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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9632848">This is why I mentioned Abbot and Costello. This stuff existed in forms before. Married with children is a good example to bring up. I think that is a valid point. Though it’s transgressive energy is very different than Seinfeld (both Rosanne and Marrued with Children had a political element to them that Seinfeld didn’t: but those shows were more about family dysfunction and being obnoxious than the characters being wicked. They could be mean. I would encourage people to rewatch all of Seinfeld. I did that recently and was surprised how badly behaved the characters were (in a good way). I am not saying they are a bunch of Edmund Blackadders. But they routinely do things cross lines you didn’t typically see protagonists doing in shows at that time. I don’t hunk it is the only thing that was going on with the show but Elaine does seriously contemplate murder (and she may in fact have committed it). She hires Newman to abduct a dog that is keeping her up at night. Jerry gets wrapped up in a criminal bootlegging network, he steals bread from an old lady, and he refuses to give mouth to mouth out of a fear of germs. Elaine gets the soup Nazi shut down. And George is regularly engaged in deceptive and unethical behavior. They aren’t murderous (barring that one oddly surreal joke with Elaine). But they are incredibly self centered people who violate all kinds of social norms, even laws. This is what the Bizarro Jerry episode was remarking upon (just how the group had progressed towards being a group is degenerates: fun degenerates who weren’t a bunch of squares, but degenerates I think they have other qualities: like being fools and whatever else the humor of the show requires. But I do think the willingness of the show to be mean was notable (and it didn’t exist in a vacuum: I do think shows like Rosanne and Married with Children also deserve credit there). But keep in mind Married with Children was on Fox like Gary Shandling. That was actually a highly experimental network at the time (Simpson were on it too). Heck in living color was one of the most transgressive shows ever and would be hugely transgressive even today. But most of the shows on the other networks were stuff like perfect strangers, family ties, growing pains, etc. at least I think those were the kinds of shows you were contrasting Seinfeld with when it aired (I would be curious to see the schedules again as I am going by memory)</blockquote>

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