One of the biggest television sitcoms of all time is Seinfeld, which aired on NBC from July 5, 1989,  to May 14, 1998. Running for nine successful seasons, the show was a ratings monster that topped the Nielsen Ratings in its sixth and in its final season. In its last four years it consistently finished in the top two positions in the ratings and was one of the most highly sought after show once it went into syndication.

Seinfeld received numerous awards and nominations in all types of categories throughout the mid-1990s. In 1993 it received the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series and the Golden Globe Award for Best TV-Series in the category of comedy.

The show was also nominated for Emmy awards from 1992 to 1998 for Outstanding Comedy series, but was consistently beaten by the sitcom Frasier.

This was a series pitched by its own creators, Larry David and comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who played a fictional persona of himself on the show, as a show about nothing. I have to admit, Seinfeld episodes more often than not were so far into stupid that it forced the scenes to be funny and often charming. The show was filmed primarily in Los Angeles, California, even though in the storyline it was set in New York city’s Upper West Side.

Oddly enough for such a popular show, Seinfeld never had a theme song, yet its signature theme music was one of a kind with its bass guitar riffs accompanied by a “percussion track” composed of basic mouth noises, such as pops and clicks. It’s one of the only shows I can recall that played its theme music in the transition between scenes.

In the height of its popularity (with over 21 million viewers) Jerry Seinfeld decided to pull the plug on the beloved sitcom. The news that the series was coming to an end was such a shocker that the announcement actually made the front page of all the major New York newspapers, including the New York Times. Jerry Seinfeld was even featured on the cover of Time Magazine‘s first issue of 1999.