I caught on very late in the game, and I think it’s hilarious. The intricate interweaving of plot lines is very well done - masterful in some instances.
The only show I’ve seen that was consistently funnier was The Family Guy.
I was also a latecomer. I started watching reruns last year, and then got hooked, but I never watched it when it was actually on.
Personally Kramer is my favorite part of the show. One of my favorite episodes is Bizarro Jerry, where Elaine meets the antithesis of Jerry, George, and Kramer…and where Kramer gets (sort of) a traditional office job.
Also what was great about the show was that they were so evil. They did all the things that people in real life want to. Like parking in the handicapped space, George using a fake photo of his dead fiancee Susan to get hot dates, taking O’Brien’s limo…all that great stuff.
George was better in later episodes- actually, they all were. In the first season, it’s all so awkward. But later on, they really get meaner, and funnier.
I LOOOOOVE Sienfeld. Even the re-runs crack me up!
Its the only sitcom I watch…even to this day!
I agree Zoogie…the meaner, the funnier!!
I love seeing George have a breakdown!
“George is gettin upset!!!”
LOL!!!
I loved it when it was originally on, and still enjoy it when I catch it now. Part of the reason I liked it was that none of the characters were particularly likeable.
Beautifully put. Beautifully, beautifully put.
Wha?! That’s been an indisputable basis of comedy since the concept was first tested!
Exactly, Juanita. They were real people. When Susan dies, there was no sad music, no “George faces the hardest struggle of his life.” It was just another moment in their lives.
Or when Elaine’s boyfriend has a stroke and she doesn’t want to put up with going to visit him in the hospital. You don’t have to get all mopey and cry…You can actually laugh and enjoy what they’re doing.
I saw one episode, which had two story lines. One was reasonably funny, but nothing special. The other left me cold.
I was never tempted to watch another.
What’s worse than the fact that the characters were reprehensible, was all the rabid fans who held the neurotic jerks up as higher, more enlightened forms of life.
No, being like Jerry and Elaine is not an admirable life goal.
The whole non-caring for others was a great attraction. No other show did that before. It was utterly hilarious seeing them not giving a damn about others but caring everything about others’ perceptions. 
“I always open medicine cabinets.”
“I trust people not to do that.”
“Big mistake!”
The genius of the show is that they courageously showed shallowness as an ATTRACTIVE personality trait. What other comic performing under his own name would allow–even encourage–his character to be shown in such a negative light? Only Roseanne came close.
I moved to the US from England in early 97 when Seinfeld was hugely popular. I was big fan of the American sitcoms that made it to the UK, e.g. Cheers, Roseanne. I tried Seinfeld and it wasn’t the slightest bit funny. I tried again and again thinking that maybe you had to get into it and know the characters. Nope. Plain unfunny.
Seinfeld was good in the beginning because it was absurd. Unfortunately, there’s a fine line between being absurd and being ridiculous, and he crossed it later, which ruined the show for me.
The best episode was 'master of my domain." You just couldn’t top that.
I love seeing Seinfeld and Woody Allen’s name in the same post. I consider both of them mildly fun superegotists with NO morals whatsoever.
Will someone please tell me, if you don’t think Seinfeld is funny, what you think is! I’m intensely curious about this.
Funny, but not in any order of preference:
Cheers
Roseanne
Malcolm in the Middle
The Simpsons
The Vicar of Dibley
Blackadder
One Foot in the Grave
Dharma (sp?) and Greg
Mash (although it was so much more than the humor - it wasn’t roaringly funny)
The Drew Carey Show
Mildly funny, but I don’t understand their level of success:
Frazier
Friends
Third Rock from the Sun
Not sit-coms, but still funny:
Have I got News for You
Whose Line is it Anyway
Definitely not funny:
Are You Being Served?
Seinfeld
the last show was a disapointment.
The others were brilliant
as stated earlier, they could put more into a half hour (actually 22 minutes?) than any show I have ever watched.
And everyone who has bashed George…he was SUPPOSED to be a LOSER…he WAS pathetic…he admitted he was pathetic…
remember how he decided to act the opposite of how George would usually act…“Hi, I’m George, I’m unemployed and I live at home.” He ends up with a job with the Yankees.
And what was also amazing about the show was the characters who would come in for maybe a show or two…Mr. Bookman (my favorite episode) Susan’s parents…that weird guy Elaine worked for who had her buy his socks…Puddy…the mechanic who stole Jerry’s car because Jerry was taking it for granted (the brother on Raymond)
I agree with the others who stated that this is the funniest show ever made.
I loved it, and I just wish that here in the UK we’d had a better chance to see it and appreciate it properly. The BBC, the world’s most arrogant, most cosseted and least competent broadcaster, bought it and shoved it in a graveyard Tuesday night slot, often dropping the show to make way for crap like several gazillion hours of boring tennis ‘highlights’ (highlights? Give me a break! It’s two people standing on a park while one of them thwacks the ball into a net).
But I did love it, and mainly because of Larry David’s brilliant original rule for the show: No hugging, and no learning. That for me is what made it so great. Kramer was a terrific character, tough as hell to play but played superbly. Ditto George. I liked Elaine too, mainly because the actress had the guts to play such an horrifically flawed female character during an era when the sitcom vogue was for strong, competent females amidst dimwit men.
I liked the Rolling Stone magazine cover which appeared the month when the final episode of Seinfeld was airing. It pictured the four main Seinfeld characters in Wizard of Oz costume.
Jerry was the Tin Man, with no heart. George the Lion with no courage; Kramer the brainless Strawman. Elaine, of course, was flighty Dorothy in her ruby red pumps. 
Loved the show, BTW.
Slight hijack: is anyone else having a Festivus party this December? Last year my friends organised a December 21 party complete with “Airing of the Grievances”, the “aluminum”* pole and the “Feats of Strength”. It was a huge success.
*Aluminium pronounced “aluminum” is simply hilarious to us Australians.
If I met a woman like Elaine I think I would ask her to marry me in an instant. I am absolutely in love with that character.