IT took a move to Washington to get hooked on Seinfeld. Watching it in Ireland, the most popular TV sitcom in the US didn't seem all that funny.
Kramer was clearly a head case and George a wimp. Elaine was bitchy and not that pretty. And as for the eponymous Seinfeld, alias Jerry he was a sex-obsessed, whining and a bad stand-up comedian.
OK, now I'm hooked, even if the characters are just the same. It's more fun in the evenings watching the re-runs than the political jousting between Pat Buchanan and Geraldine Ferraro on Crossfire.
Panic was spreading through US homes as the greedy George, Kramer and Elaine refused recently to make any more programmes unless they got $1 million a show each, up from the present $160,000. Jerry already gets his million, plus some of the $300 million profit NBC makes from the huge advertising the show generates.
The press conference announcing a deal had been done and that we're guaranteed two more years of Seinfeld was introduced by NBC with the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. Yes, the news was that important to the fans. And the grasping trio settled for a reported $600,000-a-show, plus stock options.
They're not worth it, of course. Even they acknowledge that in their rare honest moments. As George puts it: "It doesn't make sense for people to go on the television and make jokes and get paid all that money. Teachers don't make that. Cops don't make that."
For some critics Seinfeld portrays the decadence eating away at the American psyche. Columnist Maureen Dowd says it gives cultural expression to Yuppie navel-gazing.
"Anthropological attention was paid to relationship anxiety, frozen yoghurt, muffins, mail order catalogues, antique armoires, breast implants, bodily functions, onanism, yada yada yada," Dowd writes.
If you haven't seen the yada yada episode, don't fret. It's like when the Irish say "de dah de dah de dah" to fill in the blanks.
When NBC screened a pilot show of Seinfeld back in 1989, an audience reaction report on Jerry said: "He's just a loser. Who'd want to watch this guy?"
Many millions of dollars later, Jerry laughs at this and adds in a few more of the negative comments. "It's hard to get excited about two guys going to the laundromat", and "Jerry is dense and indecisive."
It's a show about nothing" has been the standard comment on Seinfeld for years. And yet it's number one. How come?
Elaine says: "We're amused. It's clearly not about nothing. But also it is about nothing, because 10 minutes after you've seen it, you can't, really remember what you saw.
Jerry waffles about a darkness to the soul of the show" and says that all comedians have an essential crankiness if they're funny at all."
About the characters he has created, Jerry says: There's nothing really likable about them except that they kind of remind you of yourself. That's their only redeeming quality because on paper they're incredibly selfish and conniving. They will even trick each other, their closest friends, for the basest of goals, usually money or sex.
So we are really seeing ourselves in greedy George, head-the-ball Kramer, scheming Elaine and gormless Jerry. That's what I was afraid of.
And they do give bad example. As one letter-writer who for the most part" likes the show pointed out: "There is far too much easy promiscuity".
Elaine "seems to sleep with a new lover almost every week. She has already slept with Jerry but her happy promiscuity is not a good example for young people."
Then there are the strange relationships" between Jerry and George and their respective families. "There is complete deceit in George's attitude, trying to fool his parents in everything he tries and fails to do. There is complete misunderstanding by George's parents of George, a loser whom they raised but for whom they have little compassion."
Jerry also can't relate to his parents. "He is generous to them with money, but he spends his time trying to deceive them as to his real-life sexual activity. His parents are pictured as completely unaware of his bachelor lifestyle and the writers seem to think it funny to portray them as stupid."
Suddenly, Seinfeld doesn't seem 59 funny any more. Maybe it is time to switch back to the politicians on Crossfire. They're not promiscuous and conniving. Are they?