seinfeld - Seinfeld is an American television situation comedy set in New York City that ran from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998 running a total of nine seasons. The sitcom was one of the most popular TV programs of the 1990s, and many of its catchphrases have entered into the pop culture lexicon. The show was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. The latter stars as the eponymous character based largely on himself. (See Jerry Seinfeld (character).) Set predominantly in an apartment block on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the show features a host of Jerry's friends and acquaintances, including George Louis Costanza (Jason Alexander), Elaine Marie Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards). Seinfeld was produced by Castle Rock Entertainment then helmed by director-actor-producer Rob Reiner, and distributed by Columbia Pictures Television and Columbia TriStar Television (now Sony Pictures Television). Seinfeld was written largely by Larry David (co-written with Jerry Seinfeld early in its run), with later input from numerous script writers, including Larry Charles, Gregg Kavet, Andy Robin, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer, Steve Koren, Jennifer Crittenden, Tom Gamill & Max Pross, Alec Berg and Spike Feresten, most of whom had been nominated for best writing awards such as the Emmys. While most television sit-coms to date had been mostly family or co-worker driven, none of the Seinfeld characters are related by blood or employed by the same organization; in fact, many characters were not employed at all. Like the self-parodying 'show within a show' episodes of year four, Seinfeld was perhaps, more than other sit-coms, a 'show about nothing.' This is because the episodes' plots concerned themselves not with huge events or comical situations, but instead focused on the minituae annoyances and petty discussions of real life, such as waiting in line at the movies, going to eat, buying a suit and so on. Tom's Restaurant, a diner at 112th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, referred to as Monk's Cafe in the show. Enlarge Tom's Restaurant, a diner at 112th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, referred to as Monk's Cafe in the show. In the original concept, the show featured clips of Seinfeld himself delivering a standup routine in a club (in reality, the studio), the theme of which relates to the events depicted in the plot, at the beginning and end of each episode. This device deliberately blurred the distinction between the actor Jerry Seinfeld and the character whom he portrays. In later seasons, these standup clips became less frequent and were ultimately discontinued. The show's main characters were modeled after Seinfeld's or Larry David's real-life acquaintances. Many of the plot device too are based on real-life counterparts - such as the Soup Nazi (based on Al Yeganeh), J. Peterman of the J. Peterman catalogue, and New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. In virtually every Seinfeld episode, several story threads are presented at the beginning, involving the characters in separate and unrelated situations. Rapid scene shifts between story lines moves the action forward as rapidly as possible. Despite the separate plot strands, the narratives show 'consistent efforts to maintain [the] intimacy' between the small cast of characters. (Gantz 2000) The show kept a strong sense of continuity - characters and plots from past episodes were frequently referenced or expanded upon. Occasionally, storylines would span multiple episodes and even entire seasons. Larry David, the show's head writer and executive producer for the first seven seasons, was notorious for keeping a close eye on minor details and making sure the main characters' lives remained consistent and believable, and would later make use of season-long story arcs in his next series, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Seinfeld violated several of the conventions of mainstream television. The show, which correctly or not is often described as 'about nothing'[1], became the first television series widely described as postmodern,[2]. Several elements of Seinfeld fit in with a postmodern interpretation. The characters were: 'thirty-something singles ... with no roots, vague identities, and conscious indifference to morals.' [citation needed]. And the usual convention of isolating the characters from the actors playing them, and separating the characters' world from that of the actors and audience was broken. For example the story arc in which the characters' are promoting a television sitcom series named Jerry. Jerry was much like Seinfeld in that Seinfeld played himself, and that the show was 'about nothing.' Jerry was launched in the 1993 season four finale, in an episode titled 'The Pilot.' On the set this was expressed as the 'no hugging, no learning' rule, which held that the characters should not develop or improve throughout the series. In the final episode Jerry and George are only inches away from hugging when they are told that their show was to be aired once again on NBC but they end up not making any contact. Gantz maintains that another factor in, or further proof of, spectators' and characters' participation in a larger Seinfeld community is the large amount of in-slang, 'a lexicon of Seinfeldian code words and recurring phrases that go unnoticed by the infrequent or 'unknowing' viewer'. Only the cognoscenti would understand the concepts of 'double dipping' or 'close-talking', or appreciate the addition of 'not that there's anything wrong with that' by someone trying to take the edge off a politically incorrect remark. The idea that Seinfeld is postmodern has been disputed by postmodern intellectuals including Jacques Derrida.