Word: seinfeldisms
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...Just as Seinfeld is quick to give his co-stars and collaborators the lion's share of credit for the show's success ("My real talent," he says, "is in picking people"), he is loath to ascribe any cultural significance to Seinfeld, even while in a somewhat valedictory mood. The show's aims, he insists, are entirely unpretentious: "I really aspire to The Abbott and Costello Show. That's my favorite sitcom. We walk down the street and bump into Bania, the bad comedian, the way Lou Costello would bump into Stinky, and then a scene comes...
...Seinfeld is the first to admit, it's been an impressive and improbable run for a show he has famously said is about nothing, which, of course, is charmingly disingenuous. Because if Seinfeld--arguably television's first genuine comedy of manners since Leave It to Beaver--is about nothing, then so are the works of Jane Austen and Noel Coward. If Seinfeld seems trivial, it is only because manners have so devolved over the course of our century. Like the rest of us, the show's overly analytic foursome must pick their way through an increasingly chaotic social battlefield, forced...
...aside from jokes about masturbation and oral sex, the fundamental difference between Seinfeld and Pride and Prejudice, say, is that Seinfeld in its heart of hearts is concerned with avoiding romantic attachment, with repulsion (and its twin, self-loathing)--the starkest example being George's relief when his fiance dies licking the envelopes of cheap wedding invitations. The supposed callousness of that episode, a season finale, received more criticism than any other, but Seinfeld is unrepentant. "I think if I had to do it again," he confesses, " I would have had George do a worse job of containing his glee...
Because of that one undeniable truth, Seinfeld finds himself in the curious position of facing, at a relatively tender age (43), a sort of retirement. In this regard, you could say Jerry Seinfeld is the Bill Clinton of comedy, the boy wonder as lame duck, if only, that is, Seinfeld were more desperate to be loved. Instead, he is the same affable fellow with the slightly snarky finish that he plays on TV. "I've never had much interest in being liked," he offers. "And I think people like that. It's a relief. So many people want...
With 10 shows left to shoot, Seinfeld won't reveal much about how he plans to end Seinfeld--indeed he claims not to have figured it out himself except that he knows what the final episode's final moment will be. "It's not a big thing," he says of the finale. "It's the shoelace that comes undone in the men's room and touches the floor. That's the kind of mood I'm looking for." So Jerry and Elaine won't be getting married, as some fans have speculated. "Nah," Seinfeld says, pained, "that...