Seinfeld TV question

One helluva good show.

But there’s one thing that’s always bothered me about it. While it’s common knowledge that most of the characters were based on real life people, i.e., Costanza character was Seinfelds real life friend and Kramer was a neighbor of Costanza, who was the real life model for the character of Banya (sp?)?

Banya, for those unfamiliar with the show, is the unfunny stand up comedian that is Jerry’s bane on the show. He’s portrayed as being an idiot that has no sense of humor that only gains success by following in Jerry’s footsteps.

I find it odd that Jerry would base this on a real life person, but I also thought the same thing with the Soup Nazi, and everyone knows there’s a real life Soup Nazi in New York that was the bases of that one show.

So, who is it suppose to be? The reason this is in IMHO is because I’ve never heard a consensus answer. Everyone has an opinion, but noone seems to know for sure.

If anyone’s interested, I had always thought the character was based on Mad About You’s Paul Reiser. Ya, I know, but it’s the closest match I’ve been able to come up with.

Opinions? Ideas?

I don’t know if it’s true, but I think Reiser definitely fits that profile.

Well that’s what I thought too. The only problem with that theory is that their friends in real life. Good friends.

If one of my friends portrayed me like that on one of their shows, I’d be pretty pissed. It doubt I’d be hanging out with that person and acting all happy and nice.

Besides, you’d think something would have been written about it.

Who’s to say it’s based on any ONE person? I’d suspect after all his years in Standup, he’s seen plenty of “Banyans” and just combined their various qualities into one lump “Banyan”.