From left, Jason Alexander as George, Michael Richards as Kramer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine and Jerry Seinfeld in a scene from “Seinfeld.” IMDb photo
They’re back in our pandemic scarred life, and they’re way overdue. Jerry and George are back, and so are Elaine and Kramer. No further introduction is required.
‘SEINFELD’
Comedy
The continuing misadventures of neurotic New York City stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld and his equally neurotic New York City friends.
Creators: Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld
Stars: Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards
In 1989, this foursome came along and brought a whole new book of street idioms with them.
“Schmoozie,” “No soup for you,” “Hello, Newman,” “Yada, Yada, Yada” became part of our everyday dialogue.
In its nine season run, “Seinfeld” garnered 10 Emmy awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series and statues for Julia Louis Dreyfus and Michael Richards, making the entire cast and writers filthy rich and permanent icons of comedy.
We should note that Michael Richards won more Emmys than any other actor on the series.
Seinfeld-isms started popping up in the New Yorker, Time and Newsweek, in the halls of the West Wing, school halls and operating rooms. The Vatican has not returned the calls.
Yes, I know, 1989 was the year the World Wide Web was invented, the Berlin Wall came down, and the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Prize. Yada, Yada, Yada.
But for this viewer, the defining, life changing moment of 1989 was when Kramer came bursting through that gray door, wanting to borrow Jerry’s spatula for a back scratcher. “Seinfeld,” Larry David and Jerry’s show about “Nothing,” quickly became “everything.”
Thanks to my daughters who gave me the complete boxed “Seinfeld,” the gang never left my life completely.
But this required changing the discs on my Blue-ray box too often. Now, I’ve disconnected the box, and just spend the last dark hour of my day watching the gang come through Jerry’s apartment door, without knocking.
And I’m not surprised to see that every joke in those shows holds up tonight as though it was written yesterday. That’s great comedy.
And here they are, just when we need them most, on, of all places, a berth called Hulu.
But that’s about to change. According to decider.com, Hulu is dropping it, and Netflix is picking it up.
So at this reading, “Seinfeld” is streaming on Hulu and will soon pop up on Netflix.
J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.
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