The Seinfeld Chronicles

My study of Seinfeld has taken several forms in my life thus far, which surely may be subdivided into the unique experience with which every viewing has provided me.  I was deemed mature enough by season seven to watch the show, either because I was allowed to stay up past nine on Thursday’s Must See TV after Frasier had moved to Tuesday, or because the adult humor would not corrupt me as much as it would have at an earlier age.  The latter, if it had been the case, would have to be qualified by “The Sponge,” the content of which quickly provoked my mother to send me upstairs within the first few minutes.    Such incidents wrapped the show in this great mystery, this mature truth that was not yet to be bestowed upon me. 

            My father wore a white t-shirt with Jerry Seinfeld on the front in his stand-up blazer and tie holding a microphone with his face in its mid-joke, knowing smile; on the back next to a neon quintessential nineties design read, “And you want to be my latex salesman.”  Even if I could hear what that joke was that Jerry was in the midst of telling in this frozen moment, I probably wouldn’t get it; and, on the back, what seemed like a question had no question mark, and made no reference to a reality I could understand.  The affinity of my professor father for the show gave it even more weight and significance.  It was much more than understanding why a sponge could lead to my expulsion from the room—though I understood that it was somehow wrapped up in the absolute mystery of sex, that I already understood was beyond my understanding—adulthood was broadcast on NBC every Thursday night, waiting to be comprehended.   My first breakthrough in understanding sex, though, did come from “The Wink” five episodes earlier in the season in which Elaine claims that sleeping head to toe would maintain the innocence of sleeping with someone, to which Jerry protests, “But your genitals are still lined up!”

            While this work is not about the relationship to Seinfeld to my psychological development, I do think it is very symbolic that the next season was the first not to be executively produced by Larry David and the fifth grade I moved into was the first to include sex education; it began to feel like the mystery was being solved: the humor was more obvious and surreal and I knew where babies came from.  My father and I were equals up until the show’s end the next season which I mourned with the rest of the adult world and a few fellow 6^th graders who were precocious enough to appreciate this immensely important moment in the situation comedy, and popular culture on the whole.  In spite of this, I wasn’t satisfied: it didn’t feel quite like I thought it would, and I still didn’t know why I wanted to be Jerry’s latex salesman.   The mystery still existed in those first six seasons, and syndication on the local Fox affiliate provided me with the means by which I could figure it out.