20 best sitcom squads we want to be friends with
By Reed Gaudens
8. Seinfeld
Members: Throughout this list, you’ll find a few sitcom friend groups that were influential fixtures in pop culture. They impacted how the world saw a certain sector of life, and they also opened the doors for other series to do the same with their groups of friend. Seinfeld, a show famous for being “about nothing,” followed the daily exploits of Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), George (Jason Alexander), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and Kramer (Michael Richards), no matter how minor.
Memorable moments: Seinfeld‘s 180 episodes are all memorable moments in their own right, seeing as the series was so cutting edge and in a league of its own. Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer showed us the comedy of errors of daily life as a group, and that always inspired classic moments that helped shape the future of sitcoms. Moments like Festivus, the shrinkage in the Hamptons episode, the close-talker, the puffy shirt, and a legion of additional comedy heights have landed Seinfeld the honor of being dubbed one of the best sitcoms of all time. You can’t beat this group.
Running gags: Perhaps the most striking recurring theme of Seinfeld, and its most brilliant quality, is that the sitcom broke form for how comedies typically operated. Under the “no hugging, no learning” rule, the characters weren’t meant to develop but simply react to the world and situations around them. But even if they weren’t learning, they were providing the world with quotable moments like, “Yada, yada, yada,” “No soup for you!,” “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!,” and the crowned jewel of the series, Festivus.
Key episodes: “The Stake Out,” “The Chinese Restaurant,” “The Parking Garage,” “The Contest,” “The Puffy Shirt,” “The Marine Biologist,” “The Fusilli Jerry,” “The Chicken Roaster,” “The Soup Nazi,” “The Bizarro Jerry,” “The Yada Yada” The Merv Griffin Show.”