First of all, yeah, come at me. âSeinfeldâ is only kinda-sorta funny, at best. Seinfeld himself is really not funny at all. His act is perpetually stuck between the oldschool, early 1950s-style, cigar-waving âhyuk-hyuk, get a load of all my jokes about women driversâ comedians and the post-Lenny Bruce era, where everything just boils down to telling boring âslice of lifeâ stories with mildly clever exaggerations.
Seinfeld manages to pick and choose all the worst elements of both those eras and smush them together into a tremendously boring, un-funny standup act.
Annnnd thatâs what gets translated to the show. Boring, egotistical, overly-New-York-focused, pretentious nonsense.
Like I said, come at me about that. I know people disagree. I truly do not care what you want to say to me, about it. Youâre simply wrong. If you like his comedy or his show, you just have bad taste. I canât fix that. I canât change your mind. You canât change mine, either. But Iâm objectively correct that he and his comedy material both suck.
But the whole âshow about nothingâ thing is what really boils my ass. You can argue that the show wasnât âabout nothing,â in the first place. And thatâs, like, whatever. There are valid arguments, there. In fact, Iâd like to accept those arguments, then proceed under the assumption that the âshow about nothingâ concept really is a âshow about nothing, and therefore about everything.â
This is the important point: the thing I disagree with is this wretched and insulting notion that âSeinfeldâ was somehow a PIONEERING television show, in this context of being about nothing and/or everything.
Thatâs my problem. The claim that âSeinfeldâ did any of that shit first. The implication is that all prior television, especially all prior comedies, were somehow locked into a âthis is a show about a particular topicâ mentality. And, like, ânobody had the GENIUS and the GUTS to make a freewheeling show about just, like, whatever topics came to the minds of the genius writers, and their groundbreaking stream-of-consciousness comedy process.â
Thatâs fucking horseshit. Horseshit of the highest fucking caliber.
I suppose these turd-brained fucksticks believe that âI Love Lucyâ was about a Cuban guy who had a job as a bandleader and his wife, who sometimes tried to get into showbusiness. And âThe Honeymoonersâ would be about a guy who has a job as a bus driver. And âTaxiâ was a show about cab drivers, driving their cabs.
Of course, thatâs not what those shows were ACTUALLY ABOUT. They were basically shows about nothing, just as much as âSeinfeldâ was. They were often about relatable problems in domestic life, they were sometimes about people trying zany get-rich-quick schemes, they were sometimes about the fears and perils and hopes that surround pregnancy and childbirth, they were often about the uncertainty and passion and sacrifice that people put themselves through, for their budding careers, or their workaday jobs. And they were about a million other things that all fit the âshow about nothingâ mold BETTER than âSeinfeldâ ever did.
I say they did it better, because they werenât exclusively about sad, angry, borderline-psychopathic reprobates, who seem to have no goals or aspirations, beyond smirking and talking shit about people behind their backs, swilling coffee, and occasionally trying to get laid. They were shitty people, with shitty attitudes. I know thatâs part of the jokeâŠbut it wears thin very quickly, and my point is that other shows did a similar âitâs a show about nothingâŠbut really everythingâ theme, but their casts of characters WERENâT entirely populated by malignant, fundamentally worthless narcissists.
Basically, I implore people to stop worshipping that fucking show, as if it was some kind of groundbreaking, high art. There were way better classic comedy shows than that piece of shit, from its own era and the TV eras before it.
Oh, and before you point out that I accused Seinfeld of being overly New York focused, but also used three other shows set in New York as counterexamples, I realized that just now.
And I donât give a shit. I can keep going. âGreen Acresâ wasnât really about farming. âThe Bob Newhart Showâ wasnât really about psychiatry, âThe Mary Tyler Moore Showâ wasnât really about TV production, and âWKRP in Cincinnatiâ wasnât really about radio production.
The shows about nothing and everything are THE MAJORITY of all the shows. Certainly, all the good ones. Itâs harder for me to think of reversed examples, where the show is just what it was supposed to be âabout.â
Like, yeah, âFlipperâ really was about a fucking dolphin, and âThe Flying Nunâ really was about a flying fucking nun. And those shows fucking sucked.
I think I can consider my point thoroughly made.
Now, all you assholes can start typing abuse at me, for daring to dislike your idol. I wonât be reading that shit. Not sorry.
Good grief. What the hell sitcomy type show did you even like from the 90s?? If you shit on NewsRadio then you need your own lesson in taste.
See, the thing is, I actually liked the more sitcomy type shows. I liked âFull Houseâ and âFamily Mattersâ and âHanginâ with Mr. Cooper,â and âDinosaursâ and âMartinâ and âPerfect Strangersâ and âNight Courtâ and â3rd Rock from the Sunâ and some episodes of âBoy Meets World,â although it wasnât my favorite. And Iâm sure Iâm leaving some out.
I disagree with the premise (which someone else brought up) that âSeinfeldâ was automatically superior, because it diverged from all the âhappy, constructive, happy-ending, everyone comes together and learns something at the end of the episodeâ type shows, like the ones I mentioned.
Iâm not a turbo-cynical Gen-X-er, who is fully allergic to happy endings. I donât think every character in every show has to be a genuine shithead, or else the show isnât cool.
I also watched tons of other shit. I was (and am) a huge sci-fi nerd. I would have been happy if the whole 1980s and 1990s TV schedule had just been more and more Star Trek spinoffs, along with âThe X-Filesâ and âAmerican Gladiators,â just for variety. But I didnât reject sitcoms, on some kind of pretentious âhappy endings are lameâ basis.
Oh my god, also âBrisco County, Jr.â That show flew under so many peopleâs radars. And it was basically a perfect combination of sitcom tropes and sci-fi and action/pulp tropes. Bruce Campbell at his fucking finest. Fuck yes.
âFull Houseâ - Bad
âFamily Mattersâ - Bad. Corporate comedy at its worst. ( âdid I do that?â )
âHanginâ with Mr. Cooper,â - Bad
âDinosaursâ - really bad (with only the final episode to make it memorable)
âMartinâ - good
âPerfect Strangersâ - really, really bad
âNight Courtâ - good, but itâs premise was almost cheating because the cases allowed them to have a quick comedic trial premise jokes then back to the a or b storyline. If not for the joke trials, it would have been bad.
â3rd Rock from the Sunâ - good
âBoy Meets World,â - bad
Briscoe County Junior - good
Your taste in comedy is on average bad and you should feel bad.
Meh.
I think you said you were born in 1980? Did you even know what sponge worthy meant when you were 15?
I donât think I actually saw that episode until a few years later, when I did get it. I am indeed pretty sure that would have sailed right over my head, at age 15.