MacGYVER YOUR ENTHUSIASM (23)

By: Peggy Nelson
March 18, 2025

One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating favorite TV shows from the Eighties (1984–1993). Series edited by Josh Glenn.

SEINFELD | 1989–98

The unique thing about Seinfeld wasn’t that it was a sitcom — it had all the usual suspects: couch, characters, hangers-on. It wasn’t that it was a “show about nothing” — after all, what was The Honeymooners “about”? I Love Lucy? Married with Children? It wasn’t even that it was about New York. At least, not the scale, the majesty, the modernism of New York. The unique thing about Seinfeld was the anachronistic yet essential littleness of New York — but since this was the Big Apple, it was littleness writ large.

Seinfeld starred a professional New York comedian, as a professional New York comedian, somehow playing straight man to his motley crew: directionless high school buddy, oddball neighbor, neurotic ex-girlfriend, and an ensemble cast of regulars, dates, and parents. Often Seinfeld the actor visibly struggled not to laugh while the shenanigans swirled around him. Yet the shenanigans were always little annoyances: frozen yogurt, tipping, renting a car. What was big was the endless overexamination of same; the big energy and aggression of the city constantly channeled into little side tangents: that is Seinfeld’s New York.

Episode in point: “The Parking Space”, in which Jerry has invited everyone over to watch a boxing match on TV. Outside, a different fight is brewing — George has pulled ahead to parallel park, and just as he starts to back in, another of Jerry’s friends tries to dart in nose first. Now neither of them can get in the spot, and they both immediately jump out of their cars and start arguing the right and wrong of parking etiquette. Jerry yells out his window to come up already, they’ll miss the fight. Back on the street, passers-by have gotten involved, taking sides and loudly arguing the merits of either back-in or nose-first, and as people exit shops, and more sidewalk combatants amass, the police show up. Which means… that the two cops immediately take two different sides, and plunge into the fray themselves.

I moved to New York just as Seinfeld was getting started. One evening I was on the express bus back to Queens, heading over the 59th Street Bridge. As soon as we got going, a rear window (which had been opened, or come unfastened) started to slam against the frame. Bam! Bam Bam. Immediately an argument began: “Pull the window closed!” “No, the sign says ‘Do Not Touch the Window’!” Bam! Bam. Bam! The whole bus got involved. Pull it shut! Leave it alone! Yes! No! Louder and louder… we raced over the bridge in full uproar: Bam! Bam! Finally the driver, who hadn’t said a word the whole time, pulled over, stomped out, and slammed the window shut. Which only shifted alliances: “HEY! This isn’t a stop!! You can’t stop here!”, against some holdouts for “It SAYS ‘Don’t Touch the Window’!” Seinfeld captured these absurd, pervasive little moments of New York City living, examined them, embodied them, and held them up so the whole TV world could see: they were magnificent.

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MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

MacGYVER YOUR ENTHUSIASM (23)

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