Seinfeld

It's tough to gauge the implications for 90s pop culture when one of the decade's most popular sitcom had a premise entirely devoted to "nothing." What exactly does it mean that we in the 90s openly embraced nihilistic entertainment that indulged the minutiae of everyday life. At a time when most sitcoms focused on learning valuable and ultimately heartwarming family-friendly lessons, Seinfeld held its own stubbornly dedicated to a principle Jerry Seinfeld referred to as "no hugging, no learning." That is, there don't have to be happy endings; in fact, it's much funnier without them.

Seinfeld ran on NBC from 1989-1998, though much of its enduring popularity stems from widespread syndication. As children, many of us may have missed the subtle (read: not child-friendly) nuances of the show, but as grownups we have plentiful opportunities to reconnect with Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer--the show still airs two or three times a day in most US markets. It's a testament to the show's longevity that it still enjoys moderate rating popularity in syndication over a decade after the series finale.

While many shows fail to stand the test of time, the humor of Seinfeld transcends current cultural references. Its absurdity and complete lack of moral compass make it an enduring favorite. Apparently sociopathic neuroses never go out of style. Good to know, huh?

As a sitcom, Seinfeld had a unique skill for coinage and infiltration of popular culture. While the show's writers claim they did not generally set out to create memorable catchphrases, many popular episodes launched witty one-liners and phrases into our lexicon. There is something so eminently quotable about the show, it's tough to keep even the now-most overused of phrases from slipping into our everyday conversation. In fact, just the other day, I shook a woman's hand and immediately realized she had the definitive man-hands: I could practically see her tearing those lobster claws with those burly paws of hers. It just goes to show: without the handy aid of Seinfeld, we may never have morphed into the nit-picking, easily irritated mentally maladjusted individuals we are today.

While this single post can by no means offer a comprehensive list of Seinfeld catchphrase, below are a random sampling of Seinfeldisms. You're welcome to drop your own favorites in the comments section. If you're ever desperately in need of an overly fault-seeking critique or assessment of a trivial situation, look no further than these helpful words and phrases.


"Yada, Yada, Yada"



"Yada, Yada, Yada" serves as a handy means of glossing over potentially incriminating details in a story. In the case of a long and boring anecdote, yada-ing can also help get to the point before your audience loses all interest.


"Master of Your Domain"



In the Seinfeld episode "The Contest," George's mother catches him in a rather indelicate situation, prompting the group to speculate on who can last the longest without becoming, er, master of their domain. Allegedly the story is based on an actual experience of writer Larry David, which is either very funny or very disturbing depending on how you look at it.


"Low Talker" "Close Talker" "High Talker"



These unfortunate speech habits can lead to some pretty awkward situations--a "low talker," for example, might so quietly ask you to wear a puffy pirate shirt on network television that you fail to comprehend the request. Totally humiliating.


"No Soup for You!"



Possibly one of the most-quoted Seinfeld language, the so-called "Soup Nazi" was actually inspired by real New York soup shop owner Al Yegeneh, who was justifiably less than pleased with his portrayal on the show. True story notwithstanding, actor Larry Thomas plays a delightfully deadpan version of the temperamental soup vendor, expelling customers from his shop for the most minor indiscretions.


"These Pretzels are Making Me Thirsty!"



After landing a bit part in a Woody Allen film, Kramer delivers his totally unnecessary one-liner, "These pretzels are making me thirsty!" The line popped up in several subsequent episodes, serving as an interchangeable expression of annoyance and irritation.


Shrinkage



Poor George just can't catch a break; he seems forever destined to endure one soul-crushingly humiliating situation after another. Following a dip in the chilly water, George's female Hamptons housemate catches him changes and makes some rather cruel digs at what she saw, leading George to defend himself with the airtight "I was in the pool!" To get revenge, he tricks her to disobey religious dietary laws by eating lobster. Not a perfect revenge, but a satisfying one nonetheless.


"Double Dip"



Want to cause a scene at your girlfriend's aunt's funeral reception? Here's a foolproof trick: disgust everyone in attendance by dipping a chip, taking a bite, and then redipping the chip after mouth contact. Worked for George.


"Helloooooo"



In "The Voice," Jerry is faced with a crucial dilemma: he must choose between his attractive girlfriend and his oddly deep-voiced impression of what he imagines her stomach would sound like if it could talk. Truly a problem for the ages. To be fair, the voice is hilarious, but Jerry's girlfriend didn't see it that way. You've got to really love an impression to sacrifice love and affection for the privilege of bellowing, "HELLOOOOO!"


Art Vandalay



It's usually pretty helpful to have a fake name on hand for all situations that warrant it--a person you're meeting in a random office lobby, the employer you claim to be interviewing with, or an imaginary boyfriend or client. Just don't be upset if this pseudonym turns out to be not only a real person, but the judge in your controversial series finale trial. Believe me, it happens.

Indoor Play Places

For those of us who did not grow up in consistently temperate climates, our parents faced a serious conundrum: how to drain us of our boundless energy when the outdoor playgrounds were buried under six feet of snow or consumed by a mighty hurricane? Without the benefit of outside space with major running-around space capacity, it was difficult to sufficiently tire a kid out in time for naptime. What's an exhausted and weather-beaten parent to do?

Luckily, enterprising child-minded 90s entrepreneurs had the answer: indoor play places. In these colorful, kid-friendly enclosed playgrounds, masses of children had the opportunity to run wild to their hearts' collective content. Parents, by lucky virtue of their inability to fit in those constrictive plastic crawl tubes, were mercilessly spared and allowed to sit back and relax from the observation area. Overall, a win-win situation.

All it took was a quick removal of shoes to be stored in the play place cubbies and we were generally good to go. Crawling spaces, climbing ropes, ball pits, and slides awaited us at every visit, turning these indoor play spaces into popular venues for birthday parties and playdates. While their appeal waned in the late 90s and many chains merged and eventually filed for bankruptcy, I'd like to remember them as they were: chaotic, germ-ridden, and filled with screaming children. At least we have our memories.


Discovery Zone



For a brief period in the early-to-mid 90s, DZ play places were a major force, opening centers in cities across the US. These self-proclaimed "indoor fitness centers" for children boasted an array of climbing, swinging, and sliding apparatuses. Perhaps DZ got a bit greedy, as their haste in opening venue after venue left them in a relatively dire financial situation. In 1996, the company filed for bankruptcy, inspiring the more dominant Chuck E. Cheese to quickly gobble up DZ franchises. By the end of the decade, Discovery Zones were but a brief memory to most 90s children.

Despite their short-lived popularity, many of us still remember the colorful commercials and catchy jingles that impelled us to beg our parents for what we considered to be our right to Discovery Zone time. Though the company failed to live up to their self-generated hype over time, for a time their slogan was right on: "Where kids want to be." Or, perhaps more appropriately, "Where fed-up and exhausted parents want to bring them."


Chuck E. Cheese



Among the few free-standing play place chains to cross over to the new millennium, Chuck E. Cheese's aptly cheesy concept has served them well over the years. Despite the undeniably frightening full-size animatronic mouse music show accompanying their signature sit-down pizza meal, Chuck E. Cheese has enjoyed relative success in the children's entertainment industry for over 30 years. Aside from the standard climbing equipment and ball pits, the chain also featured a sizable arcade stocked with standard fare. You've got to commend their multi-faceted approach at entertaining young consumers, but those giant singing mice are essentially unforgivable. They will haunt your dreams.



McDonalds PlayPlace


Some of today's savvier and consumer-minded children may be appalled to know some of us actually held birthday parties at (gasp!) McDonalds, but back in the late 80s and early 90s the novelty of these indoor PlayPlaces made them an attractive venue for children's celebrations. The relative cheapness of McDonalds' PlayPlaces in comparison to stand-alone chains like Chuck E. Cheese lured in budget-conscious parents. We may not have known what was in the Chicken McNuggets (suspiciously not containing all-white meat chicken breasts until a few years ago, leading me to suspect they once potentially contained shoes and tire remnants) but we knew one thing: PlayPlaces are free, Chuck E. Cheese costs money. Done deal.


Leaps and Bounds


McDonalds Corp knew they couldn't give it all away for free though--especially not when they saw their PlayPlace competitors raking in the big bucks from their pay-for-play centers. In 1991, McDonalds opened the pilot "Leaps & Bounds" center in an 11,000 square foot strip mall space Naperville, IL. The experiment was short-lived--the chain merged with the now-defunct Discovery Zone a few years later--but it was fun while it lasted.


Circus Pizza/Showbiz Pizza



These chains were somehow linked to the Chuck E. Cheese empire, though my research skills are a bit too hazy (read:lazy) to tell you exactly how. They featured the same basic Chuck E. Cheese prototype: arcade, ball bit, climbing zone, pizza, freaky animatronic performers. In case your memory needs some dusting off, here's a brief refresher course in the terrifying singing puppets: they were called the Rock-afire Explosion and you can see them in all of their horrific glory in the video above. Watch at your own risk: those things are creepy.


These play places varied significantly by region, so I imagine many of you grew up with different chains. Feel free to wax poetic in the comments section about your favorite mangy ball pit or sandbox station. These centers were popping up everywhere in the 90s, sometimes in the least expected places. Here, I'll get things started: my personal favorite was my family's annual stop at Grand Casino Hinckley in Minnesota--it may not sound like much of a place for children, but they had the play place to trump all other small-town isolated casino play places. To this day when I enter a casino, my instinct is not to sit down at the blackjack table but rather to ask the concierge for directions to the on-site enclosed play place. Screw slot machines: I want crawling tubes.

Okay, now it's your turn. Knock yourself out. Not literally, though. We don't have a brain-cushioning ballpit or recycled-tire floor here to break your fall.

Mr Sketch Scented Markers

There was nothing quite like fruit-scented marker sniffing to get the creative coloring time juices flowing. Sure, many of us ended up with an array of multicolored dots on the underside of our noses, but it was a minor price to pay for the sweet, sweet smell of cherries, lemons, and grapes. Our once neutral-smelling drawings were impressively transformed by Mr. Sketch, allowing us to create great aromatic works of art that bore olfactory resemblance to our supermarket produce sections. If you wanted to outline something in black, though, you had to be prepared to sniff at your own risk. Black licorice. Yech.

For a generation facing increasing concerns of huffing and household chemical abuse, it seems strange in retrospect that our parents and teachers once actively encouraged good old fashioned marker sniffing. Rubber cement and Sharpies were still no-nos, yet somehow these odoriferous drawing implements managed to fly quietly under the anxious anti-drug authority radar. Perhaps their non-toxicity played a role in their ubiquitous position on the parent-approved school supply list, but their addictive nature certainly likened them to the verboten.

There remains something sweetly (yes, sweetly--also pungently) naughty about inhaling these fruity marker smells. The markers held major kid appeal of color vibrancy alone, so the addition of a novel sensory stimulus was almost too much to handle. Imagine, you could now draw a lemon that smelled like a lemon. Was there no end to these incredible and undoubtedly necessary technological advances in school supplies? Forget pertinent socially conscious research on health and diseases--one sniff of these markers and I vowed to become a marker lab scientist.

The process of smellifying these markers remains a mystery to many of us former (excuse me, recovering) Mr. Sketch users. How exactly did this innovative marker producer squeeze that tantalizing aroma into this convenient tubular marker form? Is there some sort of fruit condensing machine? A scent extractor? While I still like to imagine a whimsical marker factory a la Dr. Seuss where colorfully-dressed workers load grapes and mangoes into shiny chrome machinery, from whose other end pops out perfectly apportioned scented markers.

In reality, the scentsational (scentsational! I'm on a roll!) smells of Mr. Sketch markers were purely chemical in nature. The giveaway? These art supplies smelled more strongly of fruit than actual fruit itself. It may not seem possible to get a more watermelony smell than that emanating from the fruit in the flesh (Flesh! Fruit! Puns!) but Mr. Sketch achieved the olfactorily impossible. Kudos, Mr. Sketch. You've out-fruited fruit.

Though not directly related to the quality of the fruity scents or ink quality, the name "Mr. Sketch" seems worth flagging as mildly suspicious. While it's clear the "Sketch" in "Mr. Sketch" refers to the art of drawing, the addition of the formal "Mr." title adds dubious implications about Mr. Sketch's credentials for spending long stretches of time with unsupervised children. Perhaps I'm just a cynic, but the name brings to mind images of disheveled trench-coat wearing men in windowless vans luring children from their playground activities with lollipops and Three Musketeers. While the unsavory (unsavory! These scent puns are out of control!) connotation is obviously not the intention of the Sanford company, it remains a bit troubling nonetheless. I don't have any children so perhaps I am not a reliable judge of caretaker quality, but I doubt I would let someone named "Mr. Sketch" interact with my children in their spare time. Just saying.


Fun-poking at the undeniably sketchy name aside, Mr. Sketch markers deserve recognition as a legitimate childhood phenomenon. These sets' ubiquitous presence in cubbies, art classrooms, backpacks, and playrooms made them a staple for the coloring-minded 90s child. Our parents and teachers knew these markers as veritable weapons in the war on our wavering attention spans; Mr. Sketch's deliciously fruity aroma could always occupy an otherwise cranky child in a pinch. Watermelon, lemon, cherries, and yes, even the ominously scented black licorice markers sufficiently won our limited juvenile focus.

Mr. Sketch allowed us to fixate on an unusual multitude of sensory stimuli: Sight, touch, smell, and for the not conventionally bright among us, taste. Thank goodness for non-toxicity. If our teachers, parents, and babysitters each had a nickel for every child who attempted to taste the fruity flavors of the rainbow by imprinting their tongues with the multi-hued slant tips of these markers, they would all be exceptionally rich individuals in their middle age. Instead, they will have to settle for the comforting knowledge that we at least did not poison ourselves with our curiosity. Not nickel per taste comforting, but it will have to do.