After a slow and inauspicious beginning, Seinfeld broke through to become one of the most commercially successful sitcoms in the history of television. It was named by TV Guide as ''The Greatest Show of All Time,'' and has become an entrenched part of American popular culture - its language, jokes, characters, and situations part of the water cooler vocabulary of two, even three, generations. This fascinating book includes classic articles on the show by Geoffrey O'Brien and Bill Wyman (first published in the ''New York Review of Books'' and Salon.com respectively), and a selection of new and revised essays by some of the top television scholars in the US - looking at issues as wide-ranging as Seinfeld's Jewishness, alleged nihilism, food obsession, and long-running syndication. The book also includes a comprehensive episode guide, and Betty Lee's lexicon of Seinfeld language.