Apple: Crazy Ones

[yesthattom]

People often forget what a game-changing TV show Seinfeld was. Today it’s just that show that people see re-runs of constantly but in its day it was radical to have a show that was off-the-hook zany, where everything didn’t have to be resolved at the end, occasional comic book references, and topics that were taboo for its day. The “show about nothing” was really something. It gave NBC and others the confidence to try new things when, at the time, TV had become so resistant to anything but bland.

Apple paid homage to the greatness of Seinfeld by purchasing (very expensive) ad time on the final Seinfeld episode. They showed this advert which has never appeared on TV again:

Comments

[la-directora.livejournal.com]

Nice little bit of voiceover there by Richard Dreyfuss. :)

The commercial is great. I was never crazy about "Seinfeld". Sometimes it was amusing. But that last episode was awful. It reminded me of everything I didn't like about the show, and especially about the characters.

But great commercial. :)

[awfief.livejournal.com]

I stopped watching about 4-5 seasons in, but the first few seasons were really good. It wasn't a show about nothing, it was a show about real life -- like the parking garage episode, where they were lost for the whole episode. I've lived that!

I don't think I ever saw the last episode....btw, the voice over has some Morgan Freeman-like inflections. creepy.

[la-directora.livejournal.com]

Honestly, it mostly struck me as "standard voiceover inflection" stuff. I was hearing the same kinds of things they talk about in almost every voiceover class/seminar I go to. So it didn't seem at all creepy to me. :)

[cinema-babe.livejournal.com]

One of the things I loved abut the final episode is that it was a complete love letter to the people who had been there before the show was a hit.

One of the big things that a lot of people didn't get about that show is that these were *reprehensible* people. They did terrible things; thoughtless things; that resulted in other people being inconvenienced, embarrassed, hurt and even killed and the main characters felt no remorse.

I've heard it argued that instead of nothing, this was a show about nihilism. In the end the four of them got what they deserved.

(And had forgotten about that fantastic commercial!)

[la-directora.livejournal.com]

See, I watched the show from the beginning, and got that these were irredeemable people. I'm not arguing that wasn't revolutionary. It just didn't appeal to me personally.

The one reason I did love that show was it came on the air after I started dreaming about moving to New York City. So I watched the show mostly to see the city. :)

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

I find most new yorkers either loved it, because it represented the lunacy of living here; or hated it, because it represented the lunacy of living here.

[babasyzygy.livejournal.com]

See, I watched the show from the beginning, and got that these were irredeemable people.

At the time, I was living in NYC and working with quite a few financial (mortgage-backed securities) traders.

They loved the show, and it was clear that they identified with the characters. In fact, Seinfeld was the while-driving entertainment on the bus to the company Xmas party in Atlantic City where we were each required to gamble away a small pile of money. "Whoosh."

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

Heh. I couldn't watch the show because the people were horrible and most of the comedy was what I call "the humor of humiliation".

[la-directora.livejournal.com]

That describes exactly why I didn't like the show.

[freeko.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that Seinfeld gets praise for being innovative because it was a show that whose characters had no redeeming qualties. Yet "Married With Children" did the same thing and was on air in 1987 3 years before Seinfeld and yet does not get the same respect. Still both shows were funny.

Also "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is everything that Larry David (Co-Creator of Seinfeld) could not get away with on Network TV.

[cinema-babe.livejournal.com]

There are a couple of significant differences.

1. The Bundys had some redeeming qualities. There were certainly times when (within the context of sitcomish reality) they came together as a family to achieve some silly goal or another.

2. The amazing thing about Seinfeld is that the audience seemed to actually *ignore* the absence of humanity in the Seinfeld characters. Much of the dialog about their lack of compassion was either had in critical circles or after the show ended.

3. Seinfeld wasn't praised for the characters so much as it was a sitcom with almost no "sit". It also got high praise for it's writing (think of how many words came into water cooler usage for 6 weeks after they were uttered in a Seinfeld episode.) There was an audacity to write entire episodes about waiting to be seated at a restaurant or looking for a paring space.

I don't think that one compares apples to apples when talking about with show was funnier, they were each entertaining shows in their own way. However, as dated as it looks today, Seinfeld was the more innovative show.

[freeko.livejournal.com]

Agreed all accounts.

So you knew Jim Dunlap? Oh Man I miss him. I never met him but I enjoyed his LJ and he had great taste in music. Mind if I friend you since you know a few people I know and you seem to remember when goth was really goth?

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

I think you linked to the wrong ad -- this isn't the Seinfeld one.

The last Seinfeld episode coincided with Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), and the main hall was reserved to watch the show when it aired. Then the Apple commercial came on, and there was much rejoicing.

[cartographer.livejournal.com]

I mostly ignored Seinfeld until I knew I was moving here, and then I watched a season back-to-back as research. It helped a lot, I think :-P

I picked it up again a couple of weeks back and I'm watching it chronologically. Currently, I', midway through season 4. It's great. It's just great. I like it so much.

Carefully not reading the other comments in case of spoilers, which (even in a show about nothing) must be avoided :-)

[dieppe.livejournal.com]

Yep, and now Seinfeld is going to shill for Microsoft Vista.. what a shame, huh?

[gravitrue.livejournal.com]

Seinfeld was a sitcom. It was bland. I think "Married With Children" indeed covered both zany (eating roadkill, mall Santas parachuting to their deaths) and unlikeable characters (needing playboy pinups on the headboard to screw your own wife). Seinfeld was more successful than MWC in part _because_ it was bland and safe, combining elements that were just different enough to be interesting to people without actually challenging them. Of course, that's basically what a sitcom is for, since Americans are unlikely to watch anything challenging; if they were into doing that, they'd be paying attention to the real world.

More than that, though, Seinfeld was racist. It was a whitewashed New York, somewhat more authentic than Disney's Pocahantas. White doormen, white cab drivers, white coworkers. In New York, white people are a minority. And they all lived in giant apartments; yeah, I know they explained that in one episode, but in another, Seinfeld goes apartment hunting and looks at... another giant apartment.

I love New York. New York is diverse and cramped. Turn it into some pablum the midwest will watch on tv and say "look at those zany New Yorkers" and well, it's the same pablum that is either causal or symptomatic (or both) of just how screwed up our culture is.