Jerry Seinfeld has released The Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Book, a tie-in with his coffee-and-car-based talk show of the same name. It’s the perfect time for the legendary comedian to bring out a new book, because in the year since his iconic, hugely influential self-titled sitcom arrived on Netflix, there’s been a resurgence in Seinfeld fandom.
But some viewers were surprised when they started rewatching the series from the beginning and saw a bunch of unrecognizable elements in season 1. While Seinfeld found its footing around season 2 or 3, season 1 almost feels like a totally different show.
10 Kramer’s Shorter Hair
In season 1, Cosmo Kramer arrived almost fully formed. The first season of the show delivered some of Kramer’s funniest storylines, like the foundation of his corporation Kramerica Industries and his hazardous idea for a pizza place where the customers make their own pie.
Kramer had already developed most of his signatures, like barging into Jerry’s apartment and helping himself to the food in his fridge. But he didn’t have his famous tall, floppy hairdo; his hair in season 1 is shorter and more normal-looking.
9 Claire The Waitress
In the pilot episode of Seinfeld, Elaine Benes is nowhere to be seen. The original female lead of the show was a waitress at Monk’s named Claire, played by Lee Garlington. When the series was picked up, Garlington was dropped from the cast and Julia Louis-Dreyfus was recruited to play Elaine.
In her one and only appearance on the show, Claire exhibits the same dry sense of humor that would go on to define Elaine, constantly taking the air out of Jerry and George’s tires with biting quips.
8 Jerry’s Recurring Love Interest
In season 1, a character named Vanessa is introduced as a love interest for Jerry. He met her at a party in the second episode and hung around her office for the chance to ask her out. Then, since it was never established that they broke up, Vanessa came back in the season finale.
Apart from Susan and Puddy, the later seasons mostly did away with recurring love interests. The characters had new love interests in pretty much every episode, which hilariously exemplified their shallowness.
7 George’s Career As A Successful Real Estate Agent
George’s unconventional career path paved the way for some of the funniest Seinfeld episodes about work. He’s worked as a hand model, the traveling secretary for the New York Yankees, and he even managed to turn unemployment itself into a full-time job. But in season 1, he had a much more secure job.
In the first season of the show, George is a successful real estate agent who earns a decent living from the housing market.
6 Slower-Paced Storytelling
In its later seasons, Seinfeld stood out for the rapid pacing of its intertwining storylines. Seinfeld cut back and forth between scenes and storylines faster than almost any other multi-camera sitcom on the market, jumping all over the place to cover its complicated plotting.
The writers didn’t perfect this fast-paced style of storytelling until later in the run. The slow pacing of the first season is more akin to a regular, traditional sitcom.
5 Elaine’s Reduced Role
Although Elaine is nowhere to be seen in the pilot episode, she joined the cast from the second episode onwards. But even then, she didn’t have as much screen time or story focus as her co-stars. She was featured as an ancillary character, or a supporting player in the B-plot at best.
Elaine wasn’t on equal footing with the other cast members until a couple of seasons into the show. By the time season 3 rolled around, Elaine was headlining classic episodes like “The Pen” and “The Red Dot.”
4 Morty’s Original Actor
Jerry’s parents, Morty and Helen Seinfeld, had plenty of hilarious moments throughout the series. Barney Martin shared terrific chemistry with Liz Sheridan as a bickering elderly couple and they each shared a hysterically authentic dynamic with their on-screen son.
When Morty and Helen come down from Florida to stay with Jerry in season 1, Helen is played by Sheridan, but Morty is played by Philip Bruns, who brings a totally different energy to the role than Martin.
3 A Lot More Standup Scenes
Seinfeld was originally conceived as a show about how a standup comic generates their material. In most episodes, Jerry’s standup segments appear at the beginning and end with a few jokes about the subject of the episode. But in season 1, these standup scenes aren’t just bookends; they’re peppered throughout each episode.
The standup segments were eventually dropped from the series altogether when Larry David departed from the staff and Jerry Seinfeld became the sole head writer.
2 Jerry And Elaine Kept Their Dating Lives Private From Each Other
In season 1, Jerry and Elaine kept their dating lives private from each other. Since they’d recently broken up in the timeline of the show, they wanted to avoid any awkwardness or jealousy by mentioning their potential suitors.
Of course, as the series went on, feelings went out the window and Jerry and Elaine casually discussed the most intimate details of their dating lives with one another.
1 Kramer’s Original Name
As a character, Kramer is more or less the same person in season 1 as he was by the end of season 9. But there was one crucial difference in the pilot: he wasn’t called Kramer. The character was based on Larry David’s neighbor Kenny Kramer, and before they had permission to use his real name, the character was called “Kessler.”
After the real Kramer was paid $1,000 for the rights to his name, the character was given his more familiar moniker when the series was picked up for a full season.
Source:gamerant.com