Thank you for asking. I was/am not sure who was being referenced, either.
Presumably Andy Travis, played by Gary Sandy. He was top-billed and ostensibly the central character, the long-suffering program director trying to run herd on a station full of crazies. But yeah, because he was the straight man, people didn’t really tune in to watch him.
My hair looked exactly like his throughout high school. That was just the style at the time.
Personally I tuned in to see Jan, on the left there-- the Mary Ann to Loni Anderson’s Ginger 
The nonentity in the plaid shirt. Wasn’t it him the theme song was about?
Yes, I guess he was ostensibly the main character, if not necessarily the ‘star’ of the show, inasmuch as he was who the theme song was about. But I always thought of the show as very much having an ensemble cast, and I don’t think of his hair as being particularly fancy, so I honestly wasn’t sure who you meant.
Same thing with Frasier, btw.
It’s become in vogue to say Larry David was the real brains behind Seinfeld because of the success of Curb Your Enthusiasm… of course as someone who really doesn’t like Curb but loved Seinfeld, I’d have to say it’s overstated. Curb is like Seinfeld if George was the main character. The perfect blend of Elaine, George, and Kramer with Jerry as the straight man is what makes Seinfeld work so well. And, of course, the writing is perfectly on point. They were a great team, Seinfeld and David, but I think better together than apart (like Lennon and McCartney).
“not that there’s anything wrong with that” was in The Outing in Season 4, where it was still on the way up. Season 5 is the one where it became super popular - the show was the 25th highest rated show in S4 and 3nd in S5
This is a good analysis, I think. As I said a couple posts upthread, I think Seinfeld and David worked well together because they shared a certain jaded, cynical comic sensibility. But David is better at building fictional scenarios, whereas Seinfeld is more of a straight stand-up comedian.
Your ‘Lennon and McCartney’ comparison is spot-on: David, as the ‘Lennon’ of the pair, added depth and complexity, but on his own can be a bit too dark and over-the-top for the masses to appreciate; Seinfeld gave the comedy more mass appeal, but on his own is a bit too glib and superficial.
and if every episode had a budget of seven dollars.
Welp!
I don’t have a Netflix account and I haven’t watched the movie. I’ve watched the trailer, read this thread, and read the Wikipedia article.
The interesting thing is that when I read the movie’s synopsis on Wikipedia, it sounds like a great movie. A really absurd take a very bland subject. This story had the makings of a great comedy.
I tend to agree with what others have said; Jerry Seinfeld was the problem. He’s the heart of this movie (star, director, producer, head writer) and Seinfeld surprisingly lacks a fundamental sense of humor. This movie apparently demonstrates that; Seinfeld took a strong premise but killed the joke. Seinfeld needs somebody like Larry David to make him funny.
Dave Chapelle could’ve done it up right.
Am I the only person who doesn’t find either Seinfeld OR David even remotely funny?
I don’t have much experience with David, but the little I do suggests I wouldn’t like him. I certainly don’t like Seinfeld so you’re not alone in that regard.
Humor is of course subjective. But I’ve laughed out loud much more often during any random episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm than during the entirety of Unfrosted.
Seinfeld generally falls flat for me; David is hit-and-miss.
Not a Seinfeld fan at all. Not familiar enough with David’s work to have an opinion one way or the other.
Dave can be hilarious, but it’s kind of like Monty Python…most is actually not that funny. Search up Dave’s story about meeting OJ Simpson backstage after a show. It’s quite humorous. This was post-murder OJ, too, so you can imagine what they were feeling.
Jerry? He was pretty funny in the 80’s and 90’s, but I don’t think his material has been all that great since. I did like Jerry’s standup routine back then, though.
Here is Dave’s brief story about OJ. Skip to 1:52 if it does not do it automatically:
He’s taking about Larry David
Wow, I’m dumb. Still, check out that clip of Dave C. talking about OJ. It’s funny even though apparently unrelated.