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Trivia
Main article: List of Seinfeld episodes Seinfeld stood out from family and group sitcoms of its time. The principal characters are not related by family or work connections but remain distinctively close friends throughout the series.

Tom's Restaurant, a diner at 112th St. and Broadway, in Manhattan that was used as the exterior image of Monk's Café in the show

Many characters were based primarily on Seinfeld's and David's real-life acquaintances. Two prominent recurring characters were based on well-known people: Jacopo Peterman of the J. Peterman catalog (based on John Peterman), and George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees. Many characters were introduced as new writers got involved with Seinfeld. Other characters based on real people include the Soup Nazi and Jackie Chiles, who was based on Johnnie Cochran.

Seinfeld follows its own structure: story thread is presented at the beginning of every episode, which involves the characters starting in their own situations. Rapid scene-shifts between plot lines bring the stories together. Even though it does not follow a pattern as other sitcoms, the characters' stories variously intertwine in each episode. Despite the separate plot strands, the narratives reveal the creators' "consistent efforts to maintain the intimacy" among the small cast of characters.

The show maintains a strong sense of continuity—characters and plots from past episodes are often referenced or expanded on. Occasionally, story arcs span multiple episodes and even entire seasons, the most memorable being season four, which revolved around the pilot pitch to NBC by Jerry and George. Another example is Jerry's girlfriend Vanessa, who appears in "The Stake Out" and he ends the relationship when things do not work out in "The Stock Tip". Other examples are Kramer getting his jacket back and Elaine heading the "Peterman catalog". Larry David, the head writer and executive producer for the first seven seasons, was praised for keeping a close eye on minor details and making sure the main characters' lives remained consistent and believable. Curb Your Enthusiasm—David's later comedy series—expanded on this idea by following a specific theme for all but one season in the series.

A major difference between Seinfeld and sitcoms which preceded it is that the principal characters never learn from their mistakes. In effect, they are indifferent and even callous towards the outside world and sometimes one another. A mantra of the show's producers was: "No hugging, no learning". Entertainment Weekly's TV critic Ken Tucker has described them as "a group dynamic rooted in jealousy, rage, insecurity, despair, hopelessness, and a touching lack of faith in one's fellow human beings". This leads to very few happy endings, except at somebody else's expense. More often in every episode, situations resolve with characters getting a justly deserved comeuppance.

Seasons 1–3
The Los Angeles building used to depict the exterior of Jerry's apartment building at 129 West 81st Street, Manhattan

The show premiered as The Seinfeld Chronicles on July 5, 1989. After it aired, a pickup by NBC seemed unlikely and the show was offered to Fox, which declined to pick it up. Rick Ludwin, head of late night and special events for NBC, however, diverted money from his budget by canceling a Bob Hope television special, and the next 4 episodes were filmed. These episodes were highly rated as they followed summer re-runs of Cheers on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m., and the series was finally picked up. At one point NBC considered airing these episodes on Saturdays at 10:30 p.m., but gave that slot to a short-lived sitcom called FM. The series was renamed simply Seinfeld after the failure of short-lived 1990 ABC series The Marshall Chronicles. After airing the remaining four episodes of its first season the summer of 1990, NBC ordered thirteen more episodes. Larry David believed that he and Jerry Seinfeld had no more stories to tell, and advised Seinfeld to turn down the order, but Seinfeld agreed to the additional episodes. Season two was bumped off its scheduled premiere of January 16, 1991, due to the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War. It settled into a regular time slot on Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. and eventually flipped with veteran series Night Court to 9:00.

TV critics championed Seinfeld in its early seasons, even as it was slow to cultivate a substantial audience. For the first three seasons, Jerry's stand-up comedy act would bookend an episode, even functioning as cut scenes during the show. A few episodes set a benchmark for later seasons. "The Deal" establishes Jerry and Elaine's relationship by setting rules about sleeping together and remaining friends. "The Parking Garage" was the first episode shot with no audience for the episode and, after "The Chinese Restaurant", with not showing Jerry's apartment. "The Keys" contains a crossover to CBS show Murphy Brown, marking the first such cooperation between rival networks. "The Busboy" introduces George, Kramer and Elaine as having their own storylines for the first time. Although Castle Rock Entertainment's Glenn Padnick thought Jerry Seinfeld was too generous, showcasing his co-stars' comedic talent became a trademark throughout the series.

Larry Charles wrote an episode for season two, "The Bet", in which Elaine buys a gun from Kramer's friend. This episode wasn't filmed because the content was deemed unacceptable, and was replaced by the episode "The Phone Message". "The Stranded", aired in season three, was intended for season two. In the beginning of this episode, Jerry clears up the continuity error over George's real estate job.

Seasons 4–5
Season four marked the sitcom's entry into the Nielsen ratings Top 30, coinciding with several popular episodes, such as "The Bubble Boy" in which George and the bubble boy argue over Trivial Pursuit, and "The Junior Mint" in which Jerry and Kramer accidentally fumble a mint in the operating room. This was the first season to use a story arc of Jerry and George creating their own sitcom, Jerry. Also at this time, the use of Jerry's stand-up act slowly declined, and the stand-up segment in the middle of Seinfeld episodes was cut.

Much publicity followed the controversial episode, "The Contest", an Emmy Award-winning episode written by co-creator Larry David, whose subject matter was considered inappropriate for prime time network TV. To circumvent this taboo, the word "masturbation" was never used in the script, instead substituted for by a variety of oblique references. Midway through that season, Seinfeld was moved from its original 9:00 p.m. time slot on Wednesdays to 9:30 p.m. on Thursdays, following Cheers again, which gave the show even more popularity. Ratings also sparked the move, as Tim Allen's sitcom Home Improvement on ABC had aired at the same time and Improvement kept beating Seinfeld in the ratings. NBC moved the series after Ted Danson announced the end of Cheers and Seinfeld quickly surpassed the ratings of the 9:00 p.m. Cheers reruns that spring. The show won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1993, beating out its family-oriented, time-slot competitor Home Improvement, which was only in its second season on rival network ABC.

Season five was an even bigger ratings-hit, consisting of popular episodes, such as "The Puffy Shirt" in which Jerry feels embarrassed wearing a "pirate" shirt on The Today Show, "The Non-Fat Yogurt" featuring Rudy Giuliani, the Republican then-mayor-elect of New York, and "The Opposite" in which George, doing the opposite of what his instincts tell him he should do, lands a job with the New York Yankees and Elaine leaves "Pendant Publishing" because of a comedy of errors that lead to its demise. Another story arc has George returning to live with his parents. In the midst of the story arc, Kramer creates and promotes his coffee table book. The show was again nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series, but lost to the Cheers spin-off Frasier, then in its first season. Seinfeld was nominated for the same award every year for its entire run but, after its win at the 45th Primetime Emmy Awards in 1994, always lost to Frasier, which went on to win a record thirty-nine Emmy Awards in its eleven-season run.

Seasons 6–7
In season six, Andy Ackerman replaced Tom Cherones as director of the show. The series remained well-regarded and produced some of its most famous episodes, such as "The Beard" in which Jerry is put through a lie detector test to make him admit that he watched Melrose Place, "The Switch" in which Kramer's mom, Babs, reveals that his first name is Cosmo, and "The Understudy" in which Elaine meets J. Peterman for the first time. Story arcs used in this season were Elaine working as a personal assistant to her eccentric boss Justin Pitt and George's parents' temporary separation. This was the first season in which Seinfeld reached No. 1 in the Nielsen Ratings. The use of Jerry's stand-up act declined with the end stand-up segment no longer appearing, as the storylines for all four characters grew denser.

In season seven, a story arc involved George getting engaged to his ex-girlfriend, Susan Ross, after the pilot Jerry proved unsuccessful. In it, George spends most of the season regretting and trying to get out of the engagement. Along with the regular half-hour episodes, two notable one-hour episodes were "The Cadillac" in which George plans to date award-winning actor Marisa Tomei and "The Bottle Deposit" with Elaine and Sue Ellen participating in a bidding war to buy JFK's golf clubs in an auction.

Seasons 8–9
The show's ratings were still going strong in its final two seasons. Larry David left at the end of season seven, although he continued to voice Steinbrenner, so Seinfeld assumed David's duties as showrunner, and, under the direction of a new writing staff, Seinfeld became a faster-paced show. The show no longer contained extracts of Jerry performing stand-up comedy—Jerry had no time or energy for this with his new responsibilities—and storylines occasionally delved into fantasy and broad humor. For example, in "The Bizarro Jerry", Elaine is torn between exact opposites of her friends and Jerry dates a woman who has the now-famed "man hands". Some notable episodes from season eight include "The Little Kicks" showing Elaine's horrible dancing, and "The Chicken Roaster" which portrays the Kenny Rogers Roasters chicken restaurant which opened during that time. A story arc in this season involves Peterman going to Burma in "The Foundation" until he recovered from a nervous breakdown in "The Money", followed by Elaine writing Peterman's biography in "The Van Buren Boys", which leads to Kramer's parody of Kenny Kramer's Reality Tour seen in "The Muffin Tops".

The final season included episodes like "The Merv Griffin Show" in which Kramer converts his apartment into a talk-show studio and plays the character of talk-show host, "The Betrayal" that presents in reverse chronological order what happened to Sue Ellen's wedding in India, and "The Frogger" in which George pushes a Frogger machine across the street, mimicking the action of the game itself. The last season included a story arc in which Elaine has an on/off relationship with Puddy. Despite the enormous popularity and willingness of the cast to return for a tenth season, Seinfeld decided to end the show after season nine, believing he would thereby be able to ensure the show would maintain its quality and go out on top. NBC offered him over $100 million for a tenth season, but Seinfeld declined.

A major controversy caused in this final season was the accidental burning of a Puerto Rican flag by Kramer in "The Puerto Rican Day". This scene caused a furor among Puerto Ricans, and as a result, NBC showed this episode only once. Jerry Seinfeld defused the protestors by not letting this episode continue in syndication, as revealed in "Inside Look" on DVD. However, the episode would be added to the syndicated rerun package several years later uncut.

Series finale
Main article: The Finale (Seinfeld)

After nine years on the air, NBC and Jerry Seinfeld announced on December 25, 1997, that the series would end production the following spring in 1998. The announcement made the front page of the major New York newspapers, including the New York Times. Jerry Seinfeld was featured on the cover of Time magazine's first issue of 1998. The series ended with a seventy-five-minute episode (cut to 60 minutes in syndication, in two parts) written by co-creator and ex-executive producer Larry David, which aired on May 14, 1998. Before the finale, a forty-five-minute retrospective clip show, "The Chronicle", was aired. The retrospective was expanded to an hour after the original airing and aired again on NBC as an hour-long episode, and has since aired in syndication.

It was the first episode since the finale of season seven, "The Invitations", to feature opening and closing stand-up comedy acts by Jerry Seinfeld. The finale was filmed before an audience of NBC executives and friends of the show. The press and public were shut out of the taping in order to keep its plot secret; those who attended the shoot of the final episode were required to sign written "vows of silence". The secrecy only seemed to increase speculation about how the series would end. The producers of the show tweaked the media about the hype, spreading a false rumor about Newman ending up in the hospital and Jerry and Elaine sitting in a chapel, presumably to marry.

The final episode enjoyed a historic audience, estimated at 76.3 million viewers (58% of all viewers that night) making it the fourth most watched regular series finale in U.S. TV history, behind M*A*S*H, Cheers and The Fugitive. However, the finale received mixed reviews from critics and fans of the show. The finale poked fun at the many rumors that were circulating, seeming to move into multiple supposed plots before settling on its true storyline—a lengthy trial where the gang is prosecuted for violating a "Duty to Rescue" law and sentenced to prison terms.

According to Forbes magazine, Jerry Seinfeld's earnings from the show in 1998 came to US$267 million, including syndication earnings. He refused NBC's offer of $5 million per episode, or over $100 million total, to continue the show into a tenth season. The offer NBC made to Seinfeld was over three times higher per episode than anyone on TV had ever been offered before. Seinfeld told the network that he was not married nor had children, and wished to focus on his personal life. As reported in July 2007, he was the second-highest earner in the TV industry, earning at the time $60 million a year. The show became the first TV series to command over $1 million a minute for advertising–a mark previously attained only by the Super Bowl.

Syndication
According to Barry Meyer, chairman of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Seinfeld made $2.7 billion through June 2010. As of February 2017 the show has made an estimated $4.06 billion in syndication. Steve Bannon, who invested in the show, later said, "We calculated what it would get us if it made it to syndication. We were wrong by a factor of five". In September 2019, it was announced Viacom had acquired cable syndication rights to the series, with it airing on Paramount Network, Comedy Central and TV Land beginning in October 2021.

Production
Seinfeld began as a twenty-three-minute pilot titled The Seinfeld Chronicles. Created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, developed by NBC executive Rick Ludwin, and produced by Castle Rock Entertainment, it was a mix of Seinfeld's stand-up comedy routines and idiosyncratic, conversational scenes focusing on mundane aspects of everyday life like laundry, the buttoning of the top button on one's shirt, and the effort by men to properly interpret the intent of women spending the night in Seinfeld's apartment.

The pilot was filmed at Stage 8 of Desilu Cahuenga studios, the same studio where The Dick Van Dyke Show was filmed (this was seen by the crew as a good omen), and was recorded at Ren-Mar Studios in Hollywood. The pilot was first screened to a group of two dozen NBC executives in Burbank, California in early 1989. It didn't yield the explosion of laughter garnered by the pilots for the decade's previous NBC successes like The Cosby Show and The Golden Girls. Brandon Tartikoff was not convinced that the show would work. A Jewish man from New York himself, Tartikoff characterized it as "Too New York, too Jewish" (a sentiment which would also lead to the Cosmo character's later surname change from the more Jewish-sounding Kessler to Kramer). Test audiences were even harsher. NBC's practice at the time was to recruit 400 households by phone to ask them to evaluate pilots it aired on an unused channel on its cable system. An NBC research department memo summarized the pilot's performance among the respondents as "weak", which Warren Littlefield, then second-in-command in NBC's entertainment division, called "a dagger to the heart". Comments included, "You can't get too excited about two guys going to the laundromat"; "Jerry's loser friend George isn't a forceful character"; "Jerry needs a stronger supporting cast"; and "Why are they interrupting the stand-up for these stupid stories?" Seinfeld and David didn't see the memo for several years, but after they became aware of it, they hung it in a bathroom on the set. Seinfeld comments, "We thought, if someone goes in to use this bathroom, this is something they should see. It fits that moment."

Around the time the show's pilot was filmed, Castle Rock Entertainment, which produced the show, had also produced another pilot for NBC that featured Ann Jillian in her almost-similarly eponymous TV series. After The Seinfeld Chronicles tested poorly among audiences, Castle Rock then devoted their focus to Jillian's series, which tested better with audiences and received a full-season order. Ann Jillian would last only a single season of 13 episodes and would be off the air by the end of 1990.

When NBC announced its 1989–90 prime time schedule in May 1989, The Seinfeld Chronicles was not included, but supporters of the show didn't give up on it. The pilot first aired on July 5, 1989, and finished second in its time slot against the CBS police drama Jake and the Fatman, receiving a Nielsen rating of 10.9/19. The ratings didn't exhibit regional skew that Tartikoff predicted, much to the encouragement of the show's supporters. Despite the poor test results, Ludwin cancelled one of the Bob Hope specials budgeted for that season so that the entertainment division had the money to order four more episodes of The Seinfeld Chronicles, which formed the rest of the show's first season (the series was by then retitled to just Seinfeld). Chicago Tribune columnist Phil Rosenthal later stated that without this move, there would be no Seinfeld. Although this was a very low order number for a new series (the smallest sitcom order in TV history), Castle Rock failed to find any other buyers when it shopped the show to other networks, and accepted the order. The show wouldn't return to the airwaves until May 30, 1990, and it would be another three years before it became a Top 5-rated show. Preston Beckman, who was in charge of NBC's research department at the time, reminisced, "The show was different. Nobody had seen anything like it. It wasn't unusual for poor-testing shows to get on the air, but it was very rare that they became hits."

When it was first repeated on July 5, 1990, it received a rating of 13.9/26. These ratings were high enough to secure a second season. NBC research showed that the show was popular with young male adults, a demographic sought after by advertisers. This gave NBC an incentive to keep broadcasting the show. One DVD reviewer, Britt Gillette, wrote that "this initial episode exhibits the flashes of brilliance that made Seinfeld a cultural phenomenon."

Other than the pilot, the series was filmed at CBS Studio Center in Studio City, California. The first 3 seasons were filmed on soundstage 19, and the show then moved to the larger stage 9 for the remainder of the series production. Despite using numerous establishing shots taken in New York City, all scenes of the actors walking in New York were also filmed at CBS Studio Center, on their New York Street backlot. Other locations on the CBS lot were also used for filming, as well as scenes filmed at Paramount Studios and Warner Brothers Studios Hollywood.[citation needed]

A source of problems for the cast was the small sets, specifically that of Jerry's apartment, which Alexander has noted "If you knew you were doing a series for nine years, you would never build that set". Adding to the issue was that the scripts contained only minimal action lines leading to the actors struggling to come up with actions to perform on the sets. Eventually they got into a routine of directing each other on how to make their movements look natural. Alexander has stated that this helped the cast build chemistry with each other.

Tapings of the show would usually go long as the casts and David were perfectionists, if a joke didn't elicit the type of reaction they were hoping for they would rewrite the joke and perform it again. In at least one case, The Marine Biologist, this lead to David writing an entirely new scene requiring Alexander to memorize a monologue in only a matter of minutes. Laugh tracks were used but only for matching shots and not for artificially adding laughter to a scene.

High-definition versions
There are two high-definition versions of Seinfeld. The first is that of the network TV (non-syndicated) versions in the original aspect ratio of 4:3 that were downscaled for the DVD releases. Syndicated broadcast stations and the cable network TBS began airing the syndicated version of Seinfeld in HD. Unlike the version used for the DVD, Sony Pictures cropped the top and bottom parts of the frame, while restoring previously cropped images on the sides, from the 35mm film source, to use the entire 16:9 frame.

Reception and legacy
Elizabeth Magnotta and Alexandra Strohl analyze the success of Seinfeld with recourse to the incongruity theory of humor: "The Incongruity Theory claims that humor is created out of a violation of an expectation. For humor to result from this unexpected result, the event must have an appropriate emotional climate, comprised of the setting, characters, prior discourse, relationships of the characters, and the topic." Specifically, Magnotta and Strohl focus on "The Marine Biologist", where George is embroiled in yet another lie, and on "The Red Dot", where George tries to save a few dollars at Elaine's expense by giving her a marked-down cashmere sweater.

Seinfeld has not reached the same level of popularity around the globe as it has reached in America. In “Translating Seinfeld”, Jennifer Armstrong notes that Seinfeld’s unique style of humor is apparently “too cultural and word-based to make for easy translation”. Carol Iannone sums up the legacy of this American hit in her Modern Age article “Seinfeld: The Politically Incorrect Comedy" when she says, “It may be the first situation comedy truly to achieve the status of art”.

Nod Miller, of the University of East London, has discussed the self-referential qualities of the show:

William Irwin has edited an anthology of scholarly essays on philosophy in Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing. Some entries include "The Jerry Problem and the Socratic Problem", "George's Failed Zest for Happiness: An Aristotelian Analysis", "Elaine's Moral Character", "Kramer the 'Seducer'", "Making Something Out of Nothing: Seinfeld, Sophistry and the Tao", "Seinfeld, Subjectivity, and Sartre", "Mr. Peterman, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Me", and "Minimally Decent Samaritans and Uncommon Law".

It's a parody of PBS