Initially, Seinfeld met with a lukewarm response, a baffled network, low ratings and a volatile creator. So how did it become such a hit?
“Pilot performance: Weak”. That was the research report verdict on the 1989 pilot of new NBC sitcom Stand Up, written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. The episode had excited “lukewarm reactions among adults and teens and very low reactions among kids”. The audience found it annoying that the main character, a fictionalised version of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, “needed things to be explained to him”. The lead was too wimpy, the show was “too New York” (and therefore too Jewish) and worst of all, nothing happened in it. “You can’t get too excited about going to the Laundromat”, as one respondent put it. The report’s conclusion was stark: “no viewer was eager to watch the show again.”
Fast forward nine years and the Seinfeld finale...
“Pilot performance: Weak”. That was the research report verdict on the 1989 pilot of new NBC sitcom Stand Up, written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. The episode had excited “lukewarm reactions among adults and teens and very low reactions among kids”. The audience found it annoying that the main character, a fictionalised version of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, “needed things to be explained to him”. The lead was too wimpy, the show was “too New York” (and therefore too Jewish) and worst of all, nothing happened in it. “You can’t get too excited about going to the Laundromat”, as one respondent put it. The report’s conclusion was stark: “no viewer was eager to watch the show again.”
Fast forward nine years and the Seinfeld finale...
- 11/7/2014
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
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