Was Seinfeld's script as goofy as a cartoon script?

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Seinfeld was rated by TV Guide as the greatest TV show of all time, and I am personally a huge fan of both Seinfeld and cartoons. The more I watch reruns of the show, the more I notice that the ridiculousness of the show resembles the ridiculousness of a cartoon. Anyone think the script for Seinfeld episodes were considered goofy enough to be cartoon scripts? And perhaps that's why the show was so popular, it was so off the wall and cartoon-like, that it was just a show you could sit and enjoy, not needing to over-analyze it?
 
A lot of the weird dark humor that happened usually, like Susan dying from envelopes, and anything Kramer attempted to do. You could tell that parts of Bee Movie were probably supposed to be in the original series.
 
Not at all. Seinfeld's no where near as goofy or "cartoony" as a show like Ned's Declassified. Even Kramer's slapstick moments weren't as outrageous as Ned's.

I can't see Seinfeld as a cartoon that much. No more that something like King of the Hill, anyway.
 
Especially in its later seasons, Seinfeld was pretty zany and had surreal, cartoonish elements. Not sure if that's why it was so popular, but I do agree that because its only aim was to make the audience laugh (i.e. no dramatic moments like what Friends was prone to at times), it sort of resembles cartoony cartoons, especially the Golden Age stuff.
 
I think moments in Seinfeld would play very well animated, and, in that way, yes, the show was cartoony, a word I tend to avoid with Cartoon Network's movement into live-action fare. Nevertheless, I cannot watch George Castanza crossing the street with the Frogger arcade game without thinking of a cartoon version of the scene.

On a related note, David Mandel, a writer for both Seinfeld and the later Curb Your Enthusiasm, worked with Kevin Smith and others on making the Clerks cartoon, which I think is a good indication that the writing style of these shows lends itself well to animation.
 
"Seinfeld" only got really cartoony in its eighth and ninth seasons, when Larry David had left the staff and the writers were allowed to cut loose. Its earlier episodes were much more down-to-earth, although it did venture into outlandishness a bit in Seasons 5 through 7. The last two years, though, were undoubtedly the looniest.

I was just watching the Season 9 DVD, and they mention that there was some concern among the writers in those last years about going too crazy, to which Jerry always reminded them about how they'd done an episode where George removes a golf ball from a whale's blowhole, so how could they possibly get crazier than that?
 
I think it is cartoony compared to your average sitcom. Malcom in the Middle is another one that I think would work well (if not better) as a cartoon.
 
A Malcom cartoon would've had to contend with the characters aging, but I agree, many of the over-the-top antics in that series did not lend well to live-action.
 
I always viewed Seinfeld as a live-action comic book. With characters like The Soup Nazi, Crazy Joe, Newman, The Virgin, Banya, Peterman, and the "Bizarros" how could you not. I wonder what I Seinfeld graphic novel would look like?
 
A prime example of a 'live-action cartoon show' is Out of Jimmy's Head. The live-action characters and material are just as cartoonish, if not more so, than the animated characters. This is one of the reasons the show doesn't quite work; there's very little contrast between the toons and the people.
 
Yeah, OOJH is like that.

I'd say Ned's is moreso, considering it features stuff like giant walruses chasing people and crashing through walls, a weasel who outsmarts a janitor by causing all his traps to backfire on him ala Wile E Coyote, eyes bugging out of a character's head with CG, and other basic cartoon effects. Not to mention the music for the show is basically written as if it were a cartoon.
 
I never really saw Seinfeld cartoon-like at all in its earlier seasons. Sitcom goofyness, yes, but not really cartoony.

Kramer, though, fit the bill most closely. Especially in the early seasons it seemed that Kramer existed in a plane of reality separate from everyone else. After about halfway through the series, it seemed that Kramer's world affected the rest of Seinfeld more and more leading to some very unusual episodes. Even in later seasons, though, I think the series still kept a foothold on reality that most cartoon sitcoms seem to make an effort at abandoning.
 
The episode where he randomly started up Kramerica industries to try to get an intern to do all his chores, ending up with them both dropping a big ball of oil out the window seems pretty cartoony.

And the original ending they were going to go with, with them being in a Biodome would have been crazy.
 
There was also one episode where Kramer ended up acting like a dog. He then started to sniff and bark to a couple of police officers and they exclaimed "What is it, boy? Is there trouble? Tell us where it is, we'll follow you!" or something like that. I forgot the episode but I clearly remember the scene.

A show that had lots of cartoony elements in it was Newsradio. It had parodies, plenty of cartoon references, tons of things that just can't happen in real life, the episode that takes place in space, and the Titanic parody. Oh, and who can forget "Super Karate Monkey Death Car"?

One notorious scene in that show was when Joe and Matthew are competing on throwing paper balls to a basket. We see them both aiming one paper ball each, then we cut to Dave and Jimmy talking near the basket, and we see HUNDREDS of paper balls flying towards the basket. Obviously this is impossible for two people to do, but the show was never too grounded on reality.
 
Episode 810 "The Andrea Doria". Kramer's dog-like qualities come about as a result of his unwillingness to see a doctor about his bark-like cough, so he instead consults a veterinarian and receives dog medicine. The scene in question is the last one before the credits, where Kramer tries to get police assistance after Elaine stabs her boyfriend (a "bad breaker-upper") in the forehead with a fork. Original airdate December 19, 1996, written by Spike Feresten, directed by Andy Ackerman.

I pride myself on my "Seinfeld" geekiness...
 
Kramer acting like a dog is one of my favorite Kramer plots. The bit where Jerry tries to get Kramer to take his dog pills gets me every time, especially when Kramer spits it up.

And for some reason I find the real dog coughing with a human's voice to be hilarious.
 
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