(S07E10) "It's the Seinfeld reunion! That's a big deal!" - Cheryl
Yes, it is a big deal. A little over eleven years after we saw Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and George behind bars, the reunion we've all been waiting for has finally arrived. I'm not sure if this even counts as a category to classify TV shows, but last night's Curb Your Enthusiasm season finale was easily the best "show within a show" episode I've ever seen... of any show.
Jane was kind enough to step in for me and write up last week's penultimate ep and I actually waited until last night to see that one as well -- I watched them back to back. I was struck by how well it all flowed together; how much it actually felt like we were watching a real episode of Seinfeld, even during the table read. However, seeing it play out, scene by scene, in the finale? Talk about nostalgia.
Hey there gentle TV Squad reader! Have you got nothing but time on your hands right now? Do you need a healthy activity to occupy your time? Have you completely lost the will to go on living? Then put down that suicide cocktail and pick a pen or pencil for this "Kramer Counting" challenge!
Someone at Funnyordie.com has compiled all of Cosmo Kramer's entrances from all 174 episodes of Seinfeld into one viral video. I've tried counting them and got three different totals on three different tries. See if you can count the number of entrances. As an added challenge, the only rule I made for myself is that they must include the actual Kramer played by Michael Richards coming through the door, not the guy playing Kramer on Jerry's show-within-a-show, Jerry. I also counted scenes where someone is opening the door for Kramer but not the final scene were Kramer is running out the door.
I gave up during the fourth try since my eyes completely melted out of their sockets, a sign that I should really stop doing something. The same thing happened when I tried to do a review of Michael Strahan's Brothers.
(S07E09) "You don't loan Jason anything ... anything that can be inserted." - Jerry Seinfeld to Larry David, about the pen Larry loaned to Jason Alexander
It's me, the Fill-In Girl! And thank you so much, Jonathan, for leaving me with the mammoth responsibility of writing a thoughtful review about the Seinfeld reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm. I'll do my best.
First of all, it was really great to see the gang back together again. It's like they've never been apart, and the whole scenario of a behind-the-scenes look at a table read of a Seinfeld reunion show put together by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld was pretty brilliant.
And yet, it fit right in with Curb, bringing in elements like Cheryl being Larry's real wife and are they together or not, and is she a real actress or not...
(S07E03) "This is your plan to get your ex-wife back. Pretty f*cking brilliant if you ask me." - Jeff
Larry David a selfish man? Nooooo. How could someone who's never given, nor has any idea how to give, someone the benefit of the doubt be a selfish guy? Wait - don't answer that. Instead ponder this: the moment we've all been waiting for - the Seinfeld reunion - has finally arrived, and we almost didn't get it because for a brief minute, it hinged on what Larry found more enjoyable, a potential funeral or a potential marriage. Selfish? How about sick.
The beauty of Curb Your Enthusiasm has always been its roots. Born from the mind of a man who launched a show about nothing, Curb is little more than an edgier version that's still... about nothing. It only makes sense that one day we would witness the colliding vortex created by those two masses of nothingness and that day has finally arrived. Well, almost. Season seven of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm premieres on HBO this Sunday night, September 20, at 9 p.m. ET and having seen the first three episodes, I'll say this about the long-awaited Seinfeld reunion - it's real and it's spectacular.
If you're a Seinfeld fan, that is. If you're not a Seinfeld fan, please scroll up or down.
This week's Entertainment Weekly features a new photo of the cast for their Curb Your Enthusiasm guest appearances with Larry David. The cast will be in several episodes this season, playing themselves. The plot will have David getting them together for the Seinfeld reunion that fans want to see and we'll get a behind-the-scenes look at the fictional reunion and the fictional making of that reunion, which itself will be a real reunion.
Joel reported from the Television Critics Association tour yesterday about the Seinfeld reunion that will take place on Curb Your Enthusiasm this season. Now HBO has released the first photo.
If the meta-ness of my headline confuses you, I apologize. It's the best way I could phrase it, because it's kind of mind-blowing in concept.
At today's HBO session at the TCAs, Larry David came on stage to talk about the upcoming season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. In it, as we all know, he'll be reuniting the Seinfeld cast on the show. And what will they be doing? They'll be working on... a Seinfeld reunion episode.
"The context is that for years I've been asked about a Seinfeld reunion," said David, "and i'd say no it's a lame idea. And then i thought it might be very funny to do that on Curb, and I kept thinking about it and different scenarios of how to pull it off."
When he talked to Jerry Seinfeld and the cast about it, they were all game. "So doiung a Seinfeld reunion show on Curb we'll see writing read through rehersals show being filmed. You won't see the entire show, you'll see parts of the show get an idea of what happened eleven years later."
It's been a good long while since Michael Richards has been on television. If you don't know the reason why, then you either don't watch TV or you've been frozen since 1952 and had your body reanimated to combat the deadly disease for which you've found a secret cure.
If it's the second option, then stop being so selfish and share your cure with the world. Stop being so cold, no pun intended.
2009 could mark the beginning of Richards' comeback, as he and the rest of his Seinfeld pals will make an appearance during the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
What's a better place for a Seinfeld reunion than on the other television show of its co-creator? EW reports that the cast members of the Seinfeld NBC television series will be reuniting for a multi-episode arc on Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO.
Granted, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has a career at the moment with The New Adventures of Old Christine, but the others haven't really had a hit in a while. Jerry had his short-lived Microsoft commercials, Michael Richards had his on-stage racist blow-up and Jason Alexander is...somewhere, I'm sure.
Three of the cast members (Seinfeld, Dreyfus and Alexander) have appeared on Curb before, but never together. I still catch Seinfeld on re-runs time to time and at its best it still makes me laugh out loud.
I credit the excellent writing (and success) of Seinfeld more to Larry David than Jerry itself. It's nice to see the cast come back to where I consider its excellence came from.
I think we can all agree that the infamous Andy Kaufman/Jerry Lawler incident on the old Late Night with David Letterman show (where Kaufman and Lawler got into an argument and then a punch was thrown) was staged. But when it comes to another infamous incident from the show, where Crispin Glover demonstrated his kicking technique next to Letterman's head? I think that was weird and real.
The Glover interview is on Cracked's Letterman's most hilariously awkward moments list. Most of them are actually from his current CBS show. Only two of them (Glover and cartoonist Harvey Pekar) are from the old NBC show. Other awkward interviews listed (with videos) include Madonna, John McCain, and Michael Richards (with special awkward cohort, Jerry Seinfeld!).
A lot of you probably read that headline and got confused, because the first season DVD set for Seinfeld has already been released - twice, once as a separate set and once as part of the mega, collectible complete series set. But it's true, another version of the first season is coming out on September 16.
Actually, this will be the first time that the first season is released on its own. The first set released was a combination of season one and season two, because season one was only five episodes long. Now Sony wants to release the first set on its own at a cheap price (around $15.00) so TV fans who are thinking about getting the later full season sets can sample the DVDs. You get all the extras from the season one set (gag real, deleted scenes, commentary, etc) and a $5.00 rebate for one of the larger sets.
Eh, I'm just going to buy the complete series set.
(S03E18) " I got shoulder-humped by a doberman...to completion." - Tiffany Henson
I was wondering when the hospital would get around to giving Earl the boot. It only makes sense that Camden County's health care facilities are run just like everything else in the area. I love the idea of Camden Cash. I think I'll pitch the idea to some of our overcrowded hospitals here in Los Angeles.
Remember a few weeks ago, when I said how much I envied Jason Lee? Well, after seeing him wedged in that shopping cart and bounced around in that wheelchair, I am forced to rescind that statement. It's good to see Mr. Lee is still willing to work for a living.
Ask Men has a list of 5 Things You Didn't Know about Seinfeld. I don't consider myself the biggest Seinfeld fan on the planet, but I do think I've seen every episode, and I didn't know any of this stuff. Maybe you die-hard fans will scoff at the list and proclaim your knowledge of all those little known facts and more.
For instance, did you realize that we never got to meet any of Jerry, George, or Elaine's siblings? We got to meet their parents, but each of them referenced siblings during several episodes and we never, ever saw or met them. That's actually a cool little insight to their characters--that they really don't want to see their siblings. In case you were wondering, Elaine has a sister (her nephew was the one who was obsessed with the nipple slip Christmas card), Jerry has a sister, and George has a brother.
A lot of words and phrases from Seinfeld have made it into our everyday language. Yada yada yada, not that there's anything wrong with it, close talker, hipster doofus, to name just a few.
TBS has a contest at their site. They've created a poster that includes 38 references to the show. Can you find them all? The answers are available at a link just below the poster. Some of them are hard to figure out, but you can enlarge the poster.