yeah, it really was the first sitcom that didn't have a high concept. i think that was a key part of it's charm was that it didn't have an elevator pitch the way basically every tv show had. it was allowed by execs to be a vehicle for one comedian's style of observational humor and became a huge hit.
it wasn't like "a bunch of doctors working in a military hospital during the korean war" or "the whole thing takes place in the 1950s in a small town with a loveable rebel" or "two people with 3 kids each get hitched and there's a maid or some shit."
like even the term "sitcom" implies there's some novel, describable situation which induces comedy. as though the comedy writes itself due to the situation.
i also don't really give a shit about seinfeld anymore, though i used to watch it when it was new and i was a teenager. it was almost a given that most people thought jerry was the weakest part of the show. george was the gas, because he was constantly fucking up and emotionally charged all the time. elaine pretty normal except when she wasn't, and kramer was the wild card. the door thing with the audience cheering is crap today, but his more subtle twitching and mannerisms would still work if deployed today. giddyup. add in the truly absurd peripheral characters like newman or frank constanza, and there's some real pepper in that gumbo. mouth pop
i saw it was on streaming last year and revisited the episode where they forgot where jerry parked in the mall parking garage. very 90s. totally just a nostalgia experience at this point, because everything is so dated. especially the laugh track. but yeah, it was amusing watching kramer awkwardly and disastrously carry around some appliance in a box and to see both george and jerry get busted by a mall cop for taking a whiz, because george would of course fuck up like that but jerry is too refined. back then, an entire episode of a show taking place in the impossible labyrinth of a massive mall parking structure, trying to find the car was pretty clever for the shit that was being cranked out.
for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave%27s_World
yeah, it really was the first sitcom that didn't have a high concept. i think that was a key part of it's charm was that it didn't have an elevator pitch the way basically every tv show had. it was allowed by execs to be a vehicle for one comedian's style of observational humor and became a huge hit.
it wasn't like "a bunch of doctors working in a military hospital during the korean war" or "the whole thing takes place in the 1950s in a small town with a loveable rebel" or "two people with 3 kids each get hitched and there's a maid or some shit."
like even the term "sitcom" implies there's some novel, describable situation which induces comedy. as though the comedy writes itself due to the situation.
i also don't really give a shit about seinfeld anymore, though i used to watch it when it was new and i was a teenager. it was almost a given that most people thought jerry was the weakest part of the show. george was the gas, because he was constantly fucking up and emotionally charged all the time. elaine pretty normal except when she wasn't, and kramer was the wild card. the door thing with the audience cheering is crap today, but his more subtle twitching and mannerisms would still work if deployed today. giddyup. add in the truly absurd peripheral characters like newman or frank constanza, and there's some real pepper in that gumbo. mouth pop
i saw it was on streaming last year and revisited the episode where they forgot where jerry parked in the mall parking garage. very 90s. totally just a nostalgia experience at this point, because everything is so dated. especially the laugh track. but yeah, it was amusing watching kramer awkwardly and disastrously carry around some appliance in a box and to see both george and jerry get busted by a mall cop for taking a whiz, because george would of course fuck up like that but jerry is too refined. back then, an entire episode of a show taking place in the impossible labyrinth of a massive mall parking structure, trying to find the car was pretty clever for the shit that was being cranked out.
for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave%27s_World