If a friend asked you, ‘What’s the greatest TV show ever made about?’ how would you answer them?
Would you explain how it’s about a brutal crime boss going to therapy? Perhaps you’d say it follows a chemistry teacher who starts cooking meth to provide for his family?
Maybe you’d tell them it’s about a bunch of wannabe influencers seeking a brand deal… I mean, love in a villa?
Whatever show you think is the best of the best, though I very much doubt you’d tell them it’s about nothing.
And yet, 36 years ago today, a show ‘about nothing’ premiered on NBC and changed television forever.
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I’m talking, of course, about Seinfeld, one of the most influential and important series ever made.
If you never watched it, then ‘NO SOUP FOR YOU! Okay, that’s not fair. Allow me to explain the series’ premise because it’s not really about ‘nothing’.
The show follows a fictionalised version of Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry Seinfeld) and follows him and his friends – George Costanza (Jason Alexander), Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) as they navigate life in New York City.
Now, there are ongoing plots like Jerry getting his own TV show (yes, it gets very meta), and George’s terrible love life, but for the most part, the show focuses on the little things in life.
This meant you got entire episodes focused on things like finding a car in a multi-storey car park, characters’ sex lives, or, most famously, trying to get some soup.
The 10 best Seinfeld episodes (according to IMDb)
Looking to get started with Seinfeld? Why not start here…
10. The Jimmy ( Season 6, Episode 18) – Elaine dates a man whose annoying habit of referring to himself in the third-person annoys Jerry.
9. The Hamptons (Season 5, Episode 2) – Jerry and his pals visit a friend in The Hamptons, and it goes as well as you’d expect.
8. The Betrayal (Season 9, Episode 8) – Jerry sleeps with a woman George is trying to date.
7. The Merv Griffin Show (Season 9, Episode 6) – Kramer decides to recreate the Merv Griffin Show in his apartment.
6. The Bizarro Jerry (Season 8, Episode 3) – Elaine meets a man who is Jerry’s exact opposite.
5.The Marine Biologist (Season 5, Episode 14) – George starts dating a woman who’s convinced he’s a marine biologist.
4. The Outing (Season 4, Episode 17) – Elaine convinces a journalist that Jerry and George are dating.
3. The Opposite (Season 5, Episode 21) – George does the exact opposite of what he’d normally do.
2. The Soup Nazi (Season 7, Episode 6) – The gang try and get some soup.
1. The Contest (Season 4, Episode 11) – Jerry and friends make a competition out of self-control.
These plots may sound mundane, but they were the secret to the show’s success because they made the characters and their world incredibly relatable.
Creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld would then use this relatable world to make absolutely hilarious jokes and gags about the terribly recognisable gaffes and faux pas we all make on a daily basis.
In a way, then, Seinfeld wasn’t a show about nothing; it was a show about everything and everyone.
Unsurprisingly, considering the brilliance of its premise, cast, and writing, Seinfeld was a huge hit, running for nine seasons from 1989 to 1998 and garnering legions of fans across the globe and turning Jerry into a household name.
Indeed, the series’ two-part finale was watched by 76.3 million people across America – making it the fourth-most watched series finale in US history.
However, beyond the series’ commercial and critical success, it had a major influence on the way TV was made.
Arguably, the series’ biggest influence is that it opened the door to TV shows about unlikable characters.
Without Seinfeld, we definitely wouldn’t have got Always Sunny or Peep Show, and there’s an argument to be made that even stuff like The Sopranos owes a debt of gratitude to Jerry and his friends.
Oddly, though, Seinfeld’s biggest contribution to pop culture may be that it helped give us Friends.
While Friends may be a far more traditional sitcom than Jerry’s creation, the two share certain DNA – something that critics were keen to point out when Friends debuted, with some even labelling it a Seinfeld rip-off.
Jerry himself has made several potshots at Friends for ‘copying’ his idea, once joking that the show is just Seinfeld ‘with better-looking people’.
Jerry’s tongue-in-cheek comments aside, the real debt Friends owes Seinfeld is that Friends reruns often ran after Seinfeld, and this lead-in gave the show a massive boost in popularity.
Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe on the show, once told The Daily Beast: ‘It was in the summer when we were in reruns after Seinfeld, where Seinfeld was our lead-in, where we exploded.’
‘I remember going to some party, and Jerry Seinfeld was there, and I said, “Hi,” and he said, “You’re welcome,”’
‘I said, “Why, thank you…what?” Lisa continued. ‘And he said, “You’re on after us in the summer, and you’re welcome. I said, “That’s exactly right. Thank you.’”
So I guess if it wasn’t for Seinfeld there’s an argument to be made there’d be NO FRIENDS FOR YOU!
Watch all nine seasons of Seinfeld on Netflix.
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