The First Two Seasons of "McCauley"/The Summer of Ribs

Andrew,



Andrew, Andrew, Andrew. Read your chapter regards “The Last Two Seasons of
Seinfeld.” There are two errors that I would like to point out right off the
bat: “the school may be referred to as ‘T Town’ because its center occupies
what would otherwise be T street.” No one refers to the school as “T Town,” but
rather the neighborhood that exists on T Street, west of 27th. It's kind of a
shitty part of town. But BJ's dad lived there at one point. And here's some
information I found on the internet about it: “In the 1940s, Lincoln bankers
began redlining in Lincoln, in an attempt to restrict blacks to a neighborhood
called ‘T-Town’.” So T-Town has a history.



            Also: “I still have not seen Sour Grapes as it has not been released on DVD, and
movie rental stores have severely depleted VHS collections these days.” If I'm
not mistaken, when I saw Sour Grapes, I saw it on DVD. So I think it has had a
DVD release.



            One interesting thought I had about the last two seasons is that the persona of
Kramer is explicitly defined by Jerry's becoming of Kramer in the Kenny Rogers
episode. Or at least, in that episode, the Kramerian persona is so boldly
underlined, as if the viewer was too dense to understand what traits made
Kramer. I think that is illustrative of the heavy-handedness of the last couple
of seasons. However, I find it interesting that Jerry becomes Kramer, not in the
episode in which he gets Kramer's blood (a half pint of Kramer) but in the
episode when he's forced to sleep in Kramer's bed.



            With the interpretation that the writers, during the last two seasons, were
finally doing what they wanted to do, unrestrained by Larry David, it seems
that these writers were just useful idiots that Larry David kept around who had
none of his sense of subtlety or restraint. As if the whole time they were
working on the show with David, they never got it. Or maybe they understood
that once David was away, the public would understand why the show was
different (i.e. because David was gone) and thus new they could just “have fun”
and it didn't need to be “about anything” like it was during the David era. Or
at least it didn't need to be about the same things. I mean, to an extent, who
didn't want Jerry to turn into Kramer? I think one of the most significant
aspects of the last two seasons is how much characters who were formerly side
characters come to prominence: Newman, Puddy, Peterman. It was like, now that
David is gone, we can let actors that we love put on a show, and develop these
characters more. I mean, Puddy was a character that they actually brought back.



            That's all for now. My life is crazy. I'll follow up with an e-mail “about me.”



Love,
Brendan