The master of his domain is calling it quits.
"Seinfeld," the most defining and popular comedy of the decade, will halt production this spring after its ninth season. NBC early Friday confirmed the decision made by Jerry Seinfeld, the comedy's star and creator.The announcement blows a gaping hole in NBC's Thursday night lineup, by far the most popular in television. "Seinfeld" has won 10 Emmys.
Seinfeld's decision made for a blue Christmas at the network, even if the announcement wasn't entirely unexpected. Last spring, following a contract dispute between cast members and NBC, the comedian said he would decide around the end of the year whether to continue.
He made good on his promise - and that's bad for "Seinfeld" fans.
"I wanted to end the show on the same kind of peak we've been doing it on for years," Seinfeld said Friday in The New York Times. "I wanted the end to be from a point of strength. I wanted the end to be graceful."
And so it's an end to the show that made "not that there's anything wrong with that" and even "mulva" favorite phrases for viewers. Nothing was too trivial to inspire a half-hour's ribbing; one episode had the cast searching for their car after a day at the mall.
The comedy that is so famously about nothing did it well, shedding a humorous light on the goings-on of four self-absorbed New Yorkers in an Everyman kind of way.
Its ensemble cast has Jerry, his former girlfriend, Elaine, George and Kramer stumbling through life meeting such inane characters as the Soup Nazi, the bubble boy and a hateful mailman named New-man.
Kramer never just walks through Jerry's doorway - he bursts in, skidding just short of the furniture. George is romantically challenged - the whole gang is, for that matter.
The showcase for the dysfunctional friends became a major profit-maker for the network and evolved into a signpost for the 1990s just as surely as "The Cosby Show" marked the 1980s and "All in the Family" the tumultuous '70s.
The "Seinfeld" finale next spring promises to be a television event along the magnitude of final episodes of the long-running TV hits "MASH" and "Cheers."
"We've all seen a million athletes where you say, `I wish they didn't do those last two years,' " Seinfeld told the Times. "For me, this is all about timing. My life is all about timing. As a comedian, my sense of timing is everything."