Why is Jerry Seinfeld so overated?
Jerry Seinfeld was a smash hit in the US because his comedy was based on day to day stuff. The crazy stuff they do and get away with, provide comic relief to the every day Joe and Jane American. Now, why he got sooooo much per episode I really don’t see it. All I know is the value of anything is what someone (or some corporation) is willing to pay and he must have made an absolute fortune for the TV company.
The Seinfeld show was a flop until season 4 when everyone kind of woke up to it. In my experience, this is exactly how it works with individuals as well. They see a few episodes and can’t see what the fuss is about but if they stick with it, they end up loving it. I think you need to get to know the characters and there’s a lot of backwards references to previous episodes that will go over your head if you haven’t seen it from the start. To be honest, the first two seasons were very slow but from The Pen onwards, it just got better and better. I think Jerry Seinfeld as a person is so loved because he’s so easy going and has a child like quality about him. He doesn’t seem to take anything too seriously and just comes across as a warm person.
Seinfeld may not make you laugh, but that’s a very different proposition from then concluding that because he doesn’t make you laugh he isn’t funny. Tens of thousands of Americans enjoyed Jerry’s stand up routine for years, and millions more loved his tv show, because he made them observe and laugh. You don’t say that Seinfeld’s writing was objectionable or the comic premise untenable or the acting unbearable. And the way you harp on how much Seinfeld earned from his tv show (and from the Microsoft commercial) would seem to indicate a chip on your shoulder so large that Seinfeld could never dislodge it without a chainsaw and a pickaxe. Comedy is not objective. There is no comedy math class where two plus two equals four, and that’s because four is not a funny result. Different comedians will come up with wildly different answers for the question “What is the sum of two plus two.” You can either appreciate how they come to their answer and laugh, or not. If you sit down at a live show o
