![](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/t100_tv_seinfeld1.jpg?quality=85&w=550)
Channeled through Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David’s most dyspeptic ideas about people preferring the misery of others to their own mild inconvenience came off as amusing rather than misanthropic; through David, Seinfeld‘s what’s-the-deal riffs became piercing insights, not trivia. And few roles have been so perfectly cast and complemented as Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the sharp-tongued Elaine, Michael Richards as gawky oddball Kramer, Jason Alexander as self-interested George, and Seinfeld as, well, Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld was a hearty soup of humor, a layered marble rye of humanity, master of its comic domain—it was real, and it was spectacular.
[time-brightcove videoid=117189229]