I took liberties with the word ‘canceled’ as well. 
I will say that I’ve never been that much of a fan of Seinfeld, but have come to somewhat appreciate the unrelenting darkness of it. Not so much a “show about nothing”, as a “show about dealing badly with first world problems”. But yeah, if one likes to have a sympathetic character or two on one’s series TV, you won’t find it here.
Based on the OP’s opinions, I don’t recommend that he ever bother to see an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
I think the series finale confirmed what the OP realized. That they were a bunch of horrible people and really had no defense when confronted with all their wrong doings over the years.
For viewers that observed that throughout the shows run the finale must have been a great confirmation. “Ha! The jerks finally got what was coming to them. Now that’s funny!”
I wonder if people who loved the show because they loved the characters, related to them, sided with them, saw the finale as an eye-opener?
I don’t see how that could have gone unnoticed back when it was airing. What other conclusion could you come to after watching the characters shrug and go out for coffee moments after Susan died, for example.
They’re terrible people, but that doesn’t make them bad characters or mean that the show isn’t funny.
In a karmic sense, maybe, but what they were arrested and imprisoned for was the one time in their lives that they minded their own business. They weren’t punished for the many lives they ruined, but for the one they didn’t.
The other thing about Seinfeld (apart from the characters being assholes) was its perverse logic. When Jerry steals a loaf of bread, of course he’s going to wind up sitting across from her at a dinner party 1,000 miles away. When Jerry throws away a wristwatch, of course the uncle who gave it to him will find out about it. When George lies about being a marine biologist, of course he’s going to come across a whale on the beach while he’s with a girl he wants to impress. The finale totally abandoned the bizarre cause-and-effect universe that they’d spent years building up. And a simple switch could have made it so much better.
I read an interview with one of the series writers about the ‘evolution’ of Elaine’s character. The biggest problem they had early on was trying to justify why Elaine Benes - who was initially portrayed as sweet, likeable, down to Earth and capable of holding a regular job - was hanging out with a bunch of loser jerks like Jerry, George & Kramer. They finally came up with the idea that she hung out with them because she’d alienated everybody else in her life. They deliberately wrote her as the meanest of the four and her character suddenly changed from ‘the obligatory girl on the show’ to a breakout star.
It’s definitely true that the foursome on Seinfeld were assholes, but they were always meant to be rotten jerks. The whole show was a meta-commentary on sitcom phoniness. Just put it in context with other popular sitcoms of the time period - “Full House”, “Family Ties”, “the Cosby Show” (off the air but still a big influence at the time) - and every episode of those series had the regular characters meeting some distant relative for the one & only time who had some Big Problem, and the regular characters all learned a Very Important Lesson, all of it contrived and P.C. and schmaltzy.
“Seinfeld” was funny not because it showed Jerry & co behaving badly, but because it was a parody and meta-commentary on how sitcom characters are supposed to behave. In any other show, a sitcom character might steal a loaf of bread from an old lady, but then he’d have a change of heart, return the loaf and the crusty old lady would turn out to be a kindly old woman and everyone would learn a Very Important Lesson. Jerry taking the loaf and running was hilarious because it flew in the face of expected beats in standard sitcom plots. (And besides, it’s not as if he got away scott free - the old lady comes back a few episodes later and gets her revenge by voting Jerry’s dad out of the Boca Del Vista condo complex in Florida.)
The actual theme of the show was for them to be children. Never learn from their mistakes, never grow up. Hence, Jerry never managed to keep a girlfriend for long, etc.
Now, the distinction between children and a-holes may be non-existent to some, but for me there is a world of difference.
Not as much as you may think. Ever seen a group of kids where one is bawling his head off? Usually ALL the others are just ignoring him/her and doing their own thing.
Some did notice. The show didn’t have 100% viewership, after all.
I was never a fan, but certain shows were indeed funny. Sometimes because of the absurdity of the situation or the characters.
I only saw it in reruns, because I watched other things that night or sometimes worked. Didn’t bother taping it, either. Some of my friends thought it was the bestest show ever made. But then, they didn’t watch Star Trek or Doctor Who, so what could they know?
This is obviously a classic case of YMMV.
I would think the majority of people noticed. It doesn’t follow that everyone who noticed stopped watching the show.
I thought it was often hilarious. And their awful behavior came back to bite them in their asses as often as not. George wanted to end a relationship with a woman who had a male roommate and hinted he would be open to a threesome (assuming she would never go for that!). And when he went over to her apartment, she and the roommate told him, yes, a threesome was a great idea!..The marble rye, a convoluted story the basis of which was George needing that loaf of bread to give to his prospective in-laws, and at the end they caught him in the act of smuggling it from Jerry in the street down below, through an open window on a fishing line.
That’s not what I said.
What I meant, to be clear, was that it was a form of humor that didn’t work for everyone, so some people simply would not watch the show.
SOme people would continue to watch even after realising they were all asses, because they enjoy that type of humor.
And as I said, YMMV. See? YMMV
.
Wait…Tony Soprano or Fat Tony from The Simpsons?
[grude ]And the show is real enough feeling that it feels different than the comedic sociopath thing common today.
[/quote]
In all fairness, the NYC that Seinfeld occupies is a world filled with narcissistic, compulsive, selfish, pedantic jerks.
Personally I don’t see how it’s any better or worse that shows like:
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Scrubs
Arrested Development
Sex And The City
South Park
The Simpsons
Married With Children
Cheers
M.A.S.H.
All these shows walk a very fine line between characters who are complete psychotic assholes ones who are justifiable jerks that we emphasize with because they are treating actual jerks and assholes the exact way we wish we could treat them in real life.
Seinfeld definitely has not aged well, but the fact that it chose to make a weekly commentary on some aspect of current pop culture meant that the writers and producers made a deliberate choice to sacrifice future marketability for currency. And that went hand-in-hand with the whole tenor of the “No hugging-- no learning!” Adults like me, in their 20s and 30s, who lived through 80s TV (which is to say, we were in the target demographic for most of 80s TV), with all its “very special episodes,” and lack of genuine relevancy that made 70s TV so good (I detest Family Ties, and think “A, My Name is Alex” is just stupid"), were ripe for something like Seinfeld.
Since Seinfeld set the mood for television in the late 90s, and the 21st century, pretty much everything since has been an improvement on the formula (Some hugging, some learning, but let’s not forget what the 80s taught us about bad TV). The likeable jerks on The Big Bang Theory exist because of Seinfeld. Basically, the show gave TV permission to stop being didactic. Even shows like Three’s Company had Very Special Episodes in the last few years, whether they were advertised that way or not. And some formerly great shows from the 70s became bogged down with a lesson-of-the-week (Quincy, I’m looking at you) in the 80s. Gawd, TV sucked in the 80s.
One of my favorite episodes of any show, ever, is the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine hates The English Patient, because I hated The English Patient, and I worked in an art film house, so I had to run the projector for it like 24 times. I couldn’t tell people I hated it without a “What’s wrong with your soul?” look. So I loved that Elaine hated it too.
My theory was that they were in Hell. And they blew the chance at a Newhart-style finale that would keep people talking for years; Newman said that he would finally reveal himself to Jerry in “all my glory”-except that that plot line was completely dropped. I then fully expected Newman to show up outside the cell in his full devilish regalia at the end of the episode, taunting them all (yes, when I was watching the original run)-but he never showed up again in the ep. after that line. Durned shame…
Okay. That’s not what I got from “Some did notice. The show didn’t have 100% viewership, after all.” but I’ll accept that you didn’t mean to make it sound like the people who noticed caused the show not to reach 100% viewership. 
I think your between the lines is more crowded than mine.
I like the Devil Newman idea.
Considering we all have rather a nasty side I think the characters came across as relateable, or, at least aspects of their character. We all have that seld centred side of us, the wish to take rather than give, a skin deep niceness. I think someone said this earlier but these things were refreshing during 1990’s mainstream comedy. And if we dont note some of these traits in ourselves we recognise them in others, many of these “others” being friends and family of ours.
“Seinfeld” was the extension of two personalities: Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. David is a genuine asshole who acts out in public, and who went on to create a show with the biggest assholes in television, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO, starring Larry David as Larry David. There is not one redeemable character in that series. While “Seinfeld” was a combination of Seinfeld’s observational comedy and Larry David’s social ineptness, CYE was just the product of David’s asocial personality in all its mean-spirited glory. It makes “Seinfeld” look harmless by comparison.