Airs Next:NBC at Thursday 9:00 PM (30 min.)
Status:Ended
Premiered:July 5, 1989
Last Aired:May 14, 1998
Show Categories:Comedy

This is a show about nothing; however, for a show about nothing, this show has many complex plots, sub-plots, is very well written and put together. So much so that until the public caught onto the series, the television critics were responsible for helping to keep it alive. The critics further went on and made the series victorious in every category it was eligible for in the 1st Annual American Television Awards. Seinfeld has also won a few Emmy Awards, the George Foster Peabody Award for 1992 and many more.

Many of the early episodes were based on the life experiences of series co-creator, Larry David. Stories such as The Stock Tip and The Jacket really happened, as did many others. Across the hall from Larry lived a man named Kenny Kramer, who aside from the physical comedy aspects, lives the life of TV Kramer. Find out all about him at the real Kramer's web site.

Seinfeld is an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award-winning American sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. Many of its catch phrases have entered into the popular culture lexicon. The show led the Arthur Nielsen Media Research Ratings in its sixth and ninth seasons and finished among the top two (along with NBC's ER) every year from 1994 to 1998.In 2002, TV Guide named Seinfeld as the greatest television program of all time.In 2008 Entertainment Weekly ranked Seinfeld as the third best show of the last 25 years, behind The Sopranos and The Simpsons.

The eponymous series was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, with the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself. Set predominantly in an apartment block on New York City's Upper West Side (but shot mostly in Los Angeles, California), the show features a host of Jerry's friends and acquaintances, who include George Costanza, Elaine Benes and Cosmo Kramer.

Seinfeld's final season seems to take its cue from a little piece of "showmanship" advice that Jerry offers to the hapless George (Jason Alexander) in the episode "The Burning": "When you hit that high note, say goodnight and walk off." In television, as in comedy, timing is everything, and that's what Seinfeld, No. 1 in the ratings, did. The show that TV Guide would later rank the greatest of all time, left the stage, perhaps not at the top of its game, but at least on its own terms. To the end, Jerry, George, Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and Kramer (Michael Richards) remain true to the show's misanthropic muse. In the episode "The Merv Griffin Show," Jerry induces sleep in his new girlfriend so he can have his way with her retro toy collection. In "The Apology," George relentlessly badgers an old acquaintance (James Spader) now in AA, for a Step Nine apology over a long-ago insult. At one point, Elaine resumes her on again-off again relationship with Puddy (Patrick Warburton) because she needs a bureau moved. In the end, it all comes crumbling down for the so-called "New York Four" when they are put on trial in a Massachusetts courtroom for violating a Good Samaritan Law after not coming to the aid of an obese carjack victim. A parade of lack-of-character witnesses spanning the series' near-decade-long run, from Mabel Choate, the Marble Rye Lady, to Babu and the Soup Nazi testify how they were "abused, wronged, deceived, and betrayed" by Jerry and company. Anyone expecting Seinfeld or Larry David to apologize for this bitter, and not at all sweet, finale, can just stuff those sorrys in a sack, mister. In "The Last Lap," a bonus featurette about Seinfeld's decision to end the series despite unprecedented offers from NBC brass to continue, they acknowledge the episode's "mixed reaction," but remain defiant. As Alexander notes, nothing could have lived up to the massive hype the episode received.