What’s your favorite episode?
Mine is hands down The Merv Griffen Set.
shareIt's almost impossible to choose. I loved the ones where they pushed their concept to the limit. The Chinese Restaurant will always have a special place for me for that reason.
So, after thinking about it for a bit, here are my standouts:
The Chinese Restaurant: gave us the perfect "show about nothing" scenario and dared to risk making a totally boring show with this bottle episode genius.
The Contest: tops a lot of lists for a reason. It's all the more perfect knowing it was based on a true story.
The Marine Biologist: "The sea was angry that day, my friends...like an old man trying to return soup at a deli."
The Parking Garage: a bit of a similar vein as The Chinese Restaurant. It takes the common experience (can't remember where you parked) and expands it to the ridiculous.
The Limo: the big reveal is amazing.
So many other great ones, though, like The Soup Nazi or The Bubble Boy. There are others that I love despite controversy. The two I'll cite are The Invitations and The Puerto Rican Day. The Invitations is as dark a comic moment as one could wish for. The Puerto Rican Day is great with the three guys in the same apartment under three different pseudonyms. And I'll say this: anybody who thinks that episode made fun of Puerto Rico or was being racist is out to lunch.
Overall: Seinfeld was a great show with so many killer episodes. Their concepts are all wonderful. I can scroll through a list of those shows and chuckle just at the premises (The English Patient, for instance), or think of brilliant moments (The Wig Master's "pimp" Kramer, or Steinbrenner freaking out in The Calzone ("Costanza's in the building!")). It's an all-time great for a reason.
I love the Chinese restaurant. Cartwright, Cartwright. She say curse word I hang up. Lol
share"She called. He yelled Cartwright. I missed her."
"Who's Cartwright?"
"I'M Cartwright."
Lmao. I also would say The Pothole, The Blood, The Chicken Roaster, The Muffin Tops, The Voice, The Hamptons, The Little Jerry and The Wizard. “It does other things!!!”
A lot of my favs take place in the later seasons. They really seemed to be firing on all cylinders and every beat was used for a laugh. Gee wiz now that I try and list them there are so many.
Seinfeld did get a lot better as it went on, although I think it plateaued around Season three or four. That's not to say it was a problem, I just think they hit peak level and stayed there right to the bitter end.
Season one was very good, but they hadn't hit their stride yet. There was still a sense that they had to be a sitcom. By the end, they were as much satire as sitcom, and they let themselves be weird and strange (the doppleganger Jerry, Kramer, and George!) and that really worked for them. The pilot episode, about Jerry not knowing whether or not to make a move on a girl, seems conventional and hasn't committed to the full-Seinfeld style. Of course, that's true of a lot of pilot episodes.
For fifty bucks? I'd put my face in their soup and blow!
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