I’m not sure why I hate Seinfeld.
I know; it’s funny; hilarious, even. I watch it, and I laugh. Sometimes really, really hard. Even at Kramer. The show is well-written, no doubt about it.
And yet I find myself gritting my teeth and getting antsy when I watch it, just like I do when I’m behind some yapping, whiny, self-centered dolt in the line at the grocery store – the kind that argues over the price they thought they saw on the shelf. When I’m not laughing, the show irritates the bejeebers out of me.
Part of it is, yuks aside, watching Michael Richards has, for me, always been like listening to fingers scratching on chalkboards. I’ve had an almost-visceral distaste for Richards ever since Fridays, the abortive ABC whack at Saturday Night Live’s market back in 1980. Richards/Kramer is funny, occasionally? Sure. Irritating? Always, always, always.
But the biggest problem I’ve always had with Seinfeld is the overall attitude of the show. If Seinfeld were a person, it’d be fussy, uptight, nit-picky, whiny, infantile and grating.
Watching too much Seinfeld for me would be like being snowbound in a hotel room with Mike Gelfand.
So I laugh. And I grit my teeth. And, usually, just don’t tune in.
I never watched the show at all, except for the last couple seasons, when (everybody told me) it was in its decline.
I was fascinated, as a writer, by the neat tie-up of plot elements at the end of each episode. I admired that.
But when they all went to jail in the series finale, it was fine by me.
I thought I was the only one who dislilked Michael Richards on Fridays… which was such a missed oportunity, considering how SNL was in that “not firing on all cylinders” era (unfortunately between two successful eras).
Richards’ hyper boy in the backyard character was a lesson in what simply is not funny. It was goofy, I’ll grant you… but funny? No.
I liked Seinfeld because I always thought it was topical and current – such as an episode around the time when Oliver Stone’s “JFK” was out with its grassy knoll and ‘magic bullet’ theory and Seinfeld did an episode where some NY Mets spit towards Newman from a grassy knoll near Shea and it was a ‘magic loogie’ that also hit Kramer. From time-to-time I will watch a rerun, but it loses its magic when you realize that the episode is nearly 15 years old.
A thing that I am supposed to love but can’t stand – M*A*S*H*. Some of the old Wayne Rogers / McLean Stevenson ones are okay if only because back then it was a comedy. After they left, the show wasn’t funny and it was so godamm preachy. I was not one of the many white people Chris Rock says were unhappy when M*A*S*H* went off the air.
The show quickly turned from something rather quirky into a study of sad, neurotic people and the fact that they can barely put up with themselves. It’s characters in their 40s acting like they’re kids who can’t grow up. For a few episodes it’s funny, but so much of it just seems to be filled with miserable commitment-phobes. They’re all half a step away from owning 20 cats and watching Court shows all day.
On the other hand, Kramer I can handle. George is the one who makes me throw stuff at the TV. Even then, George’s father came up with Festivus, which is probably one of the few things about the show people will remember in 30 years.
Jerry Stiller was great. The true gem of the series.
I thought it was very well written, good not great acting, funny characters especially the supporting characters.
But I just couldn’t get past the narcissism.