‘Seinfeld’: That’s Gold, Jerry! Gold! By Dorothy Rabinowitz
http://www.wsj.com/articles/seinfeld-thats-gold-jerry-gold-1435273701
Overcoming initial doubts, ‘Seinfeld’ became a hit with writing of unparalleled wit and a complete lack of timidity
It’s impossible to think of a television comedy that has rooted itself as deeply in the culture as “Seinfeld” has—no small irony given the grave doubts initially raised about its prospects for success. It was, the chief executive of NBC Entertainment objected when the show was under consideration, “too New York, too Jewish.” Initial tests of its appeal were discouraging.
Still, by the time the series ended its extraordinary nine-year run in 1998, advertisers were paying, as Advertising Age reported, virtually a million dollars a minute for airtime, the sort of rate usually commanded by the Super Bowl but never before by any regularly scheduled TV program. NBC itself was prepared to pay an astronomical sum for a 10th season if Jerry Seinfeld had agreed, but there would be none. The show (which began streaming in its entirety on Hulu this week) ended with a finale in which the by then world-renowned quartet—Jerry, George, Elaine, Kramer—was hauled into court and given a year in prison for callous indifference to humanity.
An army of characters from seasons past had given damning evidence against them. The last anyone saw of the team, they were carrying on behind bars, very much themselves, unbowed by feelings of guilt. Whatever the complaints about this strangely sour finale for these four indisputably beloved characters, and for a series that had delivered so much hilarity—and the complaints were many—the show had held to the iron rule established from the outset. There would be, in “Seinfeld,” no hugs and no lessons learned—a prohibition that was, itself, clearly the product of lessons learned from the standard run of network sitcoms, saturated with embraces and sodden teaching moments.
How this series centered on Manhattan’s Upper West Side managed to connect with huge numbers of people across the nation—a viewership unlikely to relate easily to a world where characters fight over the last loaf of marble rye, or brood over events, like baby showers, they despise attending—isn’t entirely a mystery. This was television comedy writing—mostly the work of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld—of unparalleled wit, to say nothing of a frankness unlike anything ever seen in a network show.
This was a series awash in sexual liaison talk, but one that provided nothing remotely resembling a serious sex scene—which didn’t prevent it from becoming a favorite of that cherished demographic, males 18 to 27.
Here were characters given to protracted decision-making about food—tuna or egg salad, big salad or little—and to an overall obsessiveness about eating bordering on hysteria. Kramer, barred from the local fruit market, is thrown into a panic. Elaine, desperate because she can’t get her favorite Chinese food—she lives outside the delivery zone—becomes a squatter in a building not her own, calling her order in from a janitor’s broom closet. One entire episode of “Seinfeld” is devoted to an anguished wait as Jerry, Elaine and George try in vain to get the serenely unconcerned maître d’ of a Chinese restaurant to seat them. Most memorable of all, the group experienced life under the heel of the by now world-famous Soup Nazi (Larry Thomas). There was Babu (Brian George), the Pakistani restaurateur without a clientele.
In Hulu’s epic “Seinfeld” splurge, which includes all nine seasons, it’s easy as never before to appreciate the show’s evolution, its image changes— among them the one that saw the ordinary-looking, slightly unkempt Elaine, of the early episodes, transformed into a decidedly kempt and stylish beauty. Yet for all its transformations, its increasing strength as the seasons wore on, the character of the show’s writing, its steely perception and utter lack of timidity were evident from the first.
There was, from the beginning, no nervousness about stereotyping groups—and “Seinfeld” did a lot of it. No small distinction in a culture ruled by multicultural piety, not least in the entertainment world. There was the occasional complication—the Puerto Rican Day parade episode, which elicited some outrage, would never be included in the reruns. Many a viewer downloading the Hulu stream will be seeing it for the first time.
The show’s satire focused on no group more than on Jews. On Jewish family life, Jewish mothers—like his own (Liz Sheridan), in the series, unable to imagine how anyone could dislike her son. On the world of retired Jews in Florida—communities like Del Boca Vista, where only the pretentious allow themselves to miss the Early Bird Special, and 6 p.m. is considered a really late dinner time.
Early in the show’s first season, episode three, there’s a telling indicator of what lies ahead. At a family gathering, Jerry, who’s accompanied by Elaine, introduces a relative: “This is Artie Levine.”
To which the cousin quickly responds with a correction: “It’s Levyne.”
Yes, Jerry quietly sneers, “Levyne. And I’m Jerry Cougar Mellencamp.” It’s a sneer that reflects, perfectly and hilariously, the well-known if not often advertised contempt with which many Jews view such fancifying, upwardly mobile pronunciations of standard Jewish surnames. Change your name if you like. Don’t give us Levyne for Levine.
It’s the kind of line, as well, whose thrust one could have encountered nowhere but in “Seinfeld.” But there’s more to the group satire than sneering—there’s the endlessly evident capacity to grasp and record all that’s incomprehensible. Jerry discovers, on a visit to his parents in Del Boca Vista, a strange rule governing gifts. How does it happen, Jerry puzzles, that when the boastful community bigwig, Klompus (Sandy Baron), insistently offers to give you a pen you admired, you’ll end up considered a selfish idiot for finally agreeing to take it?
It was never easy coming to the end of those visits to Florida, those ruthless election battles for the presidency of the condominium board. It’s not easy now to leave out mention of so much else—everything else.
George’s wedding plan, his brief life as a hand model, as a Yankees staff member, as a marine biologist and saver of whales. Kramer as Dr. Van Nostrand, inventor of the coffee-table book, occasional co-conspirator with the despicable Newman (Wayne Knight), and all-purpose deranged lecturer on living right.
The ever-embattled Elaine—seeker of the sponge-worthy, book editor, and adviser to an expert in Russian literature, who listens, appalled, as she announces that the original name of Tolstoy’s masterpiece was “War. What Is It Good For?” It’s all here, to be seen again.
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