"It's not fair that people are seated first come, first served. It should be based on who's hungriest. I feel like just walking over there and taking some off of someone's plate." - Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Benes in "The Chinese Restaurant"
Seinfeld: Seasons 1 & 2 DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
On July 5, 1989, NBC unceremoniously dumped a pilot called The Seinfeld Chronicles onto its primetime lineup. The sitcom, created by frequent Tonight Show guest Jerry Seinfeld and fellow comedian Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm), had met with poor reactions when shown to test audiences. It was "too New York." It was "too Jewish." It also didn't feature a wisecracking alien puppet. Normally, that would be the end of the story, but an NBC executive liked the pilot so much that he volunteered to take the money earmarked for special programming, divide it into quarters, and use the money to fund the filming of four additional episodes. Those episodes, which began airing in May of 1990, did not get terrific ratings, but NBC had enough confidence in the series to bring it back as a mid-season replacement in January of the following year. Yada, yada, yada - the rest, as they say, is history. By the time the series left the air in 1998 it had become not only a ratings success but a cultural phenomenon, introducing countless catchphrases into our lexicon and inspiring endless watercooler talk. Not bad for a show about nothing.
In case you were living under a rock in the 1990s, Seinfeld stars Jerry Seinfeld as a standup comedian named.Jerry Seinfeld. The show examines the sometimes mundane events of his everyday life, and the ways in which these events work their way into his standup act. Jerry's best friend is George Costanza (Jason Alexander), a schlubby worrywart. In the early episodes, George works in real estate, the first of many professions at which he will fail. Book editor Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is Jerry's ex-girlfriend with whom he remains friends. Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) is Jerry's oddball neighbor who constantly drops by to bug him, often with news of his latest lamebrain scheme. With the release of Seinfeld: Seasons 1 & 2 on DVD, we can revisit the show's earliest episodes and, thanks to a number of high-quality extras, explore its creation.
Many shows struggle to find the right tone in early episodes, and Seinfeld is no exception. The show's pilot, "The Seinfeld Chronicles," is more of an artifact than a source of laughs. The characters aren't yet fully formed, and it lacks the manic energy of later episodes. George is a bit too glib. Kramer is extremely subdued - he knocks before entering Jerry's apartment, for God's sake! He also has a dog (which disappears after this episode) and is supposedly a shut-in who hasn't left the building in a decade (a conceit that doesn't stick around long before being wisely abandoned). The standup-to-sitcom ratio is also a bit skewed in the pilot - there is an overabundance of standup material, and not all of it is related to the episode's plotline (which involves a woman Jerry met on an out-of-town gig who asks if she can stay in his apartment while visiting New York). Even the music is different. Instead of Seinfeld's popping, syncopated theme song, the pilot is accompanied by a not-so-funky late '80s tune that sounds as if it is being played on a dinky Casio keyboard.
The biggest difference between the pilot and the rest of the series is that Elaine is nowhere to be seen. The only female presence is Claire (Lee Garlington), a waitress at George and Jerry's diner hangout, a place called Pete's Luncheonette. See, told you it's different! Elaine doesn't appear until the four episode mini-season that followed the pilot. Of these four episodes, "Male Unbonding" is the strongest. In it, Jerry decides to "break up" with his annoying childhood friend, Joel (Kevin Dunn), but when the obnoxious guy begins crying, Jerry doesn't have the heart to completely dump him. This episode centers on the classic Seinfeld theme of the gang complaining about an outsider's self-centeredness while conveniently ignoring their own selfish, antisocial behavior. The characters slowly begin to fall into place as George takes great strides toward being the neurotic moron we love, and Kramer becomes more spastic and idiosyncratic.
By the series' second season, the writers and actors are much more consistent as the characters' petty obsessions and hysterically short tempers come to the fore. These thirteen episodes are filled with memorable moments. Jerry dumps a woman just because she likes a commercial for Dockers ("The Phone Message"). Elaine becomes consumed with a guy in her building who no longer tells her hello in the hallway. She is so concerned he no longer thinks she's friendly that it eventually leads to a volatile confrontation ("The Ex-Girlfriend"). Jerry's parents (Liz Sheridan and Barney Martin) have a screaming match about who will answer the phone ("The Pony Remark"). In the same episode, Jerry may or may not have killed an elderly relative after making a disparaging comment about ponies. George seeks revenge on a performance artist who once drenched him in chocolate syrup, but finds greater humiliation in the process ("The Baby Shower"). Elaine freaks out when an out of town visitor overstays his welcome and then nearly misses his flight home ("The Busboy").
Although none of the second season's episodes are complete duds, two are standouts. In "The Jacket," Jerry splurges on a $1,000 suede jacket from Beau Brummel. The jacket is a perfect fit and gives him such confidence that he proclaims that it "has completely changed [his] life." It's only flaw is the garish pink and white striped liner. Everything seems perfect...until Jerry makes the mistake of wearing the jacket to meet Elaine's gruff, scary father (Lawrence Tierney) during a sudden snowstorm.
Another undisputed classic is "The Chinese Restaurant," twenty-two minutes of pure bliss in which Jerry, Elaine, and George impatiently wait for a table at a Chinese restaurant. The episode takes place in real time on a single set, and features an amusing performance by James Hong as the restaurant's uncooperative maitre d'. Amazingly enough, when this episode was originally filmed, network officials were so unenthusiastic about it that they put off airing it for several weeks.
Seinfeld's humor has held up quite well over the years. Most of the episodes have a timeless quality. This is partly because of the terrific performances by the show's cast, and partly due to the writing. Seinfeld is often labeled a show about nothing. This is far from accurate. The show avoids topical humor and instead concentrates on highly relatable human foibles. Whether it's Jerry waking up in the middle of the night to write down a killer joke but being unable to read it in the morning ("The Heart Attack") or George worrying about going insane when a song from Les Miserables becomes stuck in his head ("The Jacket"), the show takes situations we've all encountered and mines them for their comic potential. No, Seinfeld isn't about nothing - it's about us.
The eighteen episodes that make up the combined first and second seasons are divided onto four discs. The discs are housed in slim, clear keepcases. The front covers each feature a different publicity photo of one of the show's stars. The back covers include episode numbers, episode titles, and plot synopses. The double-sided coversheets show through to the insides of the cases and feature a blue-tinted photo of Jerry's apartment. Each DVD features a publicity shot of the same star depicted on its case. Overall, the design is simple and bold. The four keepcases slide into two cardboard sleeves, both of which feature the same publicity photo of the cast members. A booklet listing the basic production credits for each episode is also sandwiched between the keepcases.
The DVD menus are pretty terrific. Each disc's menu has a different theme: Jerry's apartment for disc one, Monk's diner for disc two, the Chinese restaurant for disc three, and George's hospital room from "The Heart Attack" for disc four. The main menu presents a picture of that disc's locale as clips from episodes pop up in bubble-shaped windows. The menus are witty, elegant, and nearly impossible to describe - just know that you'll be pleased.
