom. Seinfeld transcends comedy!
Imagine any of this today, law suits all over he place... I love this show.
I liked it right from the get go. There was another competing show called Tool Time or something and I hated it and never could understand why it was so popular. But I figured that was just me. I always felt like the odd one in any room.
Home improvement. I actually enjoy both, but Home Improvement was definitely geared more towards a blue collar Middle America audience, and seinfeld was aimed more at the northeastern and west coast audiences.
Substitute Rush for Seinfeld...record executives for TV executives...Thursday night for 2112
Will quality like this ever have a chance to rise again in our increasingly milquetoast pop culture?
what made seinfeld so brilliant is they let or sought the B actors (guest actors) to be ernest t bass...howard morris was only on 5 episodes of the andy griffith show but you would think he was part of the show as a regular...THAT is the stamp all tv shows should strive for...and seinfeld did...those B actors make everyone else shine...
Love these videos
I didn't watch TV when this series was on. I only watched it from a historical perspective, because the show was lingua franca among the guys I worked with. They spoke Seinfeld, the way pilgrims quoted the Bible. So I had to learn what they were talking about. "Master of your own domain"? No idea what that meant.
The glasses guy he says the show is about nothing to in NBC office is Frank Buffet.
fred norris...you missed the best years.
they are the beatles of comedy
The exact same thing happened with "Its always Sunny in Philadelphia" they didnt get an audience until like season 5. But after that, it was one of the most popular FX shows. And its funny cuz "Sunny" is the exact same concept. Just more modernised/raunchier. And THAT'S what made Sunny fresh ( in a way ). I always tell people who havent seen the show. " its like Seinfeld, but on crack" both gold and some of my all time faves.