“Seinfeld” is the perfect example of how the popularity of a spectacle can unravel the barrier of pop culture in a surprising way. The revolutionary sitcom NBC, which appears on / the best sitcoms of all time, presented all kinds of hilarious weekly scenarios so that its comic whole can navigate, but unlike most of these other programs, these protagonists have rarely learned their lesson at the end of an episode. This kind of comic television approach would ultimately lead to similar shows with morally flexible characters like “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, but it is easy to forget that at the time, it was the exception, not the norm.
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Like some of the best sitcoms, the best thing about “Seinfeld” is that you can activate almost any episode and understand exactly who are these characters. There are a lot of good choices to recommend to newcomers like “The Sig Nazi”, “The Parking Garage” and “The Puffy Shirt”, but it is not surprising that the jewel of the crown of the series is – and is always – “the competition”.
In the event that you lived under a rock, it is the episode where Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza (Jason Alexander), Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Kramer (Michael Richards) make a bet to see who can go the longest without masturbation. The premise was considered incredibly risky for network television, even without ever saying the word itself. The co-creator of the Larry David series has put all his tokens to do so, because he thought that the superior brass of NBC would not even touch him, but a bit like Kramer, once they saw what they liked, they slammed their money on the table and the rest is history.
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“The competition” would not only continue to become an Emmy winning episode, but it was also the moment that proved that “Seinfeld” was a pillar of pop culture.
The competition transformed Seinfeld into a water cooler show
In an interview for the American television archiveJason Alexander was asked if he had a favorite episode of the show and even if he did not explicitly give an answer, it is clear that the banger of season 4 left the most impact on him and all the other people involved. Of “the competition”, he said:
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“He is the one who really changed the fortune of the show. We had started to do well this season, but when this program was broadcast, we have become what is now called a water cooler program. We were on information programs, we were told about” The Tonight Show “. THE Something to say and he cemented the future of the show. We knew from that moment, we could make the show as long as we wanted. “”
The idea of water cooler emissions must look like a strange concept for the current generation. It is not uncommon for people to talk about popular television shows in nature now, but in the 90s, everyone was looking at the same thing at the same time. The closest thing we have of a collective discussion on a popular spectacle is now through social media, although because of algorithms and people who look at things at their own pace, we mainly discuss each other in our own echo rooms.
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If you were not looking at “The Contest” when it was broadcast on November 12, 1992, you missed what the “master of your domain” meant until the next time it was broadcast. It had to be a disappointment not to talk about it because the episode remains one of the funniest half-hours on the television in history. It was so popular that even “It’s always sunny” made a loving tribute.
Larry David had his reservations about the question of whether the terrain would work, but it was extremely appropriate for a show on a heap of memorable jerk-offs would lead to an episode, well, you know.
Each episode of “Seinfeld” is currently broadcast on Netflix.
