#15Number of Seasons: 9
Years Active: 1989 - 1998
Network: NBC
Who would have thought that nothing could last for nine years and be funny to boot. Conceived by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, Seinfeld followed the lives of four self-involved friends in New York who are obsessed with the little things in life. Actually, "little things" doesn't even begin to describe how meaningless the issues dealt with are. One of the first, and the very last, conversations on the show deals with the location of a button on a shirt. Another episode took place entirely at a Chinese restaurant, and showed us what happens when it takes forever to get a table.
According to Seinfeld, the primary rule for the show was "no hugging, no learning"; unlike a lot of the shows of the late 80's/early 90's, where episodes ended with the characters learning a lesson and hugging it out, Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer never learned from their mistakes and always kept themselves at arm's length. This doesn't mean that there aren't story arcs; most episodes are stand-alone, but there are long-running stories. The two most memorable are Jerry and George's attempts to get a pilot picked up by NBC (Jerry, the show-within-a-show, bears many similarities to Seinfeld), and George's long running relationship with Susan Ross, and NBC executive they met while pitching the pilot. The fact that arcs coexist with a lack of learning makes for an interesting dynamic; mistakes are often made more than once, and the characters can't seem to understand why they can never seem to make things work.
After three seasons with an audience that barely got the show renewed (if Seinfeld were to premiere today, it wouldn't have lasted a season), the series took off in its fourth season. I cannot begin to think of how many phrases and words in today's lexicon came directly from or were popularized by Seinfeld, but the list includes "yadda yadda yadda", "spongeworthy" and shrinkage.
Up next: #14...
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