AD was so over the top I could accept it.
Well, it was more than that. It was groundbreaking in that they took on subjects that were pretty much taboo in prime time TV: masturbation, oral sex, gay relationships, orgasms, voyeurism, to mention the biggies. Getting that past the censors was an exercise in good writing and editing.
For example, the situation in the “marble rye” episode developed from good intentions gone awry. George needed another marble rye to cover for the fact that his father, and even bigger asshole than George, had brought the bread as a dinner gift and then secretly took it back because he though it wasn’t appreciated. And Jerry ended up stealing the bread from the old woman because he had promised George he would get him one.
That’s exactly correct! I really enjoyed “Seinfeld”, but never could watch more than a few minutes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.
At first I thought this was going to be another one of **Leaffan’s **“I hate this old thing that everybody seems to like” threads.
Whoa. Back up, there.
The Simpsons are not amoral sociopaths. Most episodes even have a character learn a lesson - it’s very old-school in that respect.
Yes, grude, Seinfeld’s actual innovation to the sitcom form was to have amoral people doing things and not learning. No sitcom had done that before.
I sorta watched Seinfled in its first run and liked it, but it’s become unwatchable now.
I never could watch a single full episode of Arrested or Curb, couldn’t like anyhting about them.
It’s also the same with “Will and Grace”, the characters are thoroughly unlikable as people.
In an episode possibly intended to highlight and make a joke of their frequent assholery, Elaine meets up with an alternative group of three fellows, who are friendly, courteous, generous and studious – and, by episode’s end, want to have nothing to do with her.
This hits the nail on the head. The characters’ poor behavior is essentially the driving force behind the series, and the show couldn’t possibly have worked otherwise.
“Funny” is, of course, highly subjective. If you didn’t think Seinfeld was funny, then you didn’t think it was funny. Fair enough. And the characters were certainly unlikeable. But to argue that it wasn’t funny because the characters were unlikeable is absurd. The two are in no way mutually exclusive.
Elaine was the “Great Dancer” of the group. She was like the “Ballerina” archetype if you will.
:eek:
I love that episode. It even managed to work in a nicely-justified Superman reference. Every time I watch it again, me so happy!
Ah yes, Elaine and the Bizarro Jerry (and others). Hilarious!
Wait, MASH*? Are you talking about the Robert Altman movie, or the Larry Gelbart TV series? The movie MASH was, yes, full of unsympathetic characters - Hawkeye and Trapper were assholes, and even Radar was a bit of a dickhead - but MASH* the series only ever had three obnoxious regular characters. Frank Burns was a one-note song, and he was quickly written out; but Margaret Houlihan and Charles Emerson Winchester were developed into rounded, sympathetic characters. I don’t see how you can put MASH*, or Cheers, either, on a list with South Park or Married With Children.
That was an awesome episode. It recognized that the people involved were jerks.
And it’s part of why I’m confused by Elaine’s characterizations, since, in that episode, she was trying to be a good person.
If you recall, in the Bizarro Group, Elaine was the jerk. She’s really only the ‘good’ one compared to the regular group. She ends up injuring one of them when she shoves him.
Yeah, but people are saying above that she’s the worst of the group, and I remember some episodes where she seemed that way.
Plus, I thought the reason they kicked her out was because she came in and just ate food without asking.
Exactly, she was the jerk of the bizarro group. Although her pettiness was on a sliding scale. In the early days she was kind of the voice of reason and more the adult in the group, but as the series went on she got worse.
That’s really cool, I hadn’t seen that explanation before, but it reminds me very much (not surprisingly) of a conversation I had with a friend where I was trying to explain why Louis C.K.'s Louie is, IMHO, so funny. It’s a weird show in that it’s sort of filmed like a drama, and there are some conventionally funny moments (ie a clear joke, or humorous dialog). But the funny part of that show is watching the situations with a perspective of what it might be like to try to describe that situation, ie. as Louie/Louis recounting it later in his act.
There’s a story in one of his stage shows (I saw it live, and then a version of it apparently was his SNL monologue) where he’s in an airport and an old lady falls down. And he describes how at that moment, there’s a lot of people around and an awkward few seconds before anybody does anything – they’re basically playing Chicken waiting to see if anyone else will help first. And he “loses,” so now he has to pick this old lady up. Then she needs directions and he has to walk her through the airport because he’s already been nice and can’t just suddenly brush her off. Next thing you know he’s carrying a bunch of stuff and she’s just babbling about this and that and telling him all this stuff about who knows what and the whole scenario just keeps going… So in his standup, of course, he peppers the whole thing with hilarious commentary on why he’s doing what he’s doing, jokes about old ladies in general, etc., but that “slice of life” would be translated to the show as something more like “sees old lady fall down, eyes shift around to see if anyone will help, no, so he picks her up, then she just continues imposing on him until he and the viewer are really uncomfortable with the awkward situation.” And it’s a little more up to us to fill in the humor of the situation, or see how it could/would be turned into a joke.
Sorry for the off-topic dissertation, there. Obviously Jerry and Louis know each other and appreciate each other, and I feel that Louie seems to be about how a (“observational,” I suppose) comedian sees life around him and turns it into material – I never thought about Seinfeld being about that, I guess because the situations are usually more ridiculous, there’s a laugh track, etc.
Early in the series they made it pretty clear though with bits of his standup put into the show.