Seinfeld: Difference between revisions

Okay, seriously. One of the most popular shows of [[The Nineties]], it mostly centered around unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to [[Innocent Bystander|Innocent Bystanders]], following [[Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist|Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists]] Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer. It lasted for nine years ([[Long Runners|1989 to 1998]]) and as many seasons, only ending when Jerry Seinfeld himself refused to go on, [[Screw the Money, I Have Rules|even after being offered 5 million dollars an episode for a tenth season.]]

 

 

Jerry Seinfeld plays a fictionalized, [[Jerkass]] version of himself as the ostensible main (though in practice [[Straight Man|arguably least interesting]]) character, who works mostly as a foil for his eccentric neighbour Cosmo Kramer, his [[Heterosexual Life Partners|best friend]] George Costanza, a man who can make your regular [[Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist]] look like a ''winner'', and his sassy ex-girlfriend Elaine Benes, who [[Brutal Honesty|couldn't spell "tact" if her life depended on it.]] Jerry was the technical [[Only Sane Man]] between these colorful personalities, but a highly ineffective one because, like his friends, he is supremely indifferent towards others, opting instead for the role of [[Deadpan Snarker]] extraordinaire. This quality of Jerry's, flavored with co-creator Larry David's gift for irony, coupled with the characters' propensity for [[Snowball Lie|Snowball Lies]] and [[Fawlty Towers Plot|Fawlty Towers Plots]] is what fueled most of the elaborate yet utterly mundane plots of the episodes.

* [[The European Carry All]]

* [[Kavorka Man]]

* [[Seinfeldian Conversation]]

* [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny]]

* [[Blah Blah Blah]]: "The Yada Yada."

* [[Blind Without'Em]]: George. Although he can apparently squint down to 20/20 vision without glasses.

* [[Book Ends]]: The real tragedy of the end of the series is that they've run out of things to talk about, and have started looping back on themselves.

** Scenes of George and Jerry considering settling down with the women currently in their lives bookend Season 7.

* [[Brick Joke]]: In several cases:

** One episode had Jerry forget his [[Girl of the Week|girlfriend's]] name. Through a failed [[Batman Gambit]], he finds out that it rhymes with a part of the female anatomy. His best guess is "Mulva," and the episode ends with "Mulva's" name ending up as a mystery. Some span of time later, we learn that her name was indeed his final guess {{spoiler|Dolores}}.

** The majority of episodes' subplots are arranged to have one of these in some way or another.

** Halfway through season four, Jerry's father finds his wallet missing after going to a doctor, and accuses him of stealing it, which is left unresolved. In the season finale, Jerry discovers it simply fell out of his pocket and between the couch cushions.

* [[Call Back]]: During the season 7 premiere, "The Engagement", George goes to the beach pier to re-evaluate his life. He starts thinking of Susan and how he'd like to give her another shot. He starts running and a flock of pigeons disperses as he runs towards them. This type of scene is used two more times, only with Jerry in George's place (the season 7 finale, "The Invitations", has Jerry contemplating whether he should marry Jeannie, while season 9's "The Voice" has Jerry contemplating whether he wants to keep seeing his latest girlfriend or dump her so he can do a silly voice).

** George asking Jerry what kind of professions he would be best suited for first appears in "The Revenge" after he quits his job. This same type of conversation is revisited much later in the series (using the same staging and everything) in "The Slicer" when George is concerned that he'll get fired for the photo on Kruger's desk.

* [[The Caper]]: Often overlapping with [[Zany Scheme]].

** Lampshaded in "The Café":

** David Puddy: "Yeah that's right."

** "That's gold, Jerry, gold!", "Evidently...", "We're trying to live in a society here!", "NO SOUP FOR YOU" etc. There's a lot.

* [[Cavemen vs. Astronauts Debate]]: Elaine's breakup with Jake Jarmel over an exclamation point.

** Additionally, Jerry breaking up with his latest girlfriend because he didn't like a Cotton Dockers jeans ad and she did.

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: Two examples.

** In season 3, "The Subway" Kramer meets a blind guy on the subway. Later he gets a hot tip on a horse race, bets on it, and wins a large sum of [[Unusual Euphemism|seanotes]] which a thug hunts him down for. It turns out {{spoiler|the blind beggar from earlier was an undercover cop, who Kramer gave money to, and arrests the thug.}}

* [[The Chew Toy]]: George Costanza. A trope named after him was eventually merged with this one.

* [[Christmas Episode]]: "The Pick", "The Strike".

** But, George's dad was originally played by [[Did Not Do the Research|John Randolph.]]

* [[Dark Reprise]]: In the second half of "The Finale", a minor-key version of the show's theme is played on the oboe while the four are waiting to be sentenced.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Jerry.

* [[Department of Redundancy Department]]:

*** And, regardless of how the Good Samaritan law itself is written, bringing in dozens of "character witnesses" to recount every misdeed the defendants have ever committed is still ''incredibly'' illegal under U.S. law. The writers probably knew this and simply exaggerated the idea and played it for laughs.

* [[Did You Just Have Sex?]]: Jerry deduces that Elaine and Puddy are "backsliding" by her hair and the clothes she's wearing (the same as yesterday's). Later, she's shown with messy hair handing Jerry money, presumably because she lost their bet that she wouldn't do it again.

* [[Disabled Love Interest]]: Lola, who was denied "The Handicap Spot".

* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: In "The Soup Nazi," the titular character refuses to serve Elaine because she annoys him. In the course of the episode, she ends up finding the Soup Nazi's recipes. What does she do? She uses the recipes to ''drive him out of business and force him to move to Argentina''.

** The entire show is full of this. How about physically attacking someone over double dipping a chip?

* [[Distant Prologue]]: If you watch "The Betrayal" in sequential order, the episode begins years ago when Jerry first moved across the hall from Kramer.

{{quote| '''Elaine''': So, I'm going to a nudist colony next week...}}

* [[Does Not Understand Sarcasm]]: Kramer.

* [[Embarrassing First Name]]: Cosmo Kramer, but he eventually embraces it...especially when he gets his new license plates mixed up with a proctologist...

{{quote| '''Kramer''': I'm Cosmo Kramer -- the Ass Man!}}

* [[Establishing Shot]]

* [[Even Beggars Won't Choose It]]: In one episode, Elaine sells muffin tops, and needs to dispose of the stumps (making them without stumps just isn't the same, you see). Both a homeless shelter and a garbage dump reject them.

** An early episode, back when George was in real estate, implies that the building is pretty cheap. An entire episode revolves around trying to move Jerry into a better building as he can afford much better.

** Averted with George moving in with his parents in season 5.

** The season 5 premiere, "The Mango", features a [[Call Back]] to this premise after Jerry discovers Elaine faked orgasms with him when they were dating, which put him in a foul mood.

{{quote| '''Elaine''': We have to have sex to save the friendship!<br />

* [[Funny Foreigner]]: Babu Bhatt.

** Testikov from "The Marine Biologist".

* [[Gallows Humor]]: George unknowingly resorts to this in "The Comeback" when his "Jerk store" retort to Reilly fails.

{{quote| '''George''': ...Oh yeah? Well, I had sex with your wife!<br />

'''Sophie''': "Bought the farm"?<br />

'''Jerry''': ''TRACTOR''! }}

* [[Hollywood Dateless]]: George.

* [[Hollywood Pudgy]]: Jerry, in "The Blood".

== Tropes I-L ==

* [[I Am Not Spock]]: It's happened to pretty much every cast member except Jerry Seinfeld. Particularly Wayne Knight. On one instance, after a bad day, he snapped at someone who greeted him with "Hello, Newman...".

** Alexander also got into a bit of quote call-backs during some hands at the 2010 World Series of Poker, and once mentioned he was grateful for George Constanza, because he'd otherwise be known as [[Pretty Woman|the guy who tried to rape Julia Roberts.]]

** During the Laugh Factory incident, various media outlets kept referring to Michael Richards as Kramer, to the point that the real Kramer, Kenny Kramer, issued a statement saying that he personally was not a racist.

** George is also well aware that he must obey.

{{quote| "Every woman on the face of the Earth has complete control over my life... and yet, I want them all. Is that irony?"}}

* The [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]]

** Averted on one occasion with the season one episode:

{{quote| '''Elaine''': I am not buying a computer from you.<br />

'''George''': There's porn. }}

* [[Innocent Bigot]]: Jean-Paul in "The Hot Tub", who is from Africa and doesn't know a lot of English slang. He learns some words he doesn't fully know for Seinfeld and the gang, which backfires when he sees a mother with a baby in the hallway of Elaine's apartment and says "Aw, look at the cute little bastard!" The woman is offended, since she had the baby out of marriage, and Jean-Paul gets in further trouble when he innocently calls the building manager a son of a bitch.

* [[Inspector Javert]]: [[Large Ham|Mr. Bookman]] the library cop.

'''Elaine''': It's ''chestnut'' with auburn ''highlights''. }}

* [[Irrevocable Message]]

* [[It's Not You, It's Me]]: George claims to be the grand master of this:

{{quote| "I ''invented'' 'It's not you, it's me!' If it's ''anyone'' it's ''me!''"<br />

* [[Longing Look]]

* [[Loony Fan]]: Kramer is nicer to celebrities than he is to his own friends. His slavish devotion to Bette Middler in "The Understudy" stands out particularly.

** Can you believe that someone, somewhere out there, likes cashmere to the point that they pester a rich man because of it?

* [[Low Speed Chase]]: When George gets a scooter-chair in "The Butter Shave", the show's climax features him slowly driving down the street, being chased by a group of old folks who are also on scooter-chairs.

** There's also a low speed chase in "The Big Salad", which parodied the then-recent O.J. Simpson highway chase.

* [[Milkman Conspiracy]]: The U.S. Postal Service is portrayed as a powerful and sinister organisation, one which Newman feels no guilt about exploiting to his benefit.

* [[Misery Builds Character]]: In one episode, Jerry claims that the ability to refrain from urinating builds character.

* [[Missing Episode]]: "The Puerto Rican Day" has a scene where Kramer (accidentally) burns a Puerto Rican flag. Many viewers were highly offended, and NBC decided to leave the episode out of syndication for several years. Although it does occasionally air on local stations today, many stations still skip it (including TBS) and those that don't often cut out the flag-burning scene. You can see it uncut on DVD, though.

** For a time, "The Invitations" was removed from syndication because Susan dropping dead from licking toxic envelopes reminded people of the anthrax mail scares. It returned to rotation in summer 2002.

** An episode called "The Bet" was scripted but never produced. When the script, whose plot revolved around Elaine buying a gun, reached the table read stage, it came off as unfunny and unnecessarily dark. Pretty much everyone present realized on the spot that the concept wouldn't work, so the entire script was shelved.

*** "The Bet" lives on as an Internet urban legend in the form of a "creepypasta" story alleging the episode was filmed and all but one copy destroyed. Naturally, the episode supposedly contains disturbing and supernatural phenomena happening to the actors and crew.

** Also Elaine, when an older woman reacts with disgust to Elaine saying that she's the "best man" at a lesbian friend's wedding.

{{quote| '''Elaine:''' I'm not a lesbian! [[Does Not Like Men|I hate men]], but I'm not a lesbian!!}}

** Larry David introduced himself as [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|"Frank Constanza's lawyer"]].

* [[Noodle Incident]]: Just about everything Kramer's friends [[The Ghost|Bob Sacamano]] or Lomez do.

* [[No Sense of Personal Space]]: Elaine's boyfriend in "The Raincoats".

** Kramer in "The Wig Master" when he wants to sleep in Jerry's bed when he's locked out of his apartment.

** Seinfeld, a Jewish man, tests this with a friend who won't listen by saying Hezbollah invited him for a gig.

* [[No Theme Tune]]: The show doesn't really have an opening sequence to speak of, just the title superimposed over the action already in progress. However, in the early seasons, they at least played the theme underneath Jerry's stand-up act. But as the seasons progressed and the stand-up was excised, the show didn't even play the theme song, just a couple random transition notes over the superimposed title.

** We never see the whole thing, but we do get a good idea of the reunion show's plot and a few scenes from it.

* [[Rewind, Replay, Repeat]]: "Magic Loogie" parodies ''JFK'''s use of this trope.

** Also, we never find out why Jerry's one other girlfriend always wears the same clothes.

{{quote| '''Elaine:''' Maybe he's an enigma--a mystery wrapped in a riddle.<br />

'''Jerry:''' He's a mystery wrapped in a ''Twinkie.'' }}

* [[Sassy Black Woman]]: The clerk at the thrift store when George tries to return his 'bathroom book.' She first appeared in "The Muffin Tops" as a woman who hassles Elaine for trying to unload muffin stumps on the homeless.

* [[Scooby-Dooby Doors]]: Jerry chasing Newman in "The Soul Mate".

* [[Second Episode Introduction]]: Elaine doesn't appear in the pilot because the character had not yet been created. She was added to the second episode when NBC demanded that a woman be added to the show or they'd cancel it.

* [[Self-Deprecation]]: A lot of jokes came from Jerry supposedly being a hack excuse for a comedian, and (at the time of the [[Show Within a Show]]) a bad actor.

* [[Sock It to Them]]: Kramer and Newman reverse their peepholes "so they can tell if somebody is hiding in their apartments with a sock filled with pennies". Later in the episode, an acquaintance is attacked by their superintendent (under the belief that he was sleeping with his wife) a sock of pennies.

* [[Some of My Best Friends Are X]]: George desperately tries to get a black friend in "The Diplomat Club" so that Morgan will think he's not racist. He ends up calling a guy that fumigated Jerry's apartment in "The Doodle".

{{quote| '''Jerry''': Some of my best friends are gay!<br />

'''George''': My father's gay! }}

* [[Sound Effect Bleep]]: Demonstrated in "The Non-Fat Yogurt" many times, as Jerry is more foul-mouthed than usual.

{{quote| '''Jerry''': This [yogurt] is so (bleep)-ing good!}}

** Subverted, since The Drake never insists on being called; Jerry and Elaine just thought it made a cool name [[Rule of Cool|sound cooler]]. In "The Pilot (Part 2)" The Drake and his wife refer to Jerry as "The Sein".

* [[Spinning Paper]]

** George later tries it to get her to break up with him when he discovers the velvet furniture he adored (and was the entire motivation for moving in with her) actually belonged to her other (male) roommate. {{spoiler|She gleefully exclaims to the male roommate "he's into it!" [[Fade to Black]].}}

* [[Throw It In]]: The ending of the episode "The Parking Garage". Originally, the four of them were supposed to get in the car and drive off. But the car they had was such a piece of junk that it wouldn't start. After all the frustration of shooting the episode, they realized that the car being dead was just so much more perfect than anything they could have come up with.

* [[Title Please]]

* [[Token Good Teammate]]: Kramer is the ''only'' member of the cast who is consistently shown to be kind-hearted and caring, who goes out of his way to help people. It should be noted that his efforts to help others rarely succeed, though.

*** Julia-Louis Dreyfus said on her appearance on [[Inside The Actors Studio]] that in her opinion Jerry and Elaine were meant for each other but, their chief problem was that they were both too immature to realise that, hence their set-up of just being friends.

* [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]]: "The Pick" ends with Jerry and Elaine independently giving highly melodramatic responses to, respectively, being mistaken for picking his nose and accidentally showing her nipple on a Christmas card.

** The titular character of "The Old Man" is still apparently wandering around lost at the end of the episode.

** He is seen safe at home in the season 4 finale "The Pilot", where he sees Jerry on TV and exclaims, "That's the idiot who took all my records!"

** The ending to "The Label Maker" also counts: Due to a mix-up, Jerry gets a seat right next to Newman at the Super Bowl. Jerry has barely any room next to Newman's girth, not helped by the fact that Newman keeps leaning over when talking.

* [[Write What You Know]]: Larry David based the George character off of himself, and many of the plotlines allegedly were based on real life experiences he had, and how he reacted to them.

* [[X Called. They Want Their Y Back.]]: When George is scarfing down a play full of shrimp, a co-worker says (to much laughs) "Hey, George. The ocean called, they're running out of shrimp!"

** George later thinks up the "perfect comeback", and goes out of his way to recreate the same scenario in which to use it. "Yeah? Well the Jerk Store called, they're running out of you!", which gets no laughs and is casually countered by "What's the difference? You're their all time best seller!" George then counters with what Kramer believes is the ultimate comeback for any situation. "Well, I just had sex with your wife!"

*** In the tag, George comes up with the "perfect" comeback when driving home: "The life support system called..." We never hear the punchline, but apparently it's good enough to turn the car around and drive back.

* [[Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe]]: "Thou who cureth can maketh ill", attributed for laughs to the Bible by Kramer in "The Slicer". Kramer's convincing attitude may put this into [[Fridge Brilliance|fridge]] territory.

{{quote| '''Jerry:''' You know George, just because you had a terrible childhood doesn't mean you have to ruin someone elses. }}

* [[You Mean "Xmas"]]: Festivus.

{{quote| '''Jerry:''' All I could think of when I was looking at her face... was that ''[[The Gonk|Newman]]'' found this ''unacceptable''!}}

* [[Your Cheating Heart]]: George secretly getting together with [[Marisa Tomei]] in "The Cadillac"; his fiancée Susan is unaware, until she asks Elaine (who is supposed to have a cover story) and George the same questions, and both give different answers. Susan punches George.