Well, Mork & Mindy was a fish out of water premise. Jerry is a neurotic Jew in Manhattan…that’s a fish in water premise, which is not a premise at all.
Didn’t Fawlty Towers revolve around a hotel, and the struggles that running a hotel involved? That’s a premise.
He gets a cold because he’s forced to live in a tent at the mercy of the elements. Because he’s in a war.
A hole in the shoe is not a notable thing, unless the shoe supply is somehow limited. Like, say, because you’re in a war.
A snoring roommate that he is forced to live with. But why would any adult be forced to live with somebody? Well, see, he’s in a war.
Why does he need a car? What happened to his? Well, he doesn’t have a car, because he’s in this war, you see…
All those plots are directly related to the show’s premise: zany, irreverant doctors in a war they disagree with.
Now, try to draw those same cause and effect connections between a Seinfeld episode and the premise of the show. (The Banyan episodes, possibly. How many were there? Three?)
Well, one could say the same thing about Third Rock From The Sun. What is interesting is that after you said it, you still would not have even hinted at what the premise of Third Rock actually is: aliens / fish out of water.
Well, compare One Day at a Time and Seinfeld. The premise for One Day at a Time is that a divorced woman is raising two teenaged daughters on her own, while trying to keep her career on track and restart her personal life. There’s a crass building manager as a requisite male figure, for comic relief. Ann has a huge set of problems, and this is reflected in the title. Each episode balances these problems. Julie threatens to go live with her father unless mom lets her stay out all night with her boyfriend – Ann has to keep her daughter from going wild, and still keep her daughter. Many, many episodes revolved around her trying to build a new relationship. OMG! The girls seem to like her ex-husband’s new squeeze. Is Ann going to lose her entire family? Julie has an argument with her mom about her future and runs away. The girls want to party with their boyfriends while their mom’s away on a business trip, but get worried when it turns out she’s not where she said she’d be – of course, she’s out partying with her boyfriend.
Seinfeld has what as a premise again? Oh, right… nothing.
Right, but before he gets sick, all the other surgeons get sick, and Hawkeye has to do four or five times the number of surgeries. He also takes the opportunity to torment the uptight Hotlips and Burns by insisting that Hotlips give him the flu shot herself, in the ass, which she seems to find humiliating. Because the show’s premise is that they’re army surgeons, and they deal with the personal tensions stemming from their contrasting personalities, as well as those that come from the war. The illness is a wrinkle in an established situation.
Except that Mork is totally naive and vulnerable, and each episode works toward him learning some valuable lesson about human interaction and emotion and reporting back. Oh, and he’s an alien who ages backwards, must be kept hidden from the authorities, and confounds everyone he meets. That whole situation.
Except, you know, that in every episode, he’s going about the business of running a hotel, and there’s tension stemming from the fact that he is largely incompetent, his wife is contemptuous and spends every moment that she’s not henpecking him engaged in endless gossipping phone-calls, his porter is from Barcelona and never quite comprehends what is said to him. That whole situation.
I’m not a fan either. I don’t think most episodes fit that description, though, and even if we could find an easy way to describe a template for a Seinfeld episode, it would still be describing something that was unique at the time. The approach to writing a Seinfeld episode was much more free-form than that of any other episodic comedy had been, since the plots are not dependant on anything like a premise.
previews
Eesh. Well, I’ve got to, like, sleep, or something. G’night kids.
See, I don’t buy that because it’s ignoring the key point point, which is dysfunctional neurotic. The fact that the dysfunctional neurotic is also a Jew is irrelevant. He’s a fish out of water because he’s a neurotic, not because of his religion.
Or to put it another way, Mork is a neurotic male in Boulder…that’s a fish in water premise, which is not a premise at all. Hell, for all we know Mork could be a Baptist living in Boulder and so is a fish in water. This is easy to do if we ignore the actual key character element and concentrate on irrelevant side details like genedr or religion. Seinfeld is defined as a neurotic. That he is a bachelor and male and Jewish and 5.9” tall and has curly hair and had a private school education and a million sundry details add to the character, they don’t define it.
To give a clearer example, “Monk” is also a Jew living in NY (or somewhere). Heck he is a Jewish ex-police officer turned PI in NY. He couldn’t be more of a fish in water based on his physical details and past. It is still a fish out of water comedy because he is neurotic. His Jewishness is an irrelevance.
Only to the extent that Seinfeld revolves around living single in New York and the struggles that involves.
So Seinfeld gets a stinky car because he lives in NY. Isn’t that premise?
A stinky car isn’t a notable thing unless you are a dysfuntional neurotic. Why isn’t that premise?
A smelly car he is forced to get rid of. Why would someone be forced ot get rid of a car that someone merely sat in?? Well see he’s neurotic and can’t think of a normal way to avoid it.
All those plots are directly related to the show’s premise: neurotic dysfunctional bachelor trying to find the ‘normal’ way to deal with problems.
I think I just did. Let’s face it here, comedy is funny because it’s people acting as we would never choose to act. They might be us as we hate to act and are forced to act, but we would never willingly act like comedians. We would never willingly get a hole in our shoe, or go through a convoluted scheme to borrow a jeep, or abandon our car because someone simply sat in it. And the basic premise of a comedy show explains whey people are forced to act that way. They are stuck in a war and can’t get out, they have kids and can’t sell them to the gypsies, they are neurotic and so on.
Uh huh. And if I said the same thing about “Monk”? And isn’t Monk a classic “Fish out of water”? The thing is that any mental defect immediately makes a character a fish out of water. Seinfeld is a fish out of water, he’s a social maladroit in a world full of people who seem in control. He’s the perpetual socially awkward teenager trying to figure out what the socially acceptable reaction is.
I really can’t see what the difference is between Monk, Seinfeld, Fawlty and Mork is in that respect. Sure the settings are different but the basic premise I the same. Someone doesn’t quite understand the rules and spends an episode trying to work out what those riles are with varying degrees of slapstick.
Only because I didn’t specifically mention aliens. Of course for Seinfeld I did say that he was a stand-up, which is who the show is about.
Couldn’t we sum up most “Third Rock” episodes as follows: Something happens to a bunch or aliens and they spend the entire show trying to decide whether his reaction to it is ‘normal’ or what the ‘normal’ course of action should be?
Unless of course you think that a premise description needs the very words “fish out of water” to qualify, in which case:
Couldn’t we sum up most Seinfeld episodes as follows: Something happens to a dysfunctional stand-up comedian and he spends the entire show floundering around like a fish out of water trying to decide whether his reaction to it is ‘normal’ or what the ‘normal’ course of action should be?
I’m really struggling to see a difference of kind here rather than a difference of quantity. Seinfeld has less slapstick than than Fawlty, but it’s still there in both. It has more off-screen interactions, but they are still there in both. In both cases we know the lead character is going to do something outrageously inappropriate in every single episode due to his inability to interact with people normally. In both cases we know the episodes will focus heavily on the apartment/hotel even though the bulk of the plot may develop elsewhere.
And why can’t I say exactly the same thing about Jerry and his car?
Convoluted and contrived plot line: check
Standard interplay of characters (George making childish and puzzling observations about situation, Kramer is over-enthusiastic and probably offers to help solve problem. Elaine suggest aggressive course of action as solution (which if tried will backfire). Check
Because the show’s premise is that they’re all socially inept, and they deal with the social tensions differently with their contrasting personalities, as well as those that come from living single in NY. The smelly car is a wrinkle in an established *situation. *
Now I don’t remember this episode well, but I’m betting that if we look up the script most of those elements will have occurred. So doesn’t this prove that Seinfeld plot points are just as much wrinkles in established situations as those of any other comedy?
Except that Jerry is shallow and totally socially maladroit and conflicted between his internal standards and society’s standards. And each episode deals with him facing some social interaction problem that he doesn’t know the etiquette for. Oh, and he’s a standup comedian, and all his friends are as shallow and socially inept as he is. And they alienate everyone who enters their lives. That whole situation.
Once again I’m not seeing any qualitative difference here. Seinfeld has just as many recurring themes and in-jokes and repeating plot points and character quirks as most other sitcoms.
Except, you know, that in every episode, he’s going about the business of living single in NY, and there’s tension stemming from the fact that he is socially incompetent, his best friend is a 40yo moron and in total denial about his life and live sin a fairyland and constructs castles in the air that he frequently tries to make real. His neighbour acts like he is perpetually on speed and has the attention span of a gnat. And his ex-girlfriend is an aggressive nutjob who either tries to stir him into aggression or acts out her aggression on him. That whole situation.
Once again we have a recurring setting (hotel.apartment) a recurring ‘occupation’ (hotelier/bachelor). We have stock standard zany companions.
Seinfeld episode guides and scripts (http://www.seinology.com/ ) I can’t remember or even find one that doesn’t fit that description. I can’t even find any where the main characters aren’t specifically talking about whether something is ‘normal’ or “funny” or “peculiar” or what “everybody else” does or something similar. You can look for yourself if you want, but if that description doesn’t apply to all episodes it certainly applies to most.
I’d never really thought about it until this thread, but Seinfeld really does have a rather simple plot formula for such a complex show.
I agree that it was a lot more free form than most, but I don’t believe it is as free form as you believe. There are certain specific elements that show up in every episode just as in Fawlty Towers or Mork and Mindy.
Elaine will always get aggressive and try to ‘get back” at someone for some perceived slight. George will always blatantly display his insecurities and come up with some castle in the air way to prove he isn’t insecure/incompetent. Jerry will always ponder over what normal people would do or why normal people do it and he doesn’t. Kramer will get excited about something out of all proportion to its importance.
The writers were obviously allowed a lot of free play within those constraints but in many ways it is less free than MASH.
On the Seinfeld DVD sets, it’s mentioned by Larry David several times that they were allowed to “get away” with a lot of plot points that a normal sitcom wouldn’t, because they were classified in the variety show/late night/specials category. They had more leeway from the censors because of this. NBC didn’t know exactly how to categorize Seinfeld when it was being produced, but they obviously thought that it was not in the realm of “sitcom”.
You are repeatedely confusing “premise” with “character.”
No, it’s not. The premise of Mork and Mindy is that a naive but good-hearted alien has been exiled to Earth and is required to submit regular reports on human behaviour, without revealing his alien presence to the authorities.
That’s ludicrous. Every episode of Fawlty Towers depended on some aspect of hotel management for the conflict and comedy: The health inspector’s here, but there’s a rat loose. Renovations need to be done, but the contractor is spectacularly inept. One of the guests dies in his room, and Basil worries that it’ll be bad for business.
If Seinfeld’s premise was that it was about four friends living single in New York and the struggles that involves, it would have been Sex and the City. Instead, each episode contains several plotlines involving bizarre happenings of a wide and unpredictable variety, without the usual starting point that every other episodic comedy required to set up an episode.
The conventional approach to narrative writing demands that you define premise, setting, character, theme, and plot. Before Seinfeld, it was taken for granted that, in episodic comedy, premise, setting and character are defined in the genesis of the show, and then each episode has a fresh theme and plot. Premise is the keystone which supports everything else. The premise is the initial, overriding situation which serves as the basis for each episode. When a show like The Jeffersons was pitched, it would be like this:
The premise is that an African-American man’s hard work has paid off and his family’s lifestyle has radically changed – he’s risen above his working-class roots and has won his family all the trappings of success.
The setting is the swank Manhatten apartment building that he’s just moved his family, and a new branch of his drycleaning business, into.
The characters: George is already a popular character, largely cast in the mold of Archie Bunker, only black. He’s bigoted, short-tempered, crass, but mostly driven to succeed. Louise, his wife, is humble, down-to-earth and sensible, and often vexed by George’s difficult personality. Their son is ambivalent, and could easily take after either George or Wheezie. The main source of tension is their neighbors: A mixed-race couple that infuriates George, and an effete, over-polite Brit who is as opposite from George as is possible.
So the writers of each episode work from this starting point and supply a theme and plot that flow from our initial premise, characters, and setting. Say, the theme for an episode is “bigotry.” A management position has opened up in George’s in-building store, and the most obviously-qualified person to fill it is a white woman, whom George absolutely refuses to consider. This gives the neighbors something to talk about, and Louise has to resolve the conflict by making George feel some empathy for this person he feels so much antipathy for by reminding him of all the times he’s been on the other side of that equation.
Seinfeld’s plots do not flow from an overarching premise. Characters and the very broad setting of Manhattan are not a premise. The episodic plots have nothing to do with any established premise.
Tell ya what: Imagine yourself as a writer, pitching a television series based on a vague character definition and a city-wide setting. The producer asks, “What’s the premise?” And you say, “Well, there’s this manic guy who lives in Philadelphia. And he has some friends. They’re kind of manic, too.”
How interested is the producer? Have you presented him with a developed idea? No, he’s going to want some more information. “What do they do?” “Oh, you know-- they get into situations in and around Philadelphia. And they act manic.”
Now, if you’re a writer who works in another medium, like the monologue, you can demonstrate that you have several funny characters, and that you have a good sense of humour and can make audiences laugh in that other medium, there’s a slim chance that the conversation might go a little further – because Seinfeld has proven that it can work.
Before Seinfeld, though, television comedy writing would never allow something that anarchic. You couldn’t break the most fundamental rules like that. Look at Gabe Kaplan. Great stand-up artist – and he had developed some hysterically funny characters, based on the kids he grew up with in Brooklyn. The dialogue he worked up was hysterical, and he described these kids in a variety of situations that broke audiences up. Was that enough for a television show, though? Not according to received wisdom. In order to adapt his comedy to the television comedy format, it needed more than character and the broad setting of Brooklyn, which worked so well in his stand up.
In order to pitch the show, they took his characters, and put them in the context of a premise and a setting. Their teacher, a former Sweathog himself, has bettered himself, and returns to Brooklyn to counsel them and try to keep them from encountering the same pitfalls that he lost so many childhood friends to. The setting is, for the most part, the high school. “There are these wise-cracking juvenile deliquents in Brooklyn,” is not a premise, and, before Seinfeld, every television comedy needed a clearly-defined premise to get greenlighted.
Because it’s character.
Not only does that description not apply to the majority of episodes, but if it did, it’s still not a premise, as required by every episodic comedy before Seinfeld. Networks want a simple formula. They want any writer to be able to step in and bang up an episode based on the parameters established at conception. They want a constant, dependable source of conflict with which to work. “A group of waggish prisoners in a Nazi prison camp organize themselves into a flawless band of spies and sabateurs without ever leaving the camp or getting caught by the incompetent overseers of the camp” is a premise. “This guy is really insecure and neurotic” is not a premise, it’s a character description.
Monk has a premise from which each episode follows. Monk is a consultant who helps the police. His neurosis make him an interesting character, but the premise is that he’s this brilliant guy who solves crimes in spite of his considerable difficulties dealing with day-to-day life. So, every episode involves a crime. Which he solves, overcoming some conflict created by his OCD. That’s the show’s premise. There’s something for him to do every week, and it follows a pattern.
No, they have the vaguest possible simililarities in character, but Monk, Mork and Mindy, and Fawlty Towers all have completely dissimilar premises on which the episodic plots are based, and Seinfeld is unique because it has no premise. Monk plots are based on how this odd man solves crimes. Mork and Mindy plots are based on how this naive and pure-hearted alien with advanced powers learns about human behaviour and relationships, which is what he has been sent to Earth to do. Fawlty Towers episodes all involve the problems of a spectacularly mismanaged resort hotel. They all have characters who react predictably to conflict, but the conflicts all flow naturally from their premises. Seinfeld has characters that react predictably to conflicts, but the conflicts aren’t based on an existing premise. Character and premise are two different concepts.
Because it’s not. The smelly car is the situation, and the characters are reacting to it. In MASH, the premise is that the characters are army surgeons, and there are two constant sources of dramatic and comedic tension: External pressure from the ongoing war, and internal pressure from the necessity of sharply contrasting personalities being obliged to work together to achieve the same aim. The flu only matters because they’re in a field hospital and wounded are coming in, like they do in every episode. This creates additional dramatic tension because Hawkeye must work to exhaustion as the only surgeon left on his feet, and the comedic tension comes from the antagonistic relationship between the rules-freaks and the iconoclasts that is established in the show’s premise. If you removed the premise and just left the character, you’d just have a bunch of people with the flu. A whiny guy, a sarcastic guy, a bitch, and a stoic old man. But the show’s premise creates conflict that they must overcome, and so the flu is much more than just a flu.
Seinfeld’s stinky car is just a stinky car. He reacts to it in a characteristic way, but the tension in the writing doesn’t come from a premise – it comes from a character facing a situation that has no connection to anything that’s set down in the show’s conception.
This is what makes Seinfeld groundbreaking episodic comedy. “Look ma! No premise!”
Calling character “premise” does not create a premise. Seinfeld was largely dependent on character for humour, but mostly the jokes came from bizarre situations that were pulled in apropos of nothing at all. Which was new.
Yes, but still no premise that served as a starting point for episodes. In Barney Miller, for example, each episode could be counted on to revolve around the latest guest in the jail, or some citizen with a complaint. Character plays a large part in providing humour, but the plots come from the initial situation.
Where did he say that, out of curiousity? In his A&E Biography, he said that he was having trouble with the character until he was directed to mimic Larry David’s mannerisms. I guess that could have happened a few episodes in – I don’t remember seeing the shift, though. Have to go back and rewatch those eppies.
Because of this thread, I watched a Seinfeld episode earlier tonight. In it, Kramer pitched the idea of a bra for men to George’s dad after seeing his man-boobs. Elaine was pseudo-housesitting for her boss, so Jerry went to see her at his building. Unlike his building, there was a surly doorman, which set off a couch stealing subplot. George seized on this to offer up his own couch, so that his dad would have to move back in with his mom. Also, there was an apartment that George found for Jerry, but both ended up wanting, so they gave it to a random stranger (waitress) who invited them all over for housewarming, where they were all annoyed at having their dreams of a better apartment squashed. (Jerry was to get the new one, George was going to take his, and Elaine was going to take George’s.)
The only social ineptitude was Jerry asking the doorman “how about those knicks?”, was is actually a socially acceptable bit of smalltalk that blew up in his face. So if your premise holds true, I just happened to catch an episode that is clearly contradictory to the premise. (It would be roughly the same odds of watching a random MASH episode and just happening to catch the one from the patient’s perspective. Slim odds.)
The thing is, they aren’t socially inept at all. Jerry is quite successful in the social arena.
But they don’t alienate everyone. Puddy stays around for a long time. Elaine is very functional in that she had two main jobs during the show, and worked successfully for the J. Peterman catalog for quite a while.
But if that’s the premise, why is it that none of those aspects were relevant to the episode that was on tonight? Jerry’s bachelor status was never referenced in any way. Kramer had quite the impressive attention span, spinning a random thought into a business idea, developed a prototype, brought in a partner, and then pitched the idea (to warm reviews) to a person established in the industry. George had no schemes other than wanting to get his father to move off of his couch and back in with his mom. Elaine did nothing to stir up aggression. In fact, she actively tried to help Jerry get out of the whole couch stealing situation.
With the other sitcoms mentioned, I agree. But it simply does not apply to Seinfeld.
Didn’t happen at all in the above episode.
Didn’t happen at all in the above episode.
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Jerry will always ponder over what normal people would do or why normal people do it and he doesn’t.
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Quite the contrary, Jerry acted normally and was puzzled that the doorman responded to him in a completely socially dysfunctional way.
Maybe, but one could argue that his idea had merit. Especially when considering the favorable reaction he got from the bra distributor in the pitch meeting.
Clearly that is not the case, as none of your constraints were adhered to in a random episode.
Of note is that George was clearly doing a blatant Woddy Allen impression during one scene at the diner in the above episode.
I just watched a coupla episodes of MASH for the first time in several years. (Woo! Friday night!)
They were the last episode with Col. Blake and the first episode with Col. Potter. I gotta say, I found the laugh-track a lot more jarring than I remember it, especially in the bits that you get the feeling the writers wanted to have a bit more gravitas. (Like when Hawkeye and Hunnicut are saying they ought to do erect something to the memory of Blake. “How about the Henry Blake Memorial Bar & Grill.” HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!)
So I think even when they got all touchy-feely, they were still pretty rooted in the sitcom.
I watched another one on Friday. It was the “subway” episode, where most of the episode involved the four characters on different subways.
Jerry: Falls asleep, wakes up sitting across from a naked man, spends a bit trying to explain to him why he shouldn’t be naked on the subway, and then they both end up going to Coney Island together.
Elaine: Misses a friend’s wedding when her subway gets stuck for what seems like several hours. She gets claustrophobic and comes close to completely freaking out.
Kramer: Overhears a horse tip (his mother was a mudder) on the subway and so bets on that horse, hitting it big. He almost gets robbed but an undercover cop on another subway saves him.
George: Meets an attractive woman on the subway and brings her to a hotel room, where she robs him. Since he only has eight dollars, she takes his only suit, which he’d been wearing.
Now, I’ve just posted the plots for two randomly selected episodes, and neither of them conform to any of the suggested premises in this thread.
It was only “classified” in the “specials” category because the N.B.C. executive in charge of specials offered to use part of his budget to finance a handful of Seinfeld episodes when the comedy department passed on it. I don’t think this gave them more leeway in the eyes of the N.B.C. censor in any official sense. And I don’t think anyone at N.B.C. was confused regarding whether the show was a comedy or a special.
