After a slow and inauspicious beginning, Seinfeld broke through to become one of the most commercially successful sitcoms in the history of television. It was named by TV Guide as "The Greatest Show of All Time," and has become an entrenched part of American popular culture - its language, jokes, characters, and situations part of the water cooler vocabulary of two, even three, generations. This fascinating book includes classic articles on the show by Geoffrey O'Brien and Bill Wyman (first published in the "New York Review of Books" and Salon.com respectively), and a selection of new and revised essays by some of the top television scholars in the US - looking at issues as wide-ranging as Seinfeld's Jewishness, alleged nihilism, food obsession, and long-running syndication. The book also includes a comprehensive episode guide, and Betty Lee's lexicon of Seinfeld language.

Author Biography

David Lavery is one of the leading figures of Television Studies in the United States. He teaches in the Department of English at Middle Tennessee State University, and is the author/editor/co-editor of nine books including Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks, 'Deny All Knowledge': Reading The X-Files, Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and This Thing of Ours: Investigating The Sopranos. Sara Lewis Dunne also teaches at Middle Tennessee State University, and is the co-editor of Studies in Popular Culture.