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List Price: $58.95 | | Label: National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Salesrank: 18522
Released: November 23, 2004 |
| Our Price: $44.99 |
| Used Price: $31.47 |
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MPAA Rating:
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Seinfeld Giftset (includes Seasons 1-3, Limited Edition Script, Monk's Salt & Pepper Shakers, Playing Cards)
Description of Seinfeld: Seasons 1, 2 and 3 Giftset (includes Limited Edition Script, Monk's Salt & Pepper Shakers & Playing Cards):
Nothing? Seinfeld is a show about everything! It's about the appeal of the posse and coma etiquette. It's about importing and exporting. It's about sneaking a peek, and seeing the baby. It's about this, that, and the other. TV Guide ranked Seinfeld the best TV series of all time. It has become the master of its syndication domain. Its most devoted fans can quote each episode chapter and verse; their absorption of each scene's minutiae anything but a trivial pursuit. With such fervent devotion to the show, and demand for its DVD release, series creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David could have easily just OK'd a bare-bones set containing nothing but the episodes. Not that there would have been anything wrong with that, but instead, the creative team came together to create extensive and encyclopedic features that make this four-disc set buy-worthy. The candid and revealing audio commentaries and interviews, deleted scenes and original episode promos, and optional "Notes About Nothing" pop-ups are as irresistible as a Drake's coffee cake.
It's always fun and instructive to return to the humble beginnings of a series that became a pop culture benchmark. Here are Kramer's first not-so-grand entrance, Jerry's first contemptuous "Hello, Newman," and Elaine's first "Get Out!" shove. But what is most revelatory about the episodes from the first two seasons is what Jason Alexander, during his commentary for the episode "The Revenge," calls a "sweet quality" that somehow redeems these characters' more base instincts. The third season's--for want of a better word--the charm. The show has found its misanthropic voice (by season's end, a fed-up Elaine tells herself, "I gotta get some new friends"), the ensemble has a firmer grasp of their characters, and the writers rise to the occasion with episodes that have entered the Seinfeld pantheon, including the Seinfeld equivalent of a Very Special Episode, "The Boyfriend," with Keith Hernandez and the J.F.K. parody, "The Library," featuring Philip Baker Hall channeling Jack Webb as library bookhound Bookman, "The Pez Dispenser," and "The Keys," with an L.A.-bound Kramer winding up on Murphy Brown. Michael Richards, especially, comes into his own this season as Kramer. The first two seasons built up the mystique of this "man-child"/"parasite." So while he was absent in season 2's now-classic "The Chinese Restaurant" (in which Jerry, George, and Elaine wait in vain for a table), he is now out and about with the close-knit, albeit dysfunctional, trio. Julia Louis-Dreyfus has some of her giddiest golden moments, zonked on painkillers in "The Pen," or, as a bored party guest in "The Stranded," telling an obnoxious bride-to-be that "Maybe the dingo ate your baby." And don't get us started on Jason Alexander as George, series co-creator Larry David's neurotic and angst-ridden alter-ego. To paraphrase what Julia Roberts said of Denzel Washington, we don't want to live in a world where Alexander doesn't have an Emmy.
The "Inside Look" episode intros offer fascinating insights into this singular show that subverted sitcom convention. We learn that even the most outrageous episodes, such as "The Pez Dispenser," were inspired by real-life events. Especially telling is Alexander's observation that Jerry never really socialized with the other ensemble members. This has extended to the commentaries: Seinfeld pairs with David on some episodes, while Alexander, Richards, and Dreyfus team up on others. They are gracious to the guest stars and extras, and mostly mum on Jer. All of this, of course, is yadda yadda yadda to Seinfeld fans, whose patience for the show's DVD debut has been amply rewarded. As Elaine screams in the third-season episode, "The Subway," "It's not nothing, it's something!" --Donald Liebenson
Seinfeld: Seasons 1, 2 and 3 Giftset (includes Limited Edition Script, Monk's Salt & Pepper Shakers & Playing Cards) Reviews:
Reviewing Seinfeld Seasons DVD 
2008-12-06 - The DVD set was listed as being in good condition and it was. There were some very minor scratches on one of the set, but they didn't affect the playback of the episodes. The box was in great condition, without any dents or tears, and the package arrived quickly.
Thanks!
Seinfeld
2008-01-11 - Love Seinfeld - never watched this - thought it was a good gift for my husband, but he watched the re-runs on TV>
Ernie from "My Three Sons" Even Funnier than Seinfeld 
2007-09-13 - Let me be the innocent child in "The Emperor's New Clothes," and proclaim:
Jerry Seinfeld is not funny!
Oh, I know what you're thinking: Here's a guy who thinks Seinfeld was unfunny, but his cast was hilarious.
No. At best the rest of the cast was mildly amusing (although Jason Alexander is a talented actor, he is not necessarily hilarious, hence the two stars).
Because, when it comes down to brass tacks, "Seinfeld" *was* a "show about nothing" -- in every sense of the word:
The contrived semi-plots, with choppy one-liner segments.
The cloying, annoying, ejaculatory bass riffs between shots.
Jerry Seinfeld posing as this hipster: Yeah, right, a hipster with a ridiculous bushy mullet. At best, Seinfeld was an Upper West Side Jewish version of Jeff Foxworthy. You want to know why people think Jewish men are smug, metrosexual wimpish know-it-alls? I submit Jerry Seinfeld as "Exhibit A." If a WASP played a Jew such as Seinfeld, he'd be accused of bigoted racial slurs against the Jewish people. Grating, like fingernails down a chalkboard.
Oh, and speaking of freakish hair-do's: Is there anyone alive who thinks that Michael Richards as Kramer would even inspire a single chuckle if shorn of that ridiculous Brillo-pad hair? Within three episodes, he'd have been out of the door, after having been reduced to haranguing black hecklers in the studio audience: He's a [n-word]! He's a [n-word]!
Pathetic.
And, "Elaine"?
Puleeze! She makes Gwyneth Paltrow look like Kate Winslet, she is so flat.
Yawn.
Only one word for it...
2007-05-12 - H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S!!!!!!!!
The greatest Sitcom in the history of Television!!!!
Hannukah and Christmas every day
2006-07-16 - I was living in England when Seinfeld was in its third or fourth season, blissfully unaware of what people were talkabout with this 'Seinfeld' thing when I read in a magazine that you'd have to be hidden in a remote corner of the Amazon to not be into this show. I obviously was in a more inhabited and arguably more sophisticated place than Amazonian corners tend to be, so I tuned in.
Actually, my wife, two boys, and I tuned in.
Good grief, did we get hooked!
Now, with seasons 1-3 and 4-6 under our belt, we spend our days waiting in front of the laptop for our emailed notice from Amazon that later seasons are coming out on DVD.
Well, actually, we don't spend *every* day like that. Just some.
This minimalist sitcom was feared by its creators and producers to be too New York and too Jewish for the mainstream. Yet it took off with a kind of universal appeal that is rare and quickly developed a fan base more loyal to Jerry, Elaine, George, and even Kramer - whose real-life actor seems in these interviews to be the alter ego of Kramer himself - than to our own mothers-in-law.
If you buy any of the DVD sets, you're likely to return regularly to favorite episodes. Prior reviews and especially spotlight reviews will remind you of what those are.
It is the considered opinion of a lot of smart people that there is a Seinfeld quote for nearly every life situation. This product still makes a fantastic gift for Seinfeld aficionados, whether they've memorized them all or are still working on it.
