Laughing Out Loud Page 17

  2. Nothing is sacred. The limits of taste are constantly pushed, as episodes treat everything from masturbation to making out while watching Schindler's List. How wide a range of material did the show embrace? Larry Charles, who wrote for Seinfeld for four seasons before moving on to the award-winning Mad About You, noted that just one season "went from I Love Lucy to Thomas Pynchon, from Al Hirt to John Coltrane" (Baldwin, 40).

  3. No good ever comes from helping one's fellow man. In fact, if the worst could happen, it most likely did on Seinfeld.

  4. Look to the past for inspiration. Seinfeld looked to the Abbott and Costello and Jackie Gleason TV shows of the 1950s in particular.

  5. No reason is too trivial for breaking up. Note that Kramer gives up on Elaine's old friend Wendy in "The Kiss Hello" after one date because she changes her hairstyle, while Elaine breaks up with her friend because she doesn't give her a ride all the way to her apartment building after a day of skiing together.

  6. A short, stocky, slow-witted bald man can be a chick magnet. For George, the opposite is usually the truth, but there are episodes when he does get lucky through no effort on his part.

  7. The craziest person is the sanest of all. This one refers, of course, to Kramer, who as we shall see comes out on top in "The Kiss Hello."

  The show's concept appeared simple: each episode is as much as possible about nothing, as Seinfeld often told us. But "nothing" is a very slippery term, as Western culture has known at least since the time Socrates claimed to be the wisest man because he knew he knew nothing. As critic Bruce Handy writes, if Seinfeld 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" (79). A more accurate summary of the show's concept would be to say it is character- and incident-driven rather than plot-oriented. Most particularly, the show spotlights the absurdist humor of everyday life, of the little details that actually make up our lives and interactions, as opposed to any romantic or lofty idealism. Less definitely produces more in every Seinfeld episode. And Seinfeld often explained his strong debt to comics such as Gleason and Abbott and Costello, as well as to the New York Jewish tradition of stand-up humor from which he developed. In fact, Seinfeld's much ado about nothing also reflected a lot about life in Manhattan and about self-absorbed relationships of the 199os. In short, Seinfeld is actually much ado about a lot of things, but presented with such speed, lightness of touch, a nonjudgmental tone, and a balance between sarcasm and acceptance that a nation came to expect just about anything each week for half an hour.

  The show is really about humor. "The goal was only laughter," wrote the New York Times (Carter, A15). And years of reruns surely validate this goal. With a watch or stopwatch, make this test yourself of any episode: count how many laughs there are per minute in any, say, five-minute stretch. I guarantee that almost every episode averages four laughs per minute! That's a lot of gag and joke writing, especially since most shows do not come close to such an intensity of laughter. But first a little more on the set-up of the show:

  Characters: Consider the foursome who propel each episode-Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. They are about as unlikely a bunch of would-be friends as we can imagine. In fact, as many have pointed out, they are not friends at all. "The bond between these niggling, nudging four musketeers," writes critic Ken Tucker, "is a group dynamic rooted in jealousy, rage, insecurity, hopelessness and a touching lack of faith in one's fellow human beings" (Baldwin 22-23). Seinfeld himself, however, suggests that all of the picky bickering is carried out within an atmosphere of security: "There's a great warmth beneath the surface of these characters. Just the fact of what we forgive each other shows you that" (Baldwin, 24). The comic world created within Seinfeld is thus sarcastic, cynical and seemingly uncaring on the surface, yet accepting and forgiving on the deeper level of a shared community. Even if all appears to end badly, as in the episode we are about to examine, the characters are all back together in the next episode, ready to express themselves once more by being picky, trivial and vain.

  Given our descriptions of comic characters in chapter 1, each character in Seinfeld except for Kramer rotates between being an eiron (ironic wise guy) and an alazon (pretentious, bragging fool), as well as rotating constantly between being a victim and a savior figure, and at times a mercenary figure as well. Kramer is a special case, however. Kramer is definitely a kind of holy fool, who functions completely according to the dictates of his own universe with no worries about how he fits into society. In true Aristophanic style, the universe must come to Kramer's vision and, as in "The Kiss Hello," often does!

  Jerry Seinfeld plays a version of himself-a New York Jewish comedian who has become successful onstage but something of an aloof mess off. "I wanted to do a show about being a comedian," is how Jerry originally put it (Wild, 19). This position allows him to be something of a fall guy or straight man for the antics of the others, as well as something of a choral figure commenting on what's happening. It also allows him to throw in an onstage moment that comments on and expresses the themes or manners at play in that particular episode. He is the handsome lead who would be the romantic hero if this were screwball comedy, but instead is a thirty-something urban bachelor whose life is filled with the comic minefield of daily encounters that annoy, befuddle and amuse him.

  Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is the ex-girlfriend and now platonic friend, who by virtue of her position is able to make wry and sarcastic comments on all that goes on in Seinfeld's life, and for that matter the lives of the whole group. Like the heroines in screwball comedy, she is a professional and very bright, but unlike the Jean Arthurs and Katharine Hepburns of the past, her fears, insecurities and inability to commit emotionally mean that she, like Jerry and George, is condemned to hanging out with the guys and trying endlessly to find a Mr. Right who doesn't exist.

  George Louis Costanza (Jason Alexander), Jerry's buddy since high school, cannot seem to get and hold a job or a woman, as he neurotically worries about everything. Alexander was the first supporting actor cast for the show once the concept of a Jerry-centered series was agreed upon, and this New Jersey-born actor notes, "Ever since I was little, I was crashing my bicycle into a tree to make people laugh" (Wild, 21).

  Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) is the next-door neighbor who barges in and out, carrying out one eccentric scheme after another. He is the intruder figure, the unwanted guest you can't get rid of who is constantly affecting your life. But, as noted above, he is the one figure with visions that he tries to put into practice, inventions that actually would make sense if carried out by somebody else. Over the years, for instance, he comes up with notions of a pizza place where you make your own pizza, a cologne called "Beach" that smells like the real thing, "PB&J's," a restaurant that serves only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a mattress filled with sand to give you a "beach" sleep, and a garbage disposal unit in the bathtub so you can eat while showering.

  Taken together, they are not exactly a group of friends. The show is called Seinfeld, and it is to Jerry that each other character relates, even when all are together in a scene. That group dynamic must always be kept in mind.

  Let us now acknowledge four members of the principal writing team:

  Larry David ran almost every detail of the show for eight years, including much of the writing. He conceived the show with Jerry and wrote about sixty episodes. According to David, much of the material came from real life, transformed to one degree or another, and he particularly appreciated that NBC never really censored the show.

  Jerry Seinfeld was involved in much of the writing as well as being cofounder of the series and its star. We have in the United States a long tradition of comedians who write, produce and sometimes direct themselves, from Chaplin and Buster Keaton down to Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and beyond, but once more, Seinfeld stands out in the medium of television comedy as that rare bird that does it all.

  Larry Charle
s wrote for the first four seasons, penning many of the dark episodes with neo-Nazis and serial killers and the homeless as topics. What did he enjoy most in writing for the show? "So many places they ask you to shave the edge off. At Seinfeld they asked you to sharpen it." Biggest challenge in writing? Writing for Elaine-until he was told he did not have to treat her "like a woman" but just "as neurotic and troubled as the rest" (Baldwin, 40).

  Peter Mehlman wrote the first freelance episode ("The Apartment," first season) and eighteen after that. His background? Journalism, including the New York Times, where Jerry spotted him through one of his articles. He had never written dialogue before and found the biggest challenge writing for Kramer. His solution? "My strategy is to come up with very sane stories and then let his personality take it to crazy places" (Baldwin, 42).

  "The Kiss Hello" Up Close

  "The Kiss Hello" (labeled as Episode ioo and dated January 5, 1995, though it actually aired on February 16, 1995, as episode 97), written by Seinfeld and Larry David, follows the two acts with a final "show close" scene. There are twenty-eight scenes, averaging two to three pages apiece, or about a minute a scene. For starters, it will be useful to see the scene and character breakdown so we can refer back to it. Note that scenes are lettered, not numbered, and that there is no Scene I, since "I" would be confused with the number one, or scenes F, 0, Q, U and X for similar reasons. Finally, once you have run through the alphabet, scenes become AA, BB and so on. The numbers in parentheses are the page number on which that scene begins in this seventy-one-page script.

  Scene Breakdown for "The Kiss Hello "

  Comic Narrative Structures

  For a show supposedly about nothing, there are at least five subplots woven around the main plot of Jerry's anarchistic idea to stop kissing people hello, because as he explains:

  JERRY: Well frankly, outside of a sexual relationship, I really don't see the point to it. And I'm not thrilled with all the handshaking either. But one step at a time.

  (Act 1, Scene C)

  Thus the front story revolves around the social "manners" of how we greet each other. Seinfeld is announcing his protest of traditional custom, and we recognize of course that he is absolutely headed for trouble. In terms of the story arc for the whole episode, Jerry's stance puts him in direct conflict with Kramer, who decides to help everyone become one big "family" in the apartment building by placing a sign board up in the lobby with everyone's photo and name on it. This leads to perhaps the key exchange of the episode:

  KRAMER: You should be thanking me for liberating you from your world of loneliness and isolation. Now you're part of a family.

  JERRY: Family? You think I want another family? My father's demanding that my uncle pay him interest on fifty dollars he was supposed to give my mother in 1941. And my uncle's put my grandmother in a home because of it.

  (Act 2, Scene R)

  The grandmother story involves two subplots, as Jerry is initially called to Nana's house to help her open a bottle of ketchup. Once there, he discovers that Uncle Leo has also been called over, and Nana, drifting in time, asks if he ever paid the fifty dollars to Jerry's mother he was supposed to. It seems that Jerry's grandfather won at the races one day and gave Leo one hundred dollars with the stipulation that half of it would go to Helen, Jerry's mother.

  Going on the narrative and comic impulse that things will go from bad to worse, this leads Uncle Leo to have Nana put in an old folks' home to keep her quiet and leads Jerry's father, Morty, to begin figuring out the compounded interest on fifty dollars over forty-three years. He finally calculates that Leo owes him $20,320 if it had been invested in a 12-percent-yielding account!

  We can say, therefore, that part of the comedy of manners at play in this episode has to do with defining family and simple acquaintances within an apartment building. Comedy thrives on contradiction, and Jerry is nothing if not a bundle of contradictions. He does not wish to kiss hello, but he rushes to help his grandmother open ketchup. Yet it is hard: even this effort to help a relative is less "love" than "duty," a polarity Jerry is caught between.

  The main arc of the episode leads to Jerry's nonkissing experiment blowing up in his face. Kramer's efforts to bring the apartment building residents together has paid off handsomely. Not only do we see everyone beginning to call each other by their first names, shaking hands and kissing, thanks to Kramer's photo and name board, but they all shun Jerry for not being "civil." The final blow comes in the end tag scene of the show: Jerry asks Kramer if he can use his shower, since the building super won't fix Jerry's because of his unneighborly aloofness. And Kramer refuses, because he has a party of all the neighbors going on at the moment. Kramer closes the door, Jerry is alone, clearly not understanding, and the show is over. Note how such an ending appears to violate the traditions of comedy, which thrive on acceptance and either romantic union or anarchistic celebration. Jerry is alone. But Kramer is not, and therein lies the anarchistic comic ending: he has created a "new world." Jerry's solitude, on the other hand, adds an ironic twist to it all. We have a double ending.

  But we have left out at least four more subplots in the episode.

  1. George wants to date Wendy, Elaine's physical therapist friend, and so schedules an appointment to see her at her office.

  2. But this leads to a comedy of manners about how one handles cancellations, as George is billed for missing his appointment.

  3. And Elaine and Wendy have a falling out when returning from a ski trip. Wendy refuses to drive Elaine all the way to her apartment building, insisting that Elaine get out three blocks from home, a distance too short for a taxi but long enough to be a major burden when one is carrying ski equipment.

  4. Finally, Elaine and Jerry have one of their many bets going, this time to see if they can get Kramer and Wendy together not as a dating couple but for the sole purpose of having Kramer tell Wendy her hairstyle is terrible and should be changed.

  Seinfeld celebrates the failure of most of its characters' efforts. Thus George and Elaine both wind up dumping Wendy as a date/friend, as does Kramer, who actually liked the awful hairdo and does not like the new cut she gets. And Jerry gets the goods on Uncle Leo by finding Buddy, a fellow in the old folks' home who remembers Leo and what happened. We are even left with the possibility of a new friendship, as Buddy and Nana appear to be getting on famously.

  Four points we can learn about the construction of sitcom writing from a Seinfeld episode:

  i. Comic density. We used this term to describe Preston Sturges's comedies of the 193os and 1940s, and the term applies equally to Seinfeld. Each episode is packed, not only with the four main characters but with all of the others who fill up each frame, from the other residents in the apartment building to Jerry's Nana, parents and Uncle Leo. Much more than a three-ring circus, Seinfeld is more like an eight- or ten-ring circus.

  2. Overlapping scenes. More so than other shows, Seinfeld delights in having conversations spill over from one scene to the next. This signifies that not a whole lot of time has passed between scenes; but also there is the pure pleasure of seeing and hearing how wrapped up these characters get in their discussions, which interest them immensely but appear trivial and inane to anyone else. The interlocking dialogue between scenes simply highlights the intensity of their discussions.

  3. Short scenes. The economy of good television comedy is to be respected. Take the very brief appearance in two scenes of Jerry's parents. A lot of the humor comes from the absolute brevity of their appearance for the mere point of showing Morty figuring out the amount of money owed him according to varying interest rates. There is no need for a lengthy dialogue about Nana and how Uncle Leo is a scoundrel. The simple figuring of interest over so many years becomes funny in and of itself, as we realize Morty's cause is not justice but good old profit!

  4. One long scene near the beginning to set up the whole show. On Seinfeld the coffee shop proves ideal. It is, first of all, neutral territory outside the apart ment and th
erefore acceptable to all and open to outside influences. A "long" scene in Seinfeld is defined as six pages. That's less than three minutes of screen time, but that's enough for Scene C to establish Jerry's no-kiss-hello campaign, for George to make it clear he is after Wendy, for Elaine and Jerry to cook up an effort to bring Wendy and Kramer together so he can tell her that her hair is all wrong, and for Kramer to announce his good-neighbor photo and name board plan. The rest of the script is spent developing all that happens over coffee in this early sequence.

  Put it all together and we keep on laughing at and with Seinfeld, because he does make us a little wiser about how much of our lives are spent on little details that mean nothing ... and everything. It's all a matter of perspective, distance, context.

  The Simpsons: "We're a Nice Normal Family!"

  Walt Disney revolutionized cartoons and features for children by exploring the seemingly limitless resources of animation. And The Simpsons has revolutionized television in general and the sitcom in particular by proving that those ageless 'toons can make millions from the laughter of millions everywhere, representing a much larger audience age span and demographic than, say, Seinfeld. Creator Matt Groening puts it best: "The Simpsons is a show that rewards you paying attention" (9). Disney's approach was to present fairy-tale narratives about both people and animals and aimed at children, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella to Bambi and Dumbo. Groening and The Simpsons development staff, including James L. Brooks and Sam Simon, passed up the sweetness-and-light school of animation offered by Disney and took a chance, aiming for a family sitcom that would use humor in very sneaky ways to attract audiences from three to ninety-three. That is its overwhelming accomplishment, and "sneaky" is, as Groening admits, the operative word and concept. As he says, the show is "full of sneaky details, hidden jokes, and annoying catchphrases. The book contains vital statistics, not-so-vital statistics, and important factoids" (9). It's got memorable lines and even the hard-to-decipher background signs.