Did anyone pick this up, with or without the special fridge packaging? I was waiting for this for a while; the individual season packs had always seemed too pricey to me.
$200 for 180 episodes and a book; seems like a good deal to me. The package contains 32 discs, spread across two foldout books. The disc labels are the same as the ones in the existing individual season releases.
There are some new video extras. The included "Coffee Table" book includes at least a blurb on each episode, lots of quotations, and tons of pictures.
I am always going to treasure this series. TV Guide named it the best ever for a reason. The humanity, the inanity... there was no series like it before it, and attempts to mimic it have always fallen flat. The series' last couple seasons were a bit out of character for the show, but great nonetheless.
Now I just have to wait for Curb Your Enthusiasm to end a few years from now, then get the accumulated entire-series package.
It's kind of sad to own a whole series like this. All that creative output crammed into some plastic wafers. It's like the magic is gone.
Did they really call it the best show ever? I like Seinfeld, but I'd put The Simpsons above it.
Plus I've never seen The Wire (aka the Greatest Artwork in the History of Humankind or at Least Since the Renaissance, the Not-Watching of Which is Utterly Inexcusable And Should be Punishable by Forty Lashes).
Seinfeld was okay, and Curb I think is funny at times (which are usually when the Blacks are involved, otherwise its really stupid humor), but the Simpsons are collectively a lot funnier than both of those shows combined.
Seinfeld is more consistently good than The Simpsons. But yes. Best show of all time. Ever.
... Though I think Curb will end up beating it.
Too early, for me. I can plug 'Seinfeld' into the DVR and record more episodes each day than I could watch in the rest of the week, so I'm not really feeling like I'm missing it yet.
Seinfeld was the best and most consistently funny comedy on TV. Everything else seems strained, and there are whole SEASONS of the Simpsons that are terrible, unwatchable crap.
So there.
I can imagine that having the whole show in a big book or two is weird: having such easy access to so much magic takes the piss out of it a little. It's still great, but there's no sense of rarity or 'specialness', like Fugitive is alluding to.
The seasons argument doesn't work with Seinfeld on the other side. Season Two was terrible with only two exceptions. Season Three was very hit or miss. How the show made it into its glory days is a mystery to everyone.
That being said, I have the fridge; it's thoroughly pointless (and therefore fitting - I love it), so under all reasonable circumstances, just buy the individual Season Nine. You already own the previous eight, don't you? I did. I wanted to give away the individuals as Christmas presents...
Simpsons is definitely uneven, but there are very few episodes where I don't find at least a few good things, and at its best it's transcendent. I don't think any seasons are total washes, though I seldom watch current episodes so am usually a few years behind the curve. If the show had been canceled a decade ago its reputation would have been well-earned and secure; the remainder is gravy.
I'd guess that over 18 or however-many seasons there are more good Simpsons episodes than Seinfeld, but even if not, I just find the scope of the show to be far greater. It really became a sort of digest of American culture at the turn of the century. And its massive cast of distinctive, idiosyncratic characters dwarfs pretty much anything this side of Dickens.
Seinfeld is a great show, but to my eye it's narrower in scope and more of a conventional sitcom.
I didn't really mean to derail this into a Simpsons vs. Seinfeld thread, but I guess the damage is done.
I just got the complete series box as a Christmas present; I absolutely love it. It's almost overwhelming how much they packed into this box. The coffee table book that comes with it is excellent.
Very pleased to own this. I think it's one of the best comedies ever made and its success is legendary, so I'm always baffled to discover how many people I meet DON'T like it at all.
I find it a good litmus test for friendship: If a new person doesn't like Seinfeld, they probably won't like ME.Originally Posted by Gary Whitta
So fuck them.
Agreed. A lot of people give the reason that they hate the characters, which saddens me.
It seems to me that people are either a Friends person, or a Seinfeld person. Me, I can't stand Friends. I'm a Seinfeld person.
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I just watched the hour-long roundtable discussion between the four main cast members and Larry David. That's a new video extra only in the package of the complete series; I don't know if there are others. This talk was not so great. It's very limited to the five people watching clips, then talking about them. Only near the end do they kind of open up and stop sticking to only talking about clips and singular moments. I was hoping for a more open-ended, honest discussion between these five people who worked together for nearly a decade. No interruptions. No censorship. Not edited into an hour. Instead, it was tightly constructed, and some of it was previously covered in other DVD extras, like Elaine's actress ruining a lot of takes, or the insanity of Lawrence Tierney. Larry David is mostly quiet. :(
I never understood Seinfeld. I prefer to have the stories I'm told to have some meaning.
You probably shouldn't watch much comedy at all then.
So you're saying it's inscrutable to you? Hmmm....
I'm not saying Seinfeld is horrible. On the contrary, there are quite a few funny episodes.
However, its not this godly ass show that everyone and their mother is forced to love.
I think some of it is just the contempt of familiarity. Seinfeld is like the this generation's M*A*S*H in that it's always being rerun on some channel, somewhere. Also, some of it might have to do with how strangely dated the sitcom format looks compared to The Office or Arrested Development.
Remember, Demon just became of Qt3 Legal Age.
His generation's M*A*S*H is The Suite Life of Zach & Cody.
Remember how, a couple of years back, Amazon was selling the "Star Trek Ultimate Collection" -containing every movie and box sets of every series- for $2499.99?
$200 for Seinfeld makes much more sense.
It has it's moments but I think you kinda have to buy into the Seinfeld world view to really appreciate the show. Like when Jerry says that having a menage a trois makes you an orgy guy. If you can accept that (not necessarily agree with it, but just accept it for the moment), that bit is probably pretty funny. But I just get annoyed thinking that having a single menage a trois is light years away from becoming an ogy guy. I dunno, it just seems that they treat a lot of opinions that I don't agree with as absolute truths and I have trouble getting past that to the jokes sometimes.
For two years my friend and I would watch Seinfeld on the train on the way to university. I always watch it when I get sick. I watch an episode or two when I'm just generally down.
It's become my comfort show.
Seinfeld is one of the most odious shows I've ever had the displeasure of watching.
Here is my poison.
Stargate is good, but it's not really an appropriate contrast or alternative to Seinfeld.
Hahaha. Are you going to take that, Demon? There's probably some truth to it, though. Seinfeld probably looks quite dated to someone looking back at it, and a bit odd, if you didn't catch at least part of it in its original run.
Please, not in my thread.
Doesn't it, though? I mean, isn't an orgy a logical extension of a threeway? Maybe you don't do it just because of social perceptions, or because your other wouldn't have it. But Jerry was right!Like when Jerry says that having a menage a trois makes you an orgy guy.
Does that mean you can't laugh at any stand-up? Comedians bullshit all the time and oversimplify things. Do you overthink everything? Who is your favorite comedian? WHAT ARE YOUR CRIMES?I dunno, it just seems that they treat a lot of opinions that I don't agree with as absolute truths and I have trouble getting past that to the jokes sometimes.
I never got into Seinfeld. I liked a few episodes, (such as the soup nazi) but it seem too shallow and trite most of the time.
My favorite sitcom would probably be Newhart.
I've probably watched every single Seinfeld episode more than once through the years (a lot of them relatively lately thanks to Iraqi bootlegs), and I'd say it has two big problems right now standing between me and enjoying itas much as I used to.
The first is that it is so influential that it has colored humor in so many other more recent shows that you can never really get away from it.
The second is Curb Your Enthusiasm. As painful as the latter is to watch, the absence of a laugh track and HBO giving David's vision the slack it needs mean that I only look back on Seinfeld episodes for a dose of Elaine or George. Turns out I never liked Seinfeld himself or Kramer that much.
Never understood the Seinfeld popularity.
I guess mediocrity attracts.
You're on my ignore list now. I'm serious.
That's a low blow Denny. I've never even heard of that show. But after looking it up.
I hate being young.
No, an orgy has to have another dude. There's nothing life-changing about hooking up with two chicks. When you're willing to engage in sexual acts with another guy present, then you've crossed the line into becoming an orgy guy.
I have that issue with some stand-up, yes. When Jim Gaffigan goes off on how much he loves bacon, I tend to zone out because I'm not much of a bacon fan. For the most part I can get past it, but Seinfeld seems to be especially aggressive in pushing their world view.Does that mean you can't laugh at any stand-up? Comedians bullshit all the time and oversimplify things. Do you overthink everything? Who is your favorite comedian? WHAT ARE YOUR CRIMES?
You've never heard of Star Trek?
I didn't know that was your hangup. What if you're on opposite sides of the room?
Jim Gaffigan is hilarious.I have that issue with some stand-up, yes. When Jim Gaffigan goes off on how much he loves bacon, I tend to zone out because I'm not much of a bacon fan.
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