Seinfeld is the funniest TV show in history. Built around the day-to-day life of a New York comedian, Seinfeld managed to spear every sacred cow in sight. The irreverence of the show's four main characters never let up over 9 glorious seasons. The "gang of four" were petty, childish, surly, selfish, compulsive, obsessive, and totally hilarious ... like 4 children in adults' bodies.
Jerry Seinfeld played himself and surrounded himself with an ex-girlfriend (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), a childhood friend (Jason Alexander), and a neighbor (Michael Richards). Four terrific actors with incredible chemistry among them, the four careened through 9 seasons of total mayhem. Sex, religion, politics, old age, political correctness, race, relationships, homosexuality, Los Angeles ... you name it, they harpooned it.
Great supporting cast over the years included Jerry Stiller, Estelle Harris, Barney Martin, Liz Sheridan, Wayne Knight, Patrick Warburton, John O'Hurley, Len Lesser, Heidi Swedberg, and others.
And so many brilliant actors who only showed up once or a few times: Steve Hytner as Bania, Mark Metcalf as the Maestro, Megan Cole as Peggy the germophobe, Sheree North as Babs Kramer, Charles Levin as the mohel, Elmarie Wendel as Helene the actress, Philip Baker Hall as the library detective,
Judge Reinhold as the close talker, Bette Midler as herself, and so many others.
Seinfeld probably added more catch phrases to the English language than any other show in TV history. Brilliant writing that found humor in WORDS (such a concept) as well as SITUATION, Seinfeld owed much to the writing of Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David and others. So with great scripts, a perfect cast, and no respect for anything, Seinfeld marched along to his own drum and made us all captives of its brilliant wit.
One of the great things about Seinfeld was that you could see a little bit of yourself in each of the 4 zany characters. And you could ALWAYS recognize the dumb situations they found themselves in. Just brilliant!
And let's not forget that Jerry Seinfeld became the first Jewish Superman/Everyman on TV. He was everything from comic to sex symbol and everything in between.
