Word: seinfeldisms
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Fortunately for our purposes, television generates a fair amount of data, and they are suggestive. In the half-century in which commercial broadcasting has existed, only 10 sitcoms have ever finished first in the ratings for a season, and Seinfeld has the distinction of being one of them. The others make a curious list: I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show, All in the Family, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, The Cosby Show, Roseanne (which tied one year with Cosby) and Cheers. Seinfeld was No. 1 for a single season, 1994-95. Since then it has finished...
...against the conventional, middlebrow wisdom and say The Beverly Hillbillies possessed a sly, Twain-like wit, recent viewings confirm that it was as crude as everyone has always said. The Happy Days-Laverne and Shirley era is another sorry one. So it could be argued on behalf of Seinfeld that it has combined quality and popularity in a way that is very impressive...
Impressive, but not unique. Some of the No. 1 hits of the past were also pretty good, and perhaps even better than Seinfeld. The Andy Griffith Show, for example, achieved comedic moments of unmatched beauty. These usually came in the loping conversations between Andy and Barney in the sheriff's office, exchanges with a slow pace and subdued hilarity that would be impossible to offer on television today. Others would cite All in the Family or Cheers or Cosby as series that were more skillful and enjoyable than Seinfeld. And while Seinfeld should be credited for going...
...Seinfeld's high ratings give the impression that everyone in America is watching the show and that therefore its departure will create a huge void in popular culture. Actually, by historical standards, Seinfeld does not have a very big audience. As we all know, the ratings for the networks have decreased markedly in the past few years as cable has become more popular, and the effect on even the top shows is startling. In the 1963-64 season, those dread Hillbillies averaged a rating of 39.1--in other words, they were being seen by 39.1% of all households with television...
Compare these figures with those of Seinfeld. So far this year it has a rating of 20.2. This means a smaller proportion of the country watches Seinfeld than watched Who's the Boss in 1988. To put it another way, Tony Danza's place in the nation's consciousness was as big a decade ago as Jerry Seinfeld's is now. Go back further in time, and you'll find that shows like The Rat Patrol and Tony Orlando and Dawn had ratings of about 20. Thus the breadth of Seinfeld's audience is not at all exceptional. By this...