Essay/Term paper: Seinfeld

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Culture

Seinfeld


Seinfeld ranks among the best situational comedies of all time. It has
been compared to I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners, both of whom received praise
for there pioneering works in comedy. But I believe that Seinfeld takes the
term sitcom to another level. This is accomplished by exhibiting the many
attributes of the show. Seinfeld contains many characteristics of a great
situational comedy.
The reason why Seinfeld is a unique show is because of its coherence.
This show has a variety of plots in one episode. Seinfeld takes these plots and
relates them in some odd, but funny way. The other thing that is coherent in
this show is the cast. I have not seen a cast that relate to each other so well
since I Love Lucy. This shows cast resembles the cast of I Love Lucy because
both casts have conflicting personalities. In Seinfeld for example, George and
Jerry's personalities are the exact opposite. George is a total neurotic, while
Jerry has a take it easy personality. Same for I Love Lucy, Lucy is always the
leader and Ethel is always the follower. Without coherence Seinfeld would never
be where it is today.
Seinfeld is very original in the ideas they use for there shows. This is
where the show starts to resemble The Honeymooners and there unique ideas. The
Honeymooners' ideas were very unique for their time. Like the episode when
Ralph had a fight with Alice. It was a ground breaking idea for the time,
having a couple arguing and yelling at each other. Seinfeld, whose ideas are
unique for its time, had its most famous episode dealing with a Soup Nazi. They
called him the Soup Nazi because he ran his soup stand with a Hitler type
dictatorship. I have never seen a sitcom deal with such a stupid issue, yet it
was nominated for an Emmy for the best scene in a sitcom. Another original idea
used in Seinfeld is that each character has their own prerogative. They are not
afraid to show the audience how they feel towards each other. Just like when
Elaine picks at George about his baldness and George returns the favor by
insulting her about her figure in a certain dress. These little details and
ideas make Seinfeld one of the greatest sitcoms of all time.
Many people can relate to Seinfeld's everyday life situations. Again
Seinfeld takes it another step and pokes fun at these situations. People
usually look for jokes in a sitcom; Seinfeld has jokes, but it also describes
some peculiar situations. People relate to these situations and when Seinfeld
adds a punchline, people look at everyday life in a totally different way. Just
like when Jerry goes to the dry cleaners and finds that his clothes are being
worn by the dry cleaner himself. He finds this out while attending a movie with
Elaine. He sees the dry cleaner with what he thinks is his sports coat and
later on in the week he finds the movie stub in the pocket of the coat. This is
the type of situation people have thought about, but never really confronted.
By using everyday life situations Seinfeld appeals to a larger audience. All of
these examples prove that Seinfeld has many characteristics of a great
situational comedy.