A show that almost did not happen
Seinfeld was created by the stand-up COMEDIAN Jerry Seinfeld and the writer Larry David. When the first episode, called The Seinfeld Chronicles, was tested on audiences in 1989, it did very badly, and the network ordered only four more episodes, one of the smallest orders ever given for an American sitcom. Although the show was set in New York, it was filmed in Los Angeles, and Larry David left after the seventh series, returning only to write the finale. It survived, slowly found an audience, and ran until 1998, by which time it was one of the most popular shows in the country. Jerry Seinfeld chose to end it while it was still at the top, reportedly turning down around five million dollars an episode to make a tenth series. Early episodes opened and closed with Jerry doing STANDUP comedy in a club.
It is often called a show about NOTHING. The phrase comes from an episode in which JERRY and GEORGE pitch a sitcom to a television network and describe it as a show about nothing, which is more or less what Seinfeld was: four friends in MANHATTAN, arguing about small, everyday things.
Real people behind the characters
COSTANZA, the anxious, scheming George, was largely based on Larry David himself. KRAMER, the wild-haired neighbour who bursts through the door, was based on David's real neighbour, Kenny Kramer, who later ran a bus tour of New York called Kramer's Reality Tour. The famous soup-shop owner who shouted no soup for you at customers who broke his rules was based on a real New York soup seller. ELAINE BENES, Jerry's ex-girlfriend, completes the group, and NEWMAN, the postman, is Jerry's sworn enemy, greeted every time with a cold hello, Newman.
The DINER where the friends meet was filmed from the outside at Tom's Restaurant in New York, the same café that inspired Suzanne Vega's 1987 song Tom's Diner.
Festivus for the rest of us
In one Christmas episode, George's father explains that he invented a holiday of his own, FESTIVUS, celebrated on 23 December with a plain aluminium pole instead of a tree, the airing of grievances, where everyone complains about the others, and feats of strength. It was based on a real family tradition: one of the show's writers, Dan O'Keefe, grew up with a Festivus invented by his father in 1966. Thousands of people now celebrate it every year, and some have put up Festivus poles in public places alongside Christmas trees.
Words that entered the language
Several phrases from the show passed into everyday English. To REGIFT means passing on a present someone gave you, and to YADA YADA something means to skip over the important part of a story. SHRINKAGE, the SPONGE and VANDELAY Industries, a made-up company George invents, became famous jokes, as did BABU, the restaurant owner, David PUDDY, Elaine's boyfriend, the PRETZEL and the SOUP. KRAMER's first name, Cosmo, was kept secret until the sixth series. In 2019 the rights to stream every episode were sold for more than five hundred million dollars. The final episode, in May 1998, was watched by around seventy-six million Americans. Our sitcoms page covers the shows that came before and after it.