So we’re re-watching Seinfeld at the moment. We saw the episode ‘The Movie’ yesterday. This is the episode where Seinfeld, Elaine, George, and Kramer make arrangements to see a movie. Seinfeld finds that he can’t make it so he has to go down to the cinema – where his friends are waiting in line to buy tickets for the movie – to let the others know he won’t be able to make it. (And a whole series of mishaps ensues.)
But so much has changed since 1992 when that episode first aired.
If they made the episode again now it would be so different:
- Catching up with friends? You can’t make it to meet your friends? You’d just call them. In fact you probably wouldn’t even call – you’d text. In Seinfeld there are no mobile phones in sight.
- Buying movie tickets? Who needs to wait in line? You’d just buy them online, wouldn’t you?
- Taxis? Back then über was just a German word -there was no other alternative to cabs.
- They all read newspapers back then.
And never mind going to the movies: I remember watching Seinfeld in the nineties when the show was new. You waited all week to see it – if I remember correctly it was on Channel Ten – and it was a bit of an event, if you liked the show. (And then you all talked about it the next day.)
This time around we’re watching it on Amazon Prime. Our tv isn’t even connected to the aerial at the moment, and I can’t remember the last time we watched free-to-air tv.
Seinfeld is still funny, though.