rry Seinfeld and Larry David created the show that features his name, and in essence he plays himself, a comedian living in New York. Seinfeld is on the NBC network, presently on Thursday nights at 9:00 pm, though it has had other time slots in its time on the air. The comedian-as-hero is also not a new approach to television comedy, having been seen before with Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, and Danny Thomas, among others. Seinfeld's approach is seen as different because his style alone is the center of the show. The show itself is deliberately not about something specific each week and instead is structured to have the freedom to be about nothing at all. It is thus not a situation comedy in the accepted sense of that term--it depends on the interaction of characters much more than on any given situation. Seinfeld is a show that features the people rather than the events in each episode; it attempts to play off the difficulties of living in New York, the problems facing people of a certain age with friendships and relationships as well as professional problems, and so on. One writer offers his idea of why the show has been successful:
To an audience CNNed around the clock and weary of negotiating the minefields of political correctness, Seinfeld's gently subversive humor is liberating. And Seinfeld, the hip hit NBC sitcom that prides itself on being about "nothing" the importance of a decent haircut, a good parking space, a great massage from your girlfriend provides the delicious escape that comes from magnifying nothing into everything. Episodes about such once touchy subjects as masturbation, constipation and circumcision have filled the morning after conversational void left by standard sitcom fare. Another big draw is Seinfeld himself, who, claim his friends, really is the affable, irritable, cereal loving neatnik you see on TV ("Jerry Seinfeld," 1994, 85).
What Seinfeld has done is turn his standup ...