How The Beatles influenced Jerry Seinfeld to end his sitcom
The Beatles had always prided themselves on making music that crossed cultural boundaries. From their earliest experimental records, the embrace of different genres and unusual instruments in their music always put them ahead of most of their contemporaries, often leading or defying any trends in their way. Although The Beatles may have had a firm grip on their career aspirations, the decision to call it off was never going to be easy.
Between the frustrating decisions in making their self-titled album, every songwriter began to get fed up with one another, with George Harrison leaving during the sessions for what would become Let It Be. Although there were always some tense moments in the studio, the band vowed to send their audience off on a high note if they were going to break up, crafting Abbey Road as a great send-off before the music began to suffer.
While The Beatles may have cut things off at the right time for their collaborative efforts, Jerry Seinfeld was also paying close attention. After shopping around the idea of “a show about nothing”, the sitcom Seinfeld quickly garnered attention as one of the funniest TV shows of the 1990s, with Jerry and his friends getting into different hijinx, all while not being the most savoury characters to be around. Despite the ratings increasing with every passing season, Seinfeld knew that the writing was on the wall towards the end of the show’s run.
Instead of performing the same characters until the end of time, Seinfeld cited The Beatles as the reason behind shutting the show down, telling O Magazine: “I did the show for the people watching it, and I didn’t want them to say, ‘That show was great in the beginning, but…’ The Beatles created something that never trailed off. What a gift that was to their fans. If you’re into the Beatles, you loved them from beginning to end”.
That’s not to say everyone was in love with the Seinfeld finale, either. Depicting a fairly gritty scenario where every one of the main cast members ends up in jail, some fans felt that the show’s goodbye to the fans was underwhelming to a certain degree. Then again, that was always the point of Seinfeld, to begin with.
From the beginning of the show’s run, the various situations the characters are put in are always through a semi-comedic lens, even if it’s for something that’s transparently awful. So when they end up sharing a cell and are more concerned about having the same conversation they had before, it practically brings the entire series full circle.
Just like the music fans clamouring for a Beatles reunion until John Lennon’s murder, Seinfeld was still pressured with opportunities to either work on another sitcom or bring back the original cast for another season. While every one of the cast and crew might be on good terms, Seinfeld has always put his foot down about taking on that kind of job for the wrong reasons, remembering: “We weren’t just hanging around. People always say, ‘Why don’t you do another sitcom?’ I think, ‘If I could do another sitcom that good, yeah, sure, I’d do it.’ You can’t. I can’t”. Any way of revitalising Seinfeld might work wonders for ratings, but Seinfeld seems to be content to follow The Beatles’ model and keep the legacy clean.
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