Seinfeld (season 1)

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Seinfeld Season 1
The front cover of the Seinfeld: Season 1 & 2 DVD boxset, the first two seasons were sold together as one boxset.
Series	Seinfeld
Country of origin	United States
Network	NBC
Original run	July 5, 1989 – June 21, 1990
No. of episodes	5
DVD release date	Region 1: November 23, 2004 Region 2: November 1, 2004 Region 4: October 18, 2004
Next season	Season 2

Season one of Seinfeld, an American television series created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, originally aired its pilot episode on July 5, 1989 as The Seinfeld Chronicles on NBC, a U.S. broadcast television network.^[1] The series' title was shortened to Seinfeld to avoid confusion with another sitcom called The Marshall Chronicles.^[2] The pilot met with poor reviews, as a result, NBC passed on the show.^[3] NBC executive Rick Ludwin believed the series had potential, and gave Seinfeld a budget to create four episodes, which began airing on May 31, 1990.^[3][4] This is considered the smallest sitcom order in television history.^[5] The season finale was aired on June 21, 1990.^[4] Seinfeld later went on to become one of the most successful sitcoms, with a poll by TV Guide in 2002, named Seinfeld as the greatest American television program of all time.^[6]

Season 1 & 2 DVD box set was released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in the United States and Canada on November 23, 2004 thirteen years after it had completed broadcast on television.^[7] As well as every episode from the two seasons, the DVD release features bonus material including deleted scenes, Animatics, exclusive stand-up material, and commentaries.^[8]

Contents 1 Production 1.1 Casting and changes 1.2 Crew 2 Reception 3 Episodes 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Production

The series is set in an apartment block on New York City's Upper West Side; however, the first season is mostly filmed at Ren-Mar Studios in Hollywood.^[9] The show features Jerry Seinfeld as himself, Jason Alexander as George Costanza, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Benes, and Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer.^[10] Lee Garlington appears as Claire, the waitress, in the pilot. Claire was billed as one of the stars of the show; however, when the series was picked up it was decided that there was no need for a regular female waitress, so Garlington's role was dropped.^[1] In "The Robbery", Kramer makes his first sliding entrance when he came in sliding through the door. According to Richards, he was late on his cue so he came in very fast. When the studio audience and the crew laughed, he decided to develop the entrances into what eventually became his trademark.^[11]

[edit] Casting and changes

In the pilot, Jerry refers to Kramer as Kessler; however, his name was changed to Kramer in rest of the series.^[1] Kramer was named after a real person, he was called "Kessler" in the pilot episode because of worries about the rights to use the name.^[2] This name inconsistency is somewhat explained in season nine's "The Betrayal" when Kramer says that "Kessler" is simply the name on the buzzer for his apartment.^[1] "Eileen" was the original name for the Elaine character; however, it was changed just a few days before production.^[12] In the original script, Jerry's mother addresses her husband as Leon. This was changed to "Morty" at some point during the production week. Phil Bruns appears as Jerry's Father. He was replaced by Barney Martin for the character's next appearance in Season Two.^[13]

[edit] Crew

Seinfeld was produced by Castle Rock Entertainment and distributed by Columbia Pictures Television and Columbia TriStar Television (now Sony Pictures Television) and was aired of NBC in the US. The executive producers were Larry David, George Shapiro, and Howard West with Tom Garnmill and Max Pross as supervising producers. Jerry Seinfeld, Peter Mehlmanard, Majorie Gross and Suzy Greenburg were the producers, and Carol Leifer was the co-producer. Larry David was th main show runner for this season. Bruce Kirschbaum was the executive consultant.^[14] The season was largely written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the other writer was Matt Goldman who wrote one episode.^[11] The pilot was directed by Art Wolff; however, when the series was picked up Tom Cherones became the director for rest of the season.

[edit] Reception

The pilot met with poor reviews, as a result, NBC passed on the show; however, NBC executive Rick Ludwin believed the series had potential. He therefore gave Seinfeld a budget to create four more episodes, which began airing on May 31, 1990.^[3] When the pilot was first repeated on July 5, 1990, it received a rating of 13.9/26, which means 13.9 percent of households were tuned in at any given moment; additionally, 26 percent of all televisions in use at the time were tuned into this program.^[2] These ratings were high enough to secure a second season.^[2] Soon after the "Stock Tip" aired, NBC executives ordered 13 additional Seinfeld episodes to air as midseason replacements during the 1990–91 season.^[9] "The Stake Out" was nominated for a Writer's Guild Award, the first of many nominations for the series.^[13] Brandon Tartikoff, the program executive for comedy programming, kept a scene from "The Stake Out" cued up on his office VCR to show guests how funny Seinfeld was; despite this, NBC held off broadcasting the last four episodes until summer.^[13]

[edit] Episodes

Title	Director	Writer(s)	Original airdate[4]	Production code[15]	Season#	Series#
"The Seinfeld Chronicles"	Art Wolff	Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld	July 5, 1989	101	1	1
Jerry tells George about a woman named Laura he met in Michigan and is coming to New York. Jerry wonders if she has romantic intentions. The two continue to talk about her after they leave the luncheonette. Jerry then receives a telephone call from Laura, who asks if she can stay overnight at his apartment. Jerry invites her, but is still unsure whether or not her visit is intended to be romantic. Jerry and Laura arrive at the apartment. Laura then receives a call and when Laura gets off the phone she tells Jerry: "Never get engaged." Jerry then realizes that he has no chance with Laura, but has already committed himself to an entire weekend with her.
"The Stake Out"	Tom Cherones	Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld	May 31, 1990	103	2	2
During a party, Jerry meets a woman whom he flirts with, but fails to learn anything about her except her place of work. Jerry is reluctant to find out her phone from Elaine because he does not talk about other women to her. Jerry's father, Morty Seinfeld, suggests that he should wait outside the building for the woman and pretend to meet her accidentally. Jerry goes along with the idea. He manages to meet the woman, whose name is Vanessa. The two then decide to go out on a date.
"The Robbery"	Tom Cherones	Matt Goldman	June 7, 1990	104	3	3
Jerry is robbed after Kramer leaves Jerry's door open, so Jerry decides to find a new apartment. As a real estate broker, George finds a potential new apartment for Jerry, but then wants it for himself. The group argues about who should receive the apartment, with Elaine getting either George or Jerry's apartment depending on who moves. Not wanting to hurt their friendship Jerry and George decide not to move and give the apartment to someone else. After seeing how much the new owners enjoy the apartment, they regret their decision.
"Male Unbonding"	Tom Cherones	Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld	June 14, 1990	102	4	4
Jerry tries to avoid meeting an old childhood friend, Joel Horneck, who persists in keeping in touch with him. Jerry claims that the reason he has not broken up the relationship is because Joel is a man, so George suggests that Jerry should pretend that Joel is a woman and break up normally. Jerry therefore attempts to break up with Joel, but Joel breaks into tears; as a result, Jerry changes his mind and agrees to take him to see the New York Knicks. Meanwhile, Kramer, working under the name Kramerica Industries, is working on the idea of building a pizza place where you make your own pizza pie.
"The Stock Tip"	Tom Cherones	Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld	June 21, 1990	105	5	5
George gets a stock tip and after going in for $5,000, he passes the tip on to Jerry who invests $2,500. Jerry goes on an official first date with Vanessa ; a weekend away at a place Elaine recommends. However, as George predicted, the date ends up being a disaster. Meanwhile, both George and Jerry are shocked to discover that source of the stock tip had been admitted into the hospital, and while they are unsure of when to sell, the stock's value plummets. Jerry finally sells it, but its value subsequently begins to rise, and George ends up making an $8,000 profit.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Seinfeld.com, the Official Site from Sony Pictures Television
• Wikia has a wiki on this subject: Seinfeld
• Seinfeld at the Internet Movie Database

v • d • e Seinfeld Cast Jerry Seinfeld · Jason Alexander · Julia Louis-Dreyfus · Michael Richards Crew Larry David · George Shapiro · Tom Cherones · Andy Ackerman Characters Jerry Seinfeld · George Costanza · Elaine Benes · Cosmo Kramer · Recurring minor characters Seasons List of episodes · 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 Related articles List of DVD releases · Festivus · List of fictional films · Kenny Kramer · Monk's Cafe · Regift · Seinfeld awards and nominations