Good News, Bad News

Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld's script for this Seinfeld pilot episode is good, often very funny, although not quite up to what the world would see in future episodes like "The Pen", "The Bubble Boy" or "The Outing". What it lacks though is an interesting plot: the storyline of Laura, the woman from Michigan, is actually quite uninteresting and the actress playing her is not a big deal either. The other female character, the waitress, is funny on the other hand and her conversations with Jerry and George are good. Still, we needed Elaine to really set things going.

The characters themselves are already established. George is a bit more confident and self-assured than later, but you definitely can see the future George Costanza in him. Kramer, or Kessler, is already funny and Michael Richards's great. It is indeed quite unusual to see him knock on the door before entering, have a dog that miraculously disappeared and have a normal hairstyle. Of course Jerry never really changed at all.

What really carries this, and the early episodes is the dialog. Quite frankly, Seinfeld is the show in television history with the best and funniest dialog. David and Seinfeld are writing on an high level right from the beginning. Prominently featured is Seinfeld's stand-up routine. The opening speech is quite unfunny but he gets much better later on. He really has the time for longer stories in the early episodes, and not just a quick joke like it would be in the future.

It's Seinfeld, it's great, Watch it!

First ever episode of Seinfeld. A pilot, actually. Starts with a bang, even though the Elaine character is not in this one; Jerry's apartment is different; Kramer is actually Kessler and he has a dog; the coffee shop is not Munk's; there's Claire the waitress; there's cheesy music. But it's still a lot of fun. The famous scene where Jerry and George are discussing the place of a button on a shirt started it all. And right from the start, relationships are analyzed. Great lines in the laundromat where Jerry says that you "can't over-dry, just like you can't over-die". Back then, the show included a lot of stand-up routine from Jerry: "the washing machine is the nightclub of clothes"!

Watched on DVD on September 16th, 2006.

Jerry has a date tomorrow, or maybe he doesn't because he is not 100% sure the woman coming into New York for work will see him. George is convinced that all the verbal cues point to him being a back-up plan or her just being polite, but this is thrown into a cocked hat when she asks if she can stay at Jerry's for the night. George goes along to help pick her up at the airport to give assistance on the clues given on her intentions by her physical greeting.

From the very start this "show about nothing" opens with the sort of territory that it would do successfully for many seasons. The dialogue drives it forward as the two characters sum up the modern anxiety of day-to-day life and dating by over-analysing everything and over thinking a situation that is admittedly not the clearest or easiest. It is not hilarious but it is quite amusing and well written because while it does have exaggeration for comedy effect. The show pushes George to the fore in this episode while Jerry really does his best work in the stand-up sections. George is pretty good although he is more reasonable than in the full series and when he does act-up it feels forced. Kramer is here and seems mostly like he will continue to be, except with wilder hair. Elaine is absent from the pilot but this was still a work in progress.

Overall an amusing pilot that is entertaining but also serves as a look at how the show started and was pretty much doing what it wanted to do from the start.

As much as I found this pilot episode to be funny, some things made me ponder. For instance, why isn't Elaine here, why is Kramer named Kessler and why is this only 30 minutes long. Well- 1, Elaine didn;t show up until mid-first season, 2, Kramer came along in the first episode and 3, this is the pilot. Yes, this is the original Seinfeld pilot aired to see if the show would become a hit. Though very funny for a pilot, it didn't sky rocket the show to stardom immediately (the show was at first called dumb and not about anything). But eventually, the show got funnier until it became (to me) the funniest sitcom ever. Kudos Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David for creating such good characters. A+

"Seinfeld" is without a doubt one of the greatest sitcoms ever made. Not only was it consistently hilarious, it was cool and different from the very beginning... yes, even from the very first episode! Watching the pilot is an interesting experience, because it's not as good as what was to come, but it's still very well written and funny.

Like someone else said, this feels like a rough draft of "Seinfeld." You can tell the characters of George and Kramer (or Kessler) are written differently than what they turned into. George is a lot more confident--in fact, he seems more confident than Jerry (this definitely didn't last long). Kramer is more of a bum, not the hipster doofus he eventually became. Still, they all have great chemistry together, and the story is witty and funny.

All in all, it's fascinating to watch. It's the tip of the iceberg... a glimpse of the awesome show that is to come.