I want to preface this by saying that to cram the best three seasons of the greatest TV show of all time into one digestible post would be a true disservice to the show.  So much could be written about these seasons (and even each episode) that I really don’t know where to truly begin or end. So, I’ve decided to break this second era (“The Golden Age”) into two segments. We’ll do a little background, reminiscing, and one full episode breakdown below, followed by a separate post in the coming days specifically focused on what is possibly one of the finest episodes in TV history.

Regarding the Seinfeld series overall, I was originally going to write three separate Seinfeld posts (one on each three-season era).  However, since we’re now on pace to have a total of at least four, I have a feeling that posts about the show will continue to surface indefinitely on NMNY. And while I know that even two posts on these middle three seasons doesn’t provide the era the justice it deserves, we must push forward and honor Jerry the Great, lest we succumb to the fate of the Today Sponge.

I have to believe that few would argue Seasons 4 through 6 of Seinfeld (airing from 1992-1995, which feels surprisingly early) weren’t the show’s Golden Age.  And yes, even a show as fantastic as Seinfeld, where every season and every episode has its highlights, has its relative downfall, where they too, jump the shark.  Now, whether that occurred with Susan’s death, when Larry left the show, or during the finale itself is a whole separate conversation for The Cartoon Years.  But we can go back to that later on.

So what makes Seasons 4-6 the Golden Age?  First off, during the first three seasons of the show, Seinfeld never once cracked the Top 30 in the Nielsen ratings.  Then, in 1992 they slipped in at 25 for Season 4, and then climbed to 3 and 1 respectively the following years. In fact, Season 4 ended up being rated the number one television season of all time by TV Guide.*

At this point, Seinfeld had started to become the talk at the water-cooler (a concept on its own which would be completely foreign to Jerry), and the show took on that “Breaking Thrones” effect, where the question changed from “Do you watch?” to utter disbelief if someone didn’t. The show was presenting absurd premises (The Bubble Boy, Junior Mint, Puffy Shirt, and Marine Biologist come to mind)  in a realistic way, with characters who had now matured – not as people, of course – but into their solidified on-screen personas. They had hit the peak; it was real, and it was spectacular.

Season 4’s specific success parallels the 7th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, with the show-within-a-show story arc guiding many of the episodes (“Jerry” in Season 4, and “The Seinfeld Reunion” in Curb). I’m thankful my Seinfeld obsession was shared by many others by the time the Feld reunion aired, as many of us crowded around within The Nursery to watch the projector for the semi-nostalgic bliss that was that season’s finale.

*As apt as I am at creeping around Google, I really can’t seem to verify this outside of a Seinfeld-specific wiki site, but it’s all someone’s opinion anyway, so I’m OK with it.

“The Nursery” (61 West Kendrick), home to the Seinfeld Reunion viewing party.

Season 4 alone brought us Kramer in LA (“The Trip”, parts one and two), “The Bubble Boy”, “The Virgin”, “The Pick”, “The Outing”, “The Implant”, “The Junior Mint”, everything centering around the “Jerry” pilot, and yes, “The Contest”.

Getting to rewatch Jeremy Piven play “George” after enjoying years of Entourage, and to enter college armed and ready with trivia that Bob Balaban (a.k.a. Russell Dalrymple) was in fact a Phi Tau (the original) at Colgate allowed the show to transcend time, seamlessly blending my youth with the years ahead.

And if I may, here’s one more fun fact about the “Jerry” pilot:

Larry Hankin, who plays Tom Pepper, who steals the raisins and plays Kramer in the fake pilot – can be seen in both Billy Madison (as Eric Gordon’s sidekick), as well as Home Alone (as Officer Balzak, dunking that donut – “Has the child been involved in violence with a drunk family member?”).

And yes, Hankin was also one of the many Seinfeld-Breaking Bad connections as well.

Now, before progressing into what I feel is the obvious (and deserving) choice for the best episode of the era, I’d like to discuss the finale of the 5th season. I can’t honestly say if I think this is one of my top five episodes of all time; but, I really can’t rank 90% of the episodes anyway, so I’m going to discuss it here.

Season 5, Episode 22 (Finale): The Opposite

What begins as the ever-familiar uneven conversation of George examining his failed adulthood, quickly morphs into an all-out reversal of actions. Knowing that “every decision [he’s] ever made…has been wrong” leads George to alter every bit of his daily routine and instinct, beginning with swapping out tuna salad for chicken. Soon after, he notices an attractive woman staring towards their table (Dedee Pfeiffer, sister of Michelle), and with only a hint of hesitation, George approaches and declares, “My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.”

The rest of the episode follows George as he continues to find success with a newfound Peter Gibbons looseness and confidence (first the beautiful woman, followed by a job with the Yankees [albeit as the assistant to the traveling secretary]), while Elaine gets dumped, kicked out of her apartment building, and single-handedly brings Pendant Publishing (those bastards) to the ground.  As she states it, “[She’s] become George.”

I can’t help but keep thinking about Season 8’s “The Abstinence” when analyzing “The Opposite”, as we deal with a similar situation (George’s improved intellect, with Elaine’s own abstinence draining her of all intellectual capabilities).  The fact that Seinfeld is able to successfully create these alternate versions of the characters speaks to the ability of the writers and actors to create such strong, unwavering characters in the first place.  They’d gotten to a point where the characters were so well defined that they could manipulate and bend them in way to propel things to another level (and at this point, not in a cartoony, caricature of a way).  We’re four seasons in and we know enough about George’s life and mannerisms that it’s utterly absurd to see him behave this way.

It seems as if the show picked up on this too, as even beyond “The Abstinence” we get another role reversal later on in “The Bizarro Jerry”, and then a literal reversal of time in “The Betrayal”.  George’s ability to succeed with women returns during “The Little Kicks”, when he’s portrayed as the “bad seed” in Elaine’s office as a scapegoat for her dancing.  With “The Opposite” and “The Little Kicks”, it’s as if George has unknowingly discovered Neil Strauss’ world a decade early.

Of course, throughout all of this in “The Opposite”, Jerry’s life remains exactly the same – he’s Even Steven – and today, this coincides with his easy-going self. He spends his time buying cars, living in Billy Joel’s old Hamptons home during the summer, and doing charity work and stand-up (often simultaneously).  My favorite line in the first season of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is when Ricky Gervais says to Seinfeld, “You’re like a young king, aren’t you?” poking fun at Jerry’s free-wheeling personality and ability to live his life in any way he pleases.  And he is.  With Jerry’s real life persona so closely mimicking the character “Jerry”, it can be tough to remember that Jason, Julia, and Michael don’t act like their characters in real life too.  I’ll count that as a testament to the show’s writing and each of their acting capabilities.

It’s also in “The Opposite” that we start to see Seinfeld’s “celeb pull” at work when Kramer appears on Regis and Kathie Lee to promote his coffee table book.  Sure, Season 3 featured Keith Hernandez in “The Boyfriend” two-parter, but to snag a couple of talk show hosts from a non-NBC show seems like a big step up.  As the show went on, these guest celebrities increased, both as Jerry’s girlfriends (Terri Hatcher, Courtney Cox, Janeane Garofalo, Amanda Peet, Laurie Laughlin, and the list goes on…), and as athletes and better-known faces (think Letterman, Gumbel, and Giuliani).

It still boggles my mind that Derek Jeter made a guest appearance on “The Abstinence” and will be suiting up for the Yanks tonight, especially when a comparable guest appearance was made by Paul O’Neill, who’s been retired since I was in middle school. It’s a shame the joy I’ll feel on September 28th when the Yankees miss the playoffs will be clouded by the notion that the seemingly perpetual Jeter-Seinfeld connection will also be coming to a close.

I’ll finish with a mention two of the more obscure, lesser-known Seinfeld guest appearances that get me especially giddy:

In “The Fire”, there is a scene where George is speaking to “Eric the Clown” at his girlfriend’s son’s birthday party. George is baffled and upset that Eric doesn’t know who Bozo is, and later is the first to flee the apartment when a fire breaks out, tossing women and children to the side in the process. Eric ends up putting out the fire with one of his big shoes, saving the day and leaving George to bask only in his selfish flames. Completely covered in clown makeup, a wig, suit, and recognizable only by the familiar brusque tone we’ve become familiar with over the years (“Any Glen.”), Eric is played by Jon Favreau a full two years before Swingers came out.

It took a bit longer for my second-favorite guest to become a familiar face – and even now, he’s pushing B-list. Seen in “The Burning” as a medical student guessing the ailments of Kramer and Mickey as they “act” out various diseases, Daniel Dae Kim’s enthusiasm as he correctly exclaims “Gonorrhea!” precedes his first appearance on Lost by a full 6 years. With his med school experience, it’s no wonder Sun was able to teach him the English language so quickly.

With Seinfeld, a celebrity spotting is different. It’s not just about a game of media Where’s Waldo; it’s the allure of seeing obscure names and faces surface who had such minor roles 20 years ago.

Seeing Jin as “Student #1”, Jeremy Piven playing George, and watching Jeter on TBS syndication (followed by the YES Network an hour later) is what enables the show to continue to comfort me each day. Sure, the people, the jokes, the scenes, and the obsessions of Seinfeld’s characters are already just as relevant to the nuances of today’s society as they were then, but it’s the fact that they intertwine multiple decades of pop culture in my own life that allow it to be so relevant and powerful.

Cheers to another week of re-runs and The Golden Age, Part II coming soon.