Somewhat bizarre question: I always assumed that the stand up comedy that introduces Jerry Seinfeld at the start of each episode is supposed to show him as a funny, successful comedian, as a background introduction to his character. I don’t find it particuarly funny personally, mainly because it’s not my cup of tea, and sounds a bit dated now. But the theatre audience shown always laughs heartily and non-stop.
My friend, who loves Seinfeld as a sitcom, but finds his stand-up weak and not funny at all, maintains that it’s supposed to be showing him as a terrible comedian as part of the comedy of the show/character.
I thought it was just Jerry Seinfeld’s (the real person) stand-up act. He had quite a few of those bits in a CD he released. I don’t think its meant to be part of the show; just a bit of stand-up, often commenting on the themes of that particular episode.
I love the show but I find the stand-up only average. I don’t think it’s supposed to be bad though. I think the main point is to introduce the themes of the episode. Or too look at it another way, the episode is supposed to show how Jerry gets material for his act.
As far as the set-up goes, I think CyberPundit is right (minus the bit about it being intentionally bad). In earlier episodes, there was more of the standup stuff. But as the series went on, it became more about the four of them.
I saw an interview with him where he said they stopped doing the standup alltogether because it was hard coming up with material about each episode.
as to the op: I think he wasn’t supposed to be anything but doing standup, neither purposely shown as successful or not, although there was quite a bit of laughter in his monologues.
If anything though, I’d go with “successful” since he had that apartment, never worried about money, bought his dad a cadillac, was on Jay Leno, etc. during the course of the show.
Most of that standup stuff is in his book, Sein Language (published in the early 90s, IIRC). Seinfeld’s delivery is so bad, that I think his jokes are funnier in print, even though many of them lend themselves heavily to being verbalized. I really like the show, but the comedy bits are fairly lame.
The OP is right. There is no subtle self-deprecation. Without the standup bits it’s fairly hard to tell that Jerry even has a job. I’d like the comedy if I hadn’t heard it a million times already.
What I don’t understand is the fact that folk can dislike the show but love Seinfeld’s standup and vice versa. It’s the same damn thing, and you can tell that the standup bits relate well with the early episodes (George has to wait in ‘the little room’ at the doctor’s office).
I’d wager that since the real Seinfeld was not doing standup once the show became a success, he didn’t have any comedy club material to pull episodes and scenarios from, so the nightclub bits made no sense to do.
I avoided the show until it was well into its syndicated run because I can’t abide Jerry’s stand-up. A friend recommended it and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the show. His stand-up and the show are both much ado about trivial things, but the interaction of the characters made the show great. Larry David had a lot to do with the show’s structure and attitude, which is evident if you see David’s HBO program Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Not being confrontational, Magic Cow, just pointing out that it is possible to like the sit-com but not the stand-up.
I guess for me Jerry isn’t really the funny thing about the show. He sort of comes across as the anchor/straight man.
Occasionally he’s funny (the gay/“not that there’s anything wrong with that” episode being a case in point) but generally the high comedy in the show for me comes from George. Just because his character is so cringeingly awful, and yet we all know people who are more than a bit like George, so it’s realistic. A bit like David Brent in The Office (if you like Seinfeld it’s well worth getting this UK BBC comedy series).
I guess for me Jerry isn’t really the funny thing about the show. He sort of comes across as the anchor/straight man.
Occasionally he’s funny (the gay/“not that there’s anything wrong with that” episode being a case in point) but generally the high comedy in the show for me comes from George. Just because his character is so cringeingly awful, and yet we all know people who are more than a bit like George, so it’s realistic. A bit like David Brent in The Office (if you like Seinfeld it’s well worth getting this UK BBC comedy series).
One of my favorite parts of the show were the plotlines that would interweave and tie together at the end. I don’t know if they were in every episode, but they were pretty common. Anyway, that’s something that’s missing from the standup, which you only get a minute or two of at a time.
I never liked the stand-up routines - for me they exhibit the difference between observation and observational comedy - but liked the show. For me, the sitcom Seinfeld always fitted into the classic subgenre of situation comedy where you have the comparatively normal central character and all his wacky friends.
I think Jerry (the character) was about as successful as Jerry (the real person) before the show started. He’s a successful stand-up comedian and a minor celebrity. He gets recognised every now and then, lives reasonably comfortably and even gets offered a pilot at NBC, but he’s no Jerry Seinfeld (the real person after the shows success.
As he explained to the NBC guys - “I play me, a comedian” (paraphrased).
I remember hearing (sorry, don’t have a cite) that the show was originally conceived (at least in part) as an answer to the question that comedians get asked all the time: “where do you get your ideas?” FWIW I don’t believe that Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld originally pitched the show as being “about nothing” (as the characters did when they pitched the “show” within the show.)
Instead, I think the idea was apparently that you would see Jerry’s standup juxtaposed against the events in his life, and see how his experiences, and his friends experiences, would find their way into his act.
As the show went on, and developed plot lines and running jokes, the emphasis shifted to these, rather than the standup. In a sense it seems to me that the show kind of outgrew the initial gimmick.