Seinfeld/YMMV

• Award Snub: The sets for the episode "The Parking Garage" were ironically not nominated for an Emmy for being too good, so that the voters assumed the episode was filmed in a real parking garage.
  • More glaringly all the actors in the cast except for Jason Alexander walked away with an Emmy at one point or another (though Jerry Seinfeld's Emmy was as a producer rather than an actor) despite George being the fan favorite character (perhaps tied with Kramer) of critics and most of the fanbase.
• Did Not Do the Research: In the famous episode "The Contest", Jerry remarks to his mother over the phone that he's watching Tiny Toon Adventures on Nickelodeon. In 1992, when the episode aired, Tiny Toons wasn't on Nick; it didn't start airing on Nick until 1995. Additionally, it seems the writers had never seen the show, as "Wheels on the Bus" is heard on the TV. Tiny Toons never used that song in any episode, and it painted the show as something more appropriate for preschoolers.
  • The series finale. Good Samaritan laws do not work that way. They're to ensure someone who helps an obviously ill or injured person cannot be sued later for unintentional injury or death. Even the compulsory good Samaritan laws only apply to people who are injured or ill, not being threatened by a mugger. If anything, the Seinfeld cast should have been commended for getting pictorial evidence of the crime. Not to mention the punishment for violating a good Samaritan law is a small fine ($100-$300) with no jail time.
    • And, regardless of how the Good Samaritan law itself is written, bringing in dozens of "character witnesses" to recount every misdeed the defendants have ever committed is still incredibly illegal under U.S. law. The writers probably knew this and simply exaggerated the idea and played it for laughs.
• Double Standard: Present in the episode "The Sniffing Accountant" in regards to "feeling someone's material" (that is, rubbing a part of someone's shirt between the thumb and index finger). When a man does it with a woman's shirt, it's treated as the nonverbal equivalent of a death threat (though Elaine's boyfriend Jake Jarmel was somehow exempted from it). But when a woman does it with a man's shirt, nobody so much as raises an eyebrow.
• Dude, Not Funny:
  • Jerry's stand-up about suicide might have produced more grunts of disgust than laughs. Of course, YMMV here, big time.
  • There's also the time he purposely bombed on stage to make things harder for Kenny Bania, the guy following him:

Jerry: So, what's the deal with cancer?
Audience member: I have cancer!
Kramer: Ooh, tough crowd.

• • On the other hand, there was some legitimate Black Comedy as well: the end of the episode "The Checks", where they lost the patient (Elaine's then-boyfriend) because one of the doctors was too busy paying attention to his favorite song (like the boyfriend had done).
  • The show got in major hot water with the Puerto Rican community when "The Puerto Rican Day" featured Kramer burning the country's flag, despite it being an accident. The DVD set features interviews of everyone lamenting how the joke was blown out of proportion, and cast such a pall over the show right as it was ending.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Just about any of the show's many, many recurring and one-off characters are extremely popular with Newman, Frank Costanza, The Soup Nazi and Bookman the Library Cop being some of them more prominent examples.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Interpretations of the final episode have claimed that, in reality, the airplane on which the four leads were flying crashed, killing them all. Their trial was actually a stand-in for their judgment in the afterlife, and their prison sentence represents them being damned to hell for all eternity (or, more pleasantly but less likely, given the nature of the characters, is representative of a very lengthy stay in Purgatory).
  • The reunion episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm basically squelches the Hell theory, as we see the foursome going about their daily lives, such as they are, back in New York.
  • No Exit does have four people stuck in a waiting room forever as a punishment...
• Fountain of Memes: Hoo boy... One of the biggest pre-internet sources of Memetic Mutation in the history of media: "Yada, Yada, Yada", "NO SOUP FOR YOU!", "Hello...Newman", "Serenity now!", "Not That There's Anything Wrong with That", "Master of Your Domain", "These Pretzels are making me thirsty", "Maybe the Dingo ate your baby", "I don't wanna be a pirate!", "You very, very bad man!", Vandelay Industries, shrinkage, man hands, spongeworthy, assman, puffy shirt, Festivus, double dip, high-talker, low-talker, close-talker ... the list is enormous. There was even a period in The Nineties where adults began referring to themselves in the third person, like the character of Jimmy.
  • Relevant to your interests...
  • Also this.
  • I seriously hope you guys don't do this.
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: In the episode "The Masseuse", Elaine is trying to get her boyfriend Joel Rifkin to change his name to avoid being confused with a serial killer. One of the names Elaine suggests (whilst reading a baseball magazine) is O.J. Seven months after this episode aired, O.J Simpson was accused of murder, leading to one of the most controversial murder trials in US history.
  • Also, either this or Harsher in Hindsight, in the episode "The Fire", George Costanza accidentally causes a fire in the kitchen during a birthday party, and then flees by shoving over, among others, an old lady in a crutcher and a birthday clown to flee out of the door, earning him the wrath of several birthday attendees. It becomes significantly more uncomfortable to watch after similar behavior was witnessed on board the Costa Concordia when it capsized and sunk.
  • In a Season 3 or Season 5 episode, Kramer has a black girlfriend, and he accidentally gets overmanned in a tanning machine. The girl's father looks at Kramer as a racist, something that happened to Michael Richards in 2006.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One of Jerry's girlfriends was played by Teri Hatcher. Giving Jerry's Superman fandom, it's rather amazing he dated Lois Lane.
  • George Steinbrenner uses Kramer's idea to heat Yankee uniforms in the oven and exclaims "I smell a pennant!". That season, the Yankees won their first world series in 18 years.
    • ...In six games...
• Jerkass Woobie: George is a moron and an amoral schemer, but man does his life SUCK.
• Moral Event Horizon: George feeling relieved over Susan's death (as well as the rest of the gang's indifference) may be one for some fans. The fact that in the Season 8 premiere Jerry and George almost get emotional when discussing Spock's death but are indifferent when visiting Susan's graveside.
  • In-Universe, in the finale Babu's story of how Jerry ruined his life seems to be seen as one by the jury and seals the group's fate to some degree.
• True Art Is Angsty: Vincent at the video rental store seems to believe this, much to Elaine's chagrin, as she describes his movies as "emotionally exhausting." When Kramer suggests a summer comedy instead, Vincent does not take it well.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: In "The Junior Mint".

George: "Yes, I look forward to many years of looking at the triangles."

• • Jerry dates an artist who guilt-trips George into buying one of her paintings. "It's a bunch of lines! You're telling me you couldn't paint this?"
• Unfortunate Implications: If successful, Kramer's lawsuit against Sue Ellen Mischke in "The Caddy" would lead to a public dress-code, and presumably one that treats women harsher than men.
  • Would your revenge against Sue Ellen have been worth it then, Elaine?
• Values Dissonance: In "The Secretary", George is painted in a positive light for discriminating against attractive applicants. At one point he explains to one that while she is qualified, he would not hire her based solely on her looks.
• Weird Al Effect: People are more familiar with George's answering machine message ("Believe it or not, George isn't at home...") than The Greatest American Hero, whose theme ("Believe it or not, I'm walking on air...") it was based on.