Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 12:09, 2 December 2002

Seinfeld is a US television sitcom, considered to be the most popular and influential of the 1990s. It stars Jerry Seinfeld playing a character named and largely based on himself, and is set in an apartment block in Manhattan, New York. It featured an electric cast of characters, mainly Jerry's friends and acquaintances - unlike many of the sitcoms of the 1980s that based themselves around family units with quotas of cute but smart-alec children. The show was famously described as "the show about nothing", and the comment is largely accurate, as most of the comedy was based around the largely inconsequential minutae of everyday life, often involving petty rivalries and elaborate schemes to gain the smallest advantage over other individuals.

Many of Seinfeld's distinctive traits can be found in subsequent popular sitcoms, most notably Friends.

Among the characters:

• Jerry Seinfeld (played by Jerry Seinfeld) - a reasonably successful standup comedian, who seeks out relationships with attractive women which rarely last more than one episode. A number of episodes involve some obsession of Jerry's that results in offending the romantic interest and breaking the relationship.
• George Costanza (played by Jason Alexander) - a short, balding, neurotic individual domineered by his parents, especially his father. The character of George was largely based on the show's co-creator Larry David.
• Cosmo Kramer (played by Michael Richards) - tall, wild-haired, Kramer is the Seinfeld character with the loosest grip on reality, decorum, or concepts of property. (Based on Larry David's sometime neighbour, Kenny Kramer)
• Elaine Benes (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) - like Seinfeld, much of Elaine's life revolves around trying to arrange relationships with attractive individuals, although some of hers last rather longer than Jerry's.

A few notable expressions from Seinfeld became popular phrases in everyday speech. Among the most famous:

• yada yada yada - used largely like "et cetera, et cetera", although in the original Seinfeld episode it was used to gloss over important details
• not that there's anything wrong with that - used to indicate that while one was not homosexual, one did not particularly disapprove of it
• master of my domain - used to describe one's fortitude in refraining from masturbation.
• spongeworthy - that a potential sexual partner is particularly attractive; in the original episodes, being "spongeworthy" meant Elaine was willing to use one of her limited supply of (no longer produced) contraceptive sponges with this person.
• man hands - phrase to describe a woman's hands when they are 'less than feminine.'
• mimbo - a male bimbo
• low talker - a person who speaks very softly. this can have very adverse effects especially when Jerry was 'low talked' into wearing a puffy shirt on the Today show.
• high talker - a person who speaks in an abnormal high pitch, usually to describe a male who sounds like a female.
• close talker - a person who doesn't understand the concept of personal space during conversation.
• the jimmy leg - a condition that people have when their leg undergoes spasms while sleeping causing his/her significant other to lose sleep. This condition may cause a couple to sleep in different beds; Frank and Estelle Costanza resorted to sleeping in twin beds as a result of her jimmy arm.
• no soup for you - an exclamation used in the event where someone changes his or her mind about giving something to someone else. The word "soup" may be replaced with the object at hand; the reference to the show can still be very obvious if the speaker uses the correct tone of voice.
• soup nazi - a person who would often need to say, "No soup for you!"