It's The Assman!

Seinfeld Season 6

The exceptionally observant, obsessive compulsive and preternaturally gifted among you may have noticed that I've skipped ahead a season with these. There's no particular reason, that's just the way it worked out. This is a hard post to write because I watched these over a period of more than a year and it's hard to remember the first ones, but here we go anyway.

Season six finds Seinfeld in the full bloom of its success, but I must say it's a little weaker than the earlier seasons. Still, even slightly below average Seinfeld is pretty damn funny and there are plenty of moments to be found here that have gone down in TV history, to name a few, the introduction of J. Peterman, eating a chocolate bar with a knife and fork and of course “You know, I don't know the exact pronunciation but I believe it's Menage A Trois.”

And of course Seinfeld is always worthwhile for the perverse enjoyment of watching the unbelievably obnoxious main characters. I was struck this time around by just how nasty and selfish Jerry, George and Elaine act. I can't name a single act of kindness or generosity that any of them perform over the shows entire nine years. The contrast of course is Kramer, who despite being a total fucking headcase is a genuinely kindhearted spirit. Of course it's not in vogue to say anything nice about Michael Richards nowadays, ever since his racist tirade was immortalised on youtube (link NSFW due to offensive language), but I find that I'm still a big fan of the guy. My impression is that rather than giving voice to a heretofore suppressed bigoted streak, he was going for some kind of Lenny Bruce type thing (NSFW for the same reasons...), and trying to get comedy from the outrageous offensiveness. Perhaps so outrageous that he didn't think anyone would take it seriously. The sad way he says “There's still those words... those words...” as he walks off stage in the clip marks a poignant end to what was the career of a uniquely brilliant comedian.