Nothing matters much

The six-month hoopla preceding the very dull final episode of "Seinfeld" focused attention on its being "a show about nothing."

As if that had not been true of scores of previous sitcoms.

On the other hand, "Seinfeld" was probably the first amoral TV show. Plenty of programs, like "Touched by an Angel," deal with moral issues. Lots of series ("Friends," for example) are immoral in their content. But the gang on "Seinfeld" went through life blissfully unaware that morality was even a word, much less something they should be concerned about.

Final bomb

So much publicity, so many magazine covers and so many TV interviews with the actors led up to the final 75-minute show that not many people admitted the truth: The finale was a major let-down. A stinker. A failure that didn't live up to its billing.

For one thing, the last episode had fewer laughs than the average funeral. The performers seemed to be in a fog. The pace was leaden. And the idea -- the foursome on trial for being "guilty bystanders" -- was misbegotten. After all, many of their accusers were just as guilty: the soup Nazi for being rude to customers, the bubble boy for being a pain to his caregivers, even the marble rye lady for stubbornly hanging on to a loaf of bread that someone was in need of.

The series did have some classic moments in its decade on the air: the candy in the surgery patient, the Zapruder film of the spitting incident, the time Kramer found Merv Griffin's TV furniture and turned his apartment into a talk show. It also reached nadirs in taste with episodes on urination and masturbation.

Nothing matters

In the amoral universe of "Seinfeld," nothing had value over anything else. Making fun of someone's nose was equivalent to mocking the Holocaust; having someone deported was no worse than eating someone's souvenir wedding cake.

That sort of attitude helped the series earn its famous appellation as "the show about nothing." That was nothing new, however. Most TV series before 1970 were resolutely about nothing. Even classic series like "I Love Lucy," "The Honeymooners" and "Ozzie and Harriet" were basically about nothing. They didn't touch social issues; in fact, they existed in a parallel universe where there were no such things as racism, poverty and substance abuse.

It wasn't until shows like "All in the Family" (debuted in 1971) and "M*A*S*H" (first aired in 1972) that comedies began to be about something: prejudice, male-female relationships, war and peace, and intergenerational conflict.

Hey, Abbott!

Jerry Seinfeld has named Abbott and Costello as two of his favorite comedians of all time. Certainly, their comedy routines of the '40s and TV series of the '50s were about nothing. They were simply funny exchanges of dialogue and slapstick, the elements that went into the best moments on "Seinfeld."

Those best moments were absent without leave on the final episode. No one expected to wave goodbye to "Seinfeld" with tears in their eyes. But no one expected a poke, either.

(06-04-98) [[In-content Ad]]