35 Years Ago Today: When Television Comedy Changed Forever

I recall watching a few commercials for an upcoming special called” The Seinfeld Chronicles” during the summer between my sophomore and junior high school years. I knew Jerry Seinfeld’s stand-up comic would be entertaining to watch, so I thought it would be fun to watch a sitcom captain with his humour.

” The Seinfeld Chronicles” aired for the first time 35 years ago, on July 5, 1989. I’m not sure if I first noticed it when NBC second broadcast it that day or when it was broadcast a second time in the first year of the year, but I was hooked.

‘ Seinfeld ‘ appeared on this day 35 times agohttps: //t. co/DKDV9gBuTg— Famous Birthdays ( @FamousBirthdays ) July 5, 2024

The Seinfeld Chronicles marked the debut of a brand-new television humor despite the fact that the pilot was markedly different from the rest of the show ( Kamer was the listless” Kessler,” George was a know-it-all who almost came off as cocky, and Elaine was n’t even a character ). The quality of TV funny would never be the same.

Before” The It Chronicles”, sitcoms mostly centered around people and organizations. ” Seinfeld” altered all of that and altered how friends and associates tended to be in the show. Shows like” Friends” and” Living Single” came in its wake.

After Julia Louis-Dreyfus was cast as Elaine, the program found its foundation. George became a more foible- driven figure, riddled with self- fear, while Michael Richards developed his personal characterization for Kramer. By the second time, shows like” The Jacket” and” The Pony Remark” became fast legends.

Flashback: &nbsp, The 10 Funniest Episodes of Seinfeld

With shows like” The Chinese Restaurant” and” The Librarian,” the present continued to gain more ferocity and a higher rating.

But nothing could top the show’s third season, which included the show’s just lengthy- term story arcs: NBC invites Jerry and George to pitch a show, George has an on- repeatedly- off- once relationship with NBC exec Susan, NBC’s head of programming falls for Elaine, and Crazy Joe Davola terrorizes the whole gang. The culmination of that outstanding year was the height of television comedy as a whole, and it led to the hour-long season” The Pilot.”

The five months that followed were hit-or-miss, but generally interesting. We saw incredible things like George’s doomed proposal to Susan, Jerry’s “puffy shirt,” Kramer’s deception of a drug dealer, and Elaine becoming an eccentric Englishman’s personal assistant. The show even got apart from Seinfeld’s remain- up routines, which gave the writers the opportunity to create more scripts.

Over nine months, we met wonderful recurring heroes, and the actors who played those jobs were welcomed improvements to the put. Who can forget Jerry’s families, George’s parents, Uncle Leo, David Puddy,” Dentist to the Stars” Tim Whatley, and, of course, Newman?

” Seinfeld” ended with an inconsistent episode, but we still have nine months of unprecedented humor to remember it by. It’s also a social phenomenon, with slogans and situations that may live on forever. &nbsp,

I never bought the idea that” Seinfeld” was a” show about nothing”. My nephew has often insisted that it was a show about language because of how terminology and politeness seemed to predominate over the show’s meetings and circumstances, and Richards even asserted that in his most recent narrative. Whatever you think of it,” Seinfeld” is an undeniable cultural touchstone, and there’ll never be anything like it again.

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