Wednesday, May 07, 2008

First rule of comedy

Most of the hour-long programmes on TV should really be half an hour. I watch things which are half an hour long, such as Seinfeld, knowing they'll only be twenty-two minutes. I just watched one. This exchange between Jerry and George at a New York marathon party makes me laugh out loud every time. Sure enough, somebody's posted it on YouTube. Watch the hand that holds the cracker.

4 comments:

  1. I only started watching Seinfeld about a year ago, which has some of the snappiest scripting in comedy.

    I've just started Season 5, (there's an excellent half hour piece on Jerry Alexander on disc 1)during George's impotance scene there's another incredibly expressive example of 'hand' acting

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  2. There are so many highlights it's hard to pick a winner....that one is certainly a contender.

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  3. Anonymous5:33 pm

    I'd have to go with his monologue at the end of The Marine Biologist as my favourite George moment. Proabably the best sitcom of all time. It's astonishing how many people in England never watched it yet loved Friends, a pale imitation.

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  4. Seinfeld is absolutely the gold standard of comedy. Full stop. I love the scene where George and Jerry pitch to NBC and George tries to spell the woman's name as an icebreaker. You can imagine what happens, but there are so many gold clips.

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