TV Roundup: Seinfeld, #2

And down the stretch we come...when last we took a visit to the TV Roundup, my documentation of my top-21 favorite TV shows of all-time, I was detailing my third favorite pick, The Sopranos.

With only two shows left, it may be fairly clear where we are going, so I'm going to try and get 'er done as quickly as possible. But before we get to my next pick (spoiler alert - it's in the Title of this post), here's what we've done thus far:

21. Kids In The Hall
20. Taxi
19. How I Met Your Mother
18. Dexter
17. The Simpsons
16. The Daily Show
15. Mad Men
14. Arrested Development
13. 24
12. The Office (UK & US)
11. Lost
10. Cheers
9. Six Feet Under
8. The West Wing
7. Friday Night Lights
6. Survivor
5. Battlestar Galactica
4. Sports Night
3. The Sopranos

I'm looking at this list and here's what I have to say -- all those idiots driving around with Kill Your Television bumper stickers are bummed. Because in their insistence that TV is nothing but bad news, they are missing out on all these gems.

And my pick for #2 is an institution, one that became actually defined "Must See T.V.," added words to our lexicon and changed television for the better (while also spawning countless bad imitations). I'm talking, of course, of Seinfeld, the second-best television show ever made.

I watched Jerry Seinfeld back before the show launched, mostly through appearances on David Letterman and Johnny Carson. In fact, I remember in 1991, talking to one of my best friends who was over living in Wales. Back in those pre-email days, an intercontinental phone call was, to me at least, a big and rare deal. And the only thing I remember about that call was telling him that Seinfeld had his own TV show.

In truth, that first season was pretty mediocre -- George Costanza (Jason Alexander) was largely doing a bad Woody Allen, Kramer (Michael Richards) was dysfunctionally instead of comically weird, and Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) wasn't nearly the character she'd become.

But still...there was something. And when the show finally hit its stride, it was unlike anything else we'd seen. Looking at the historical episodes, it's clear that didn't happen until the second to last episode of what's technically considered the second season (but, since the first had just four trial episodes, it's really the first). This was, of course, "The Chinese Restaurant," an episode that centers around nothing more than Jerry, George and Elaine waiting to get seated for dinner before catching a movie. (Plan 9 from Outer Space, specifically.) This was truly a "show about nothing," the concept that Jerry pitches to NBC in season four (parodying the tepid response show executives gave him about this episode specifically).

Seinfeld points to 'The Junior Mint" as the episode where the characters could finally cross a new line, based mostly on his line about going to watch someone have surgery:

Let's watch them slice this fat bastard up.

Really, the show was already well on its way. I honestly think George Constanza is one of the funniest characters in the history of television, even if Curb Your Enthusiasm suggests all Alexander was doing was a great Larry David impression. Elaine is one of the best female characters of all-time, and Kramer is a legend. (Richards has said that he finally understood the character when he realized Kramer wasn't a shut-in, he was someone who thought he had figured it out, and in some ways had. By the way, doing a search on Michael Richards at all is insane - after seven pages about his awful, racist tirade, I gave up.) In fact, Jerry himself is in some ways the least interesting character on the show.

George Costanza: Do women know about shrinkage?
Elaine: What, you mean like laundry?
Jerry: No. Like when you're in a pool... afterwards...
Elaine: It shrinks?
Jerry: Like a frigthened turtle.
Elaine: Why does it shrink?
George Costanza: It just does....
Elaine: I don't know how you guys walk around with those things.

And, though it certainly had some missteps (many occurred while trying to cover up Louis-Dreyfus' pregnancy), one thing the show did exceptionally well was to grow. Some of the absolute funniest elements came later in the show -- J. Peterman, George with the Yankees, "Cosmo" Kramer, Elaine's "Little Kicks," George and Susan, Del Boca Vista, The Soup Nazi,The Contest, Kramerica, Inc., Festivus, and so much more.

Cosmo Kramer: You know Darren, if you would have told me twenty-five years ago that some day I'd be standing here about to solve the world's energy problems, I would've said you're crazy... Now let's push this giant ball of oil out the window.

It may be the single most re-watchable show of all-time. I own it on DVD, and sometimes randomly plunk in a DVD and just hit whatever is there.

Rental Car Agent: Would you like insurance?
Jerry: Yeah, you better give me the insurance. Because I'm gonna beat the hell out of this car.

Clearly, in some ways this was lightning in a bottle - none of the actors have gone onto much other long-lasting success (though Louis-Dreyfus seems to have hit with The New Adventures of Old Christine, a show I've never seen), with the exception of Larry David and Curb. David, of course, was not actually ON Seinfeld, just one of its creative backbones and original creators. It's odd that without their co-actors, most of them often look painful on their own.

George Costanza: The sea was angry that day, my friends - like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli. I got about fifty feet out and suddenly the great beast appeared before me. I tell you he was ten stories high if he was a foot. As if sensing my presence, he let out a great bellow. I said, "Easy, big fella!" And then, as I watched him struggling, I realized that something was obstructing its breathing. From where I was standing, I could see directly into the eye of the great fish.
Jerry: Mammal.
George Costanza: Whatever.

Regardless, the show is truly brilliant. Picking just the few quotes I've put in this was preposterous - there are far, far too many to choose from. While I'll admit that the series finale was painfully bad, I'm not sure how they could have ended this show in a way that would have pleased me. I know there are people out there who didn't like or watch Seinfeld -- in fact, I'm friends with a few. But, to me that's incomprehensible. I know some of the shows on this list aren't for everybody, but this is the funniest show in the history of television.

That's good enough for me to make it the #2 show of all-time.