Seinfeld Essay, Research Paper
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.