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7 little-known facts about Seinfeld
It’s the “show about nothing” that turned into one of the biggest hits in television history, roping in 75 million viewers for the finale in the US alone. To celebrate 28 years since it first aired, join us as we take a look at a few things you might not know about Seinfeld.
- George was almost played by someone else – Jason Alexander was so perfect for the role of George Costanza, we can hardly imagine anyone else playing the role. However, it almost went to someone else – Paul Schaffer, David Letterman’s former musical director.
- George almost quit – Very early in the show, Jason Alexander threatened to leave the show. It came after Larry David wrote him out of an episode. “If you don’t need me to be here every week [...] I’d just as soon go back home and do what I was doing,” he said.
- The theme song was different every time – You never heard the same bass riff at the beginning of every episode twice. Composer Jonathan Wolff rewrote the theme for every episode, adjusting it to Jerry’s opening jokes.
- Jerry’s favourite episode – Of the 180 episodes of Seinfeld, Seinfeld himself has two that remain close to his heart – The Rye, since it was the first one they got to shoot at Paramount Studios in LA, and The Pothole, since it was “really fun to shoot”.
- Storyline ideas – One of the show’s writers, Carol Leifer, recalled to news.com.au that of the hundreds of people who came to her with ideas for episodes, one actually worked. ““I have a friend from high school who said she had a great Seinfeld idea. She said, ‘We had a dinner party the other night and these people brought a bread to serve at the dinner and I forgot to put the bread out and I noticed at the end of the night they took the bread home’. I remember saying to my friend, ‘You know what? I’m going to pitch to Larry and Jerry because I think there’s something there’. And sure enough when I pitched it to them, Larry David was like, ‘That’s a show. We’re definitely doing something with that’, and that became the episode called The Rye.”
- Kramer almost broke the door – Because of his flamboyant, energetic entries into Seinfeld’s apartment, set designers had to keep extra hinges nearby in case Kramer (Michael Richards) broke the door.
- There was almost another season – NBC offered Seinfeld over $100 million ($5 mil per episode) if he made another season. However, Jerry felt he needed to start a life for himself, get married and have children, so turned it down.