A Show About Nothing! Jerry (1989-1996)
From The TV Obsessive, by Hanmii Dahri-Mote, a regular column in TV Guide and other publications
Chances are that if you talk to someone in their 40s today about television you will hear them talk about
Jerry, the 6-season show that failed, moved to cable, and returned to network TV where it became a minor hit whose influence far outlasted its success.
Not quite this…
Jerry was the brain child of its two stars, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David (the now legendary producers “Jerry & Larry”). The concept was simple and today seems cliché, but it was revolutionary when it came out: a mix of stand-up bits interspersed with Jerry and his shallow, self-absorbed friends complaining about the most trivial things in life. It was naturalistic, postmodern, and ingenious, and in another world probably became one of the greatest shows in television history.
Jerry Seinfeld played the titular Jerry, a phlegmatic flawed everyman whose fixation on the shallowest of personal shortcomings in his partners dooms all of his romantic relationships. Larry David played his neighbor Kramer, an unpleasant natural-born schemer always coming up with the most outlandish of get-rich-quick schemes and allegedly based upon a mutual friend of theirs. Rumor has it that they wanted comedic actor Michael Richards to play the role, but he was already ensconced in a career in Hollywood. Julia Louis-Dreyfus played Elaine, a conniving and manipulative ex-girlfriend of Jerry’s whose chain of eccentric boyfriends and bosses provided regular comedic input. And Jason Alexander played George, a lazy underachiever and worrywart always devising ever more complicated ways to avoid making any actual effort, and that inevitably ended up taking more time and effort than the original task he hoped to avoid. Several other guest stars came in as friends, family, coworkers, or passing antagonists with names like “The Soup Nazi”, “Man Hands”, “The Soft Talker”, “The Face Painter”, or any other number of dehumanizing titles.
It was, in the words of its modest but rabid fanbase, a show about nothing. A given episode may be about a disagreement between characters over what actor was in that TV show, or whether a jacket was worth the price, or whether or not to dump a significant other because of one minor little trait like the look of their hands or the fact that they paint their face for sports games. The daily low stakes challenges of its characters were then exaggerated by their overreactive neuroses into insurmountable crises. The title of the old Shakespearian play of “Much Ado About Nothing” comes instantly to mind. The sheer audacity of the character’s overreactions to such mundane issues added to the perceived realism of the show. Very few people have to deal with the common sitcom tropes of dating two people on the same night, having a wacky cousin from Albuquerque come to visit, or living with an alien, but who hasn’t been in a relationship with someone who has that one annoying habit or tick? Who hasn’t argued with a friend about a movie or got in a fight with a stranger at the laundromat over a dryer? It was infinitely relatable and thus seemed inherently real. It won several Emmys and influenced a generation of comedy producers, but it nearly didn’t come to pass.
The idea was born from ideas kicked around between Jerry and Larry based on their personal experiences living in New York City. They put together a basic pitch and got attention from NBC executive Rick Ludwin, the As You Wish production company, and MGM producers Bernie Brillstein and Diana Birkenfield, whose parent company Disney also owned a minority stake in As You Wish. Jerry & Larry put together a pilot, showed it to test audiences, and…it tanked. Hard[1]. They did some retooling and eventually got the pilot on NBC in the summer of 1989 where it performed well enough to get greenlit for a half season. But the ratings refused to materialize and the show soon got cancelled.
However, the show had one thing going for it: it played well in the lucrative young adult demographic. NBC’s loss was, to Brillstein and Birkenfield, Hyperion’s gain and the show was moved to the Hyperion Channel on Basic Cable, where it grabbed and maintained a good and lucrative younger viewing audience, who loved its cynical, sometimes surreal, and borderline misanthropic humor. After finishing Season 1 and working through Season 2 with steady if not revolutionary numbers, NBC called back and agreed to put
Jerry back into their primetime lineup. It managed to pull in steady and growing numbers, but never broke out into the Top Five, even while it continued to be an awards-darling[2].
By the time Season 5 rolled around, star Jason Alexander was receiving more and more character roles in Hollywood, Julia Louis-Dreyfus was getting offers from other TV producers, and Jerry and Larry were starting to see the writing on the wall. They agreed to a Season 6, this time without “George” and with Wayne Knight’s melodramatic Newman filling in the gap, but even MGM and As You Wish knew that time had run out. The show ended with a modest finale in the fall of 1995, but its influence lived on.
Jerry is cited by dozens of other writers, producers, and comedians as an inspiration. The concept of the long-running show
Friends Like Us, for example, showed a direct influence from
Jerry: it was six neurotic young people living in New York City and experiencing the trials of daily life, with many
Jerry fans referring to it (generally sympathetically) as “
Jerry Lite” or (more dismissively) as “
Jerry for Dummies”.
Jerry and Larry would go on to found J&L Productions, working closely with As You Wish, Witt/Thomas/Harris, BrooksTV, MGM-Hyperion, and other producers, and are behind some of TV’s most famous and beloved shows of the ‘90s, ‘00s, and present day.
Jerry’s supporting actors have gone on to good post-Jerry careers and the show has gained a new following in recent years through direct viewing, where its genius has been belatedly recognized, even as some ironically call it cliched since so many of the tropes and premises it created have gone on to become industry standards.
Not bad for a show about nothing.
[1] True in our timeline too!
[2] Like our timeline’s
30 Rock,
Jerry will be one of those highly influential, award-winning comedies with a modest but fanatical following that inspires a hundred shows to follow, rather than a legendary “Greatest Show of All Time” breakout hit. This is largely because of the lack of Michael Richards’ Kramer, whose physicality and over-the-top humor made the show more immediately appreciable to larger audiences while this one, with Kramer being a more comedically dislikable character, will be “ahead of its time” and have a more niche audience.
