20 years ago tonight, “Seinfeld” aired “The Finale.”

A very weak episode. Still, I was more offended by a later assertion that Einstein split the atom.

 

Almost every episode got me with something, and some were near perfect. Only a very few just made me shake my head and go meh. The finale being one of them. To narrow it down, to the one that made me LOL the most, it was "The Jimmy" George in the jump trainers, Jimmy, and Kramer and Mel Torme, I'm smiling as I type this.

 

"What the hell is a Velvet Fog?!"

 

Loved the Seinfeld series, and watching it in syndication over the years, it still holds up as very funny. (I have the complete series DVD set, but somehow I mostly watch it when it appears on TV).

Hated the finale. Contrived and crappy. The idea of having most of the signature characters back for a line or three wasn't terrible, but the execution was. I rewatched those shows in syndication and they still suck.

Some people believe the later appearance of the primary characters on the Larry David show was the proper send-off.

 

Noticed that as well but always chalked it off as Jerry and Larry not expecting to be signed on for more shows and being very lax on storylines at this point.

 

I think that’s the Tops!!

 

thats the first line i think of when someone mentions that episode

 

Mine is "DON'T TOUCH JIMMY!"

But that is an infinitely great episode for quoting. Kramer's "I let the expletives fly!" is another good one.

 

Yeah, the Velvet Fog singing "When Your Smiling" and the stupid faces Kramer was making as Torme serenaded him. Like the turkeys on WKRP , some comedy just keeps on giving

 

yup that one too

 

Mel Torme!

 

From a PC perspective, would The Jimmy episode be aired on a major network today?

 

Points like that are often brought up about movies and TV shows. As a viewer, I just think of it like, we don't get to see every waking hour of these character's lives. So at some point between that episode and the next, Elaine changed her mind. It's the only way to really explain it. Usually I think this works if what you imagine the characters doing is plausible, and I think it is here. Though I'm not sure a show like this warrants that much thought. Like you said, I don't believe it was something Jerry and Larry were concerned with. They just wanted the show to be as funny as possible.

 

Yeah, there’s a lot that might be considered problematic by today’s standards. The Donna Chang and Winona the Native American storylines come to mind.

in fact, I think a while back someone wrote an article about Seinfeld’s “unwokeness”. Different times.

 

I was started writing this in the morning, but stopped. I checked back and saw the posts about what wouldn't fly today. So I decided to finish it.

The Puerto Rican Day parade was not shown in syndication (Is still banned?) because Kramer was stepping on the Puerto Rican flag. The critics obviously ignored the part in which the crowd got pissed at Kramer. But another episode that didn't get any attention was the season five episode, The Wife. Kramer has an African-American girlfriend and he fell asleep in the tanning booth. He shows up at her parents' house in basically blackface. Again the character is criticized when the father called him a "damn fool", but that wouldn't happen today.

 

That is hands down one of the funniest scenes is anything ever. If you listen, you can hear Larry David, who was watching the scene behind the camera, laughing like crazy for practically the entire scene. We hear Julia laughing as well at times.

It is something Larry would absolutely do on Curb, but it probably would be hard to get away with it on NBC, ABC or CBS.

True, but in watching Curb, it's clear that Larry David still doesn't care too much about being "woke." "Is it funny or not?" is all he seems to care about. God bless him.

I hadn't thought about that one, but he looks overly tan rather than black, so that is a gray area they could get away with.

Now, Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places is another story...haha

 

Being that the family is African-American, I think it's pretty clear what the joke is. But again, Kramer was the butt of the joke.

According to a post on IMDB, it said it was a response to when Ted Danson appeared in blackface while he was dating Whoopi Goldberg. I haven't watched the DVD since they came out, so I'm not sure if anything is mentioned about the origins of it.

 

George's facial expression make this even better

 

“Naaah...I can't watch a man sing a song. They get all emotional, they sway...it's embarrassing."

 

My binge slowed down through season 6, but I am finishing it up now. I have to add "The Understudy" to that list and make it a top 11. I found the first half of season 6 to be up there with season five, but it started slipping after the Highlights of a Hundred episode. I found myself only watching an episode a day and skipping days.

 

^ You can't binge on a kilo of top-grade chocolate every day. Cleanse your palate with a burst of Mad About You. That'll set you straight.