Many fans qualify as experts, walking Wikipedia entries on everything from “sponge-worthy” men and a woman whose name could have been Mulva to close talkers and double dippers.īefore “Seinfeld,” we certainly loved TV shows, such as “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Brady Bunch” and “Murphy Brown.” But we didn’t necessarily zero in on their many particulars, in the way we took on George’s cold-water shrinkage, Jerry’s nose-pick incident, and Elaine’s exposed nipple. They loved specific episodes, and the specific jokes in those episodes, and the specific catchphrases that emerged from those jokes, and the specific guest stars who appeared. One of the hallmarks of the show was the way it stimulated a cultlike fervor among its giant viewership - and during its peak that was an average of 38 million viewers a week. I’m referring to “Seinfeld,” of course, which pulled the country into a game of trivial pursuit from 1989 to 1998 - a game that endures on social media, where “Seinfeld” memes have a vibrant afterlife. Audiences have a voracious - at times almost religious - desire for any and all details of whatever TV shows they happen to love, the most obvious recent example being “Game of Thrones.” It’s not a new phenomenon - Trekkies have been obsessing since the ’60s - but it first reached mainstream proportions with a show whose 30th anniversary is on July 5, a sitcom that wasn’t about nothing, as was often said, but about the slightest, pettiest things in life. I continually marvel at the level of microanalysis that pervades today’s coverage of pop culture. Turns out there’s a whole world to explore in that two-second exchange between Pete and Bob.
It’s an entertaining dissection of what has become one of the show’s most popular memes - who wrote it, why it was set in an elevator, how the actors remember it, and more. I was browsing the Vulture website recently when I came across an entire story devoted to a single moment from “Mad Men,” the one on the elevator when Pete Campbell says “Not great, Bob” after Bob Benson asks how he’s doing. The cast of “Seinfeld” (from left): Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jason Alexander.
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