I was never a big fan of Seinfeld. Like Cheers before and Friends after, it was a popular but ultimately dull sitcom. It was no more a revolutionary show than Law & Order is/was. Both may be the best expressions of their respective shitty genres, but that doesn’t change the fact that the kind of television they represent is inherently shitty. These days whenever someone says “yada yada yada” the first thing that springs to most people’s minds is Seinfeld. The reason for that is that Seinfeld – at the height of its popularity – based an entire episode (titled “The Yada Yada”) around an otherwise pedestrian turn of phrase. For the record I’d like to point out that five years before that Seinfeld episode Bart deployed their trademark phrase in defense of one of his vile yet innocent deeds: Bart: Well Milhouse, tis better to have loved and lost, yada yada yada. Let’s got to the arcade. A formulation around which Seinfeld based an entire episode was used by The Simpsons as a fitting but unimportant piece of dialogue. ‘Nuff said.
Tag: Seinfeld
And It’s Not Even Close
Apparently Jerry Seinfeld is coming to Ottawa. This prompted a columnist in The Ottawa Citizen to praise Seinfeld and his show for being second only to Shakespeare in terms of adding “catchphrases” to the language. That’s all well and good, but this paragraph cannot go unremarked upon: Most catchphrases are pure confection and essentially hollow: think of the greatest hits of Seinfeld’s closest competitor in numbers, The Simpsons: “D’oh!” or “don’t have a cow” or “eat my shorts” are memorable, but they don’t really say anything that we didn’t already know how to say ourselves, though perhaps not so memorably. Even Bart Simpson’s “meh,” which has had a recent buzz, really only means “whatever.” Seinfeld’s catchphrases crystallized things that we all had noticed and felt, but not effectively verbalized. In the immortal words of C. Montgomery Burns, I disagree. The quotability of The Simpsons is second to none, and it, of course, goes far beyond Homer and Bart (to say nothing of four whiney New Yorkers). We can start with “cromulent” and “embiggen”, which aren’t so much catchphrases as they are words with widely understood meanings. “Smell you later” is decent way to say goodbye. And, of course, in addition to “D’oh” Homer gave us the distinct inflections of “Woo hoo!” and “Mmmm donuts/beer/whatever”. As we broaden our horizon to the secondary characters it’s an embarrassment of riches. Flanders doesn’t so much have a catchphrase as he has a catch modification, “doodily”, “doakely”, “diddily” and variations thereof can be used or added to just about anything. I’m a big fan of Dr. Nick’s “Hi everybody!” as a way to greet a bunch of people. Then there’s Nelson’s “Ha ha” which works in any situation. Ask a lawyer or aspiring lawyer about Lionel Hutz (“law taking guy” seems to be a particular favorite). And if you want to talk about something that has penetrated pretty much every part of modern culture, it’s Comic Book Guy’s “Worst/Best. [noun]. Ever.” Then there’s Chief Wiggum (wahhh), Apu (Thank you, come again), Krusty (Hey hey kids!), Troy McClure (You might remember me from such films as . . .) and, of course, Mr. Burns. He turned a single word into a declarative sentence (Excellent) that lets everyone know exactly what you’re talking about. Then there’s the end of “Bart Gets Famous”, a self mocking spoof of the very concept of catchphrases. Seinfeld adding more to the language than The Simpsons? Release the hounds.