#Best seinfeld episodes to start with series

George’s stewardship of the Susan Ross Foundation forced him to develop even stronger tactics to maneuver around responsibility, but one of the most charming moments came when he actually cared about his job. While Susan Ross will always be best remembered for the Season 7 engagement arc that ended in her death, George’s ex-fiancee found plenty of opportunities to torment him from beyond the grave. “The Van Buren Boys” (Season 8, Episode 14) But that’s almost irrelevant, as any episode featuring a line as immortal as “George is getting upset!” automatically earns a spot on this list. The episode ties the confusion together when Kramer’s dental work and footwear choices prompt Mel Tormé to invite him to an event for the intellectually disabled. When Jerry and George’s new friend Jimmy insists on referring to himself in the third person, he creates chaos for Elaine when he asks her out and she assumes he’s setting her up with a handsome friend. “The Jimmy” falls into the latter category and remains a prime example of the show’s ability to blend classic sitcom tropes with contemporary neuroses to create comedy gold. Some “Seinfeld” episodes boldly satirized and reinvented the sitcom format… and others just took old school farce set-ups and executed them to perfection.

#Best seinfeld episodes to start with series

With the caveat that cherry-picking any series as fantastic as “Seinfeld” is an exercise in futility (or should we say, fusilli-ty?): Here are the 45 best “Seinfeld” episodes, from “The Muffin Tops” and “The Blood” to “The Junior Mint” and “The Fire.”Įditor’s note: The following was original publishing on Augand has been updated multiple times since.

Depending on the day, watching “Seinfeld” is either a hilarious lesson about what not to do or a sobering look in the mirror. The amount of changing social norms and technological innovations that the series predicted is undeniably impressive and a little bit scary. Jerry and his Upper West Side friends represent the worst parts of all of us: they spend their relatively easy lives nitpicking every inconvenient detail, they judge everyone by standards that they themselves could never meet, and they gradually let the mundanities of everyday life turn them into monsters. And then of course there’s Michael Richards’ Kramer, the ball of manic energy in human form who lives across the hall from Jerry and splits his time between shamelessly mooching and devising elaborate schemes.įor years the series has been defined by its own tongue-in-cheek moniker that it’s merely a “show about nothing,” but it’s hard to find a work of art that did a better job of explaining human nature in the 21st century. Julia Louis-Dreyfus was equally excellent as Elaine Benes, Jerry’s ex-girlfriend turned close confidante whose misadventures as a single woman working in publishing afforded her countless opportunities to share her strong opinions. The comedian starred opposite Jason Alexander’s George Constanza, an unapologetically selfish Queens native who displayed true brilliance in his attempts to avoid work, accountability, and anything resembling human virtue. But while the observational humor that fueled Seinfeld’s standup career was at the core of the show, the real stars were Jerry’s eccentric friends. Seinfeld played a fictional version of himself across nine stellar seasons, with “Seinfeld” racking up 10 Emmys (and an additional 68 nominations) during its 180-episode run. A cultural phenomenon during its original run that became one of the most quoted shows of the past quarter century, “Seinfeld” is a work of art that remains in a class of its own. We might be living in the era of Peak TV, but there’s no denying that multi-camera sitcoms peaked from Jto May 14, 1998.