Entertainment

Every Time Nothing Happened on 'Seinfeld'

by Celeste Mora

Seinfeld is commonly associated with two things: being the first sit com about "nothing," and having a killer slap bass theme song. Although the "nothing" on Seinfeld most people refer to when they discuss Jerry and the gang usually refers to the break from plot-based comedy, there are also quite a few scenes where nothing literally happens. Jerry doesn't make a quip about "the guy," no Soup Nazis appear, Elaine stops dancing, and Kramer finally knocks before entering a room. Of course, these are the scenes where the camera pans to the the outside of Jerry's apartment building, the objects within it, or some other location in the Seinfeldverse, but nonetheless, they don't have any action. And they have more than enough slap bass.

Since these scenes are clearly central to Seinfeld's role in the history of comedy, Vimeo user LJ Frezza has spliced them together into one big nothingness supercut. Although the six-and-a-half minute video of "a New York without people" starts off with bright bass lines and laugh tracks, it ends with disturbingly silent shots of empty apartments, making it seem like an art house film made by Jean-Paul Sartre himself. Watch the now-viral supercut, but beware, an existential crisis is seven minutes in your future.