![]() Seinfeld received so much attention that its finale, which aired on May 14, 1998, is the sixth-most viewed entertainment television event, outside of sports, of all time. It became a cultural phenomenon by creating popular sayings and influencing viewers’ lives on a personal level. Over the years, the show developed into much more than entertainment. Photo credit: National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Jerry and his friends-George Costanza ( Jason Alexander ), Elaine Benes ( Julia Louis-Dreyfus ), and (Cosmo) Kramer ( Michael Richards) -are the primary sources of comedy and entertainment throughout the show through their incredible acting and relatable actions, based on clever and snappy writing. Each episode is merely different twists in routine days to add comedic effect. You eat and read and go shopping.” There’s no true plot carried from one episode to the next other than the relationships between characters, as well as inside jokes. The show was created by comedians and friends Larry David, who wrote many of the episodes, and Jerry Seinfeld, and it centers around the life of a comedian (named Jerry Seinfeld) and is consequently a “show about nothing.” This means that, according to Seinfeld, “nothing happens on the show. Witty remarks such as this one fill the 172 episodes of Seinfeld, an extraordinarily popular sitcom that aired from 1989 to 1998 on NBC and is now available on Netflix. I’m gonna’ let the money relax.” – Jerry Seinfeld in “The Stock Tip” episode of Seinfeld. People always tell me, you should have your money working for you. Letters to the Editors will be published, but they are subject to revision based on content or length. You can respond in the comments below, but please do so respectfully. The Match welcomes thoughtful commentary and response to our content. (Photo: Columbia TriStar Television/Courtesy of Everett Collection) Estelle Harris and Jason Alexander in “The Contest” episode of Seinfeld.The opinions published by The Match are solely those of the author, and not of the entire publication, its staff, or Collegiate School. It is a TV truth universally acknowledged that the classic comedy series Seinfeld mastered its domain on Nov. 18, 1992, midway through its fourth season on the air. That’s the night that unsuspecting viewers sat down to watch “The Contest,” an innocuous title for an episode that turned sexual innuendo into an art form. The titular contest pitted Seinfeld’s core four characters - Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), George (Jason Alexander), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and Kramer (Michael Richards) - against one another in a fiercely fought battle for bragging rights about which of them would be the longest to go without indulging in any self-pleasure. It’s an idea that emerged from the notebook of Larry David, who made a similar bet in the ’80s and, of course, emerged as the King of the County. Twenty-five years later, “The Contest” remains a masterclass in how to talk about masturbation while never actually dropping the M word, a feat that has elevated the episode to the ranks of the all-time great sitcom half-hours. But longtime Seinfeld director Tom Cherones tells Yahoo Entertainment that, back in 1992, it was just another day at the office for the cast and crew. “We didn’t know about ahead of time,” he says. “Like any other week, we got the script and read it. We had been doing the show a while at that point, so nothing Larry would come up with would surprise me anymore.”Īccording to Cherones, if NBC’s Standards and Practices department had been surprised by “The Contest,” they didn’t show it. Nor did they insist on any major changes in early read-throughs or on set. In fact, the episode that ended up onscreen is more or less the episode that David wrote, minus a few lines that made the premise more explicit - though not in a graphic way - than it needed to be. “In the table read, there was a line in the opening scene in the coffee shop where George is describing what happened with the Glamour magazine,” Cherones remembers. “He said, ‘There was tugging.’ That was obviously not needed, so Larry cut it.”Īsked why he thinks “The Contest” has endured for a quarter century, Cherones chalks it up first and foremost to being a “really funny episode.” “Michael did his best work in that episode in terms of the physical stuff just the way he moved was funny,” he says.
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