Seinfeld: 10 Classic Episodes That Still Outshine Modern Sitcoms

Seinfeld is a timeless masterpiece of multi-camera comedy, and its classic episodes are still funnier than any of the sitcoms getting made today. Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David proved to be a comedy dream team when they paired up to write a pilot about how comedians get their material and ended up revolutionizing the form.

With its notorious “no hugging, no learning” policy, Seinfeld eschewed the soapy, saccharin melodrama of shows like Friends and Will & Grace in favor of a blunter, darker approach to comedy, with cold, uncaring, borderline irredeemable characters. Seinfeld inspired a generation of cynical sitcoms, from Father Ted to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and it’s still better than anything made today.

The Puffy Shirt

Season 5, Episode 2

In an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David named “The Puffy Shirt” as one of his favorite Seinfeld episodes, and it’s easy to see why. The “low talker” is a relatable comedic premise, highlighting a universal social frustration, and Jerry unwittingly agreeing to wear a frilly buccaneer shirt on national television is the most delightfully absurd application of that premise.

Sight gags never get old, and thanks to the titular blouse, there’s a visual component to the humor in “The Puffy Shirt.” The episode has a great B-plot to tie it all together: George’s short-lived hand-modeling career.

The Dinner Party

Season 5, Episode 13

Seinfeld’s satire of pointless social conventions is timeless, because we can never escape the unwritten rules of society. Three decades later, it’s still just as much of an annoying chore to buy something nice for the hosts before attending a dinner party.

In season 5’s “The Dinner Party,” en route to such a dinner party, Jerry and Elaine go to the bakery to pick up a cake while George and Kramer go to the liquor store to get a bottle of wine. Naturally, disaster strikes at every turn: double-parking, line-pushing, food poisoning. By the time they get to the dinner party, they’re all too miserable to stay.

The Bizarro Jerry

Season 8, Episode 3

Immediately after David left the show and Seinfeld became the sole showrunner, the series dropped a full-blown Superman-themed episode. In “The Bizarro Jerry,” Elaine befriends a man who’s Jerry’s exact opposite: kind, thoughtful, selfless, intellectually curious. She also meets a generous, self-confident version of George and a sensible, business-savvy version of Kramer.

This kind of meta humor was way ahead of its time. It played on the audience’s familiarity with the characters by presenting their polar opposites, and it remains a razor-sharp deconstruction of the series’ own ensemble.

The Outing

Season 4, Episode 17

There were a lot of sitcom episodes about gay panic in the 1990s, but very few of them captured the absurdity of it (and highlighted the straight male insecurity of it) quite as effectively as Seinfeld’s “The Outing.” With one simple phrase — “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” — Seinfeld put itself leagues ahead of other contemporary commentaries on homosexuality.

If you go back and watch a lot of ’90s sitcom episodes about gay panic, they’ve aged horribly. But “The Outing” has aged like a fine wine.

The Opposite

Season 5, Episode 22

In the season 5 finale, “The Opposite,” George decides to do the opposite of every instinct that crosses his mind, and instantly turns his life around. He gets his dream job, a beautiful girlfriend, and he moves out of his parents’ house. Meanwhile, Elaine’s life crumbles around her as she becomes the new George.

Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus play this role reversal perfectly. It’s hilarious to see George brimming with insufferable self-confidence, and it’s just as hilarious to see Elaine crash and burn.

The Limo

Season 3, Episode 19

One of Seinfeld’s darker episodes, season 3’s “The Limo,” might be even more relevant today. It sees Jerry and George stealing a limo ride from a waylaid traveler named “O’Brien” and getting a lot more than they bargained for.

As it turns out, O’Brien is a white supremacist leader on his way to speak at a big neo-Nazi rally — and, as far as anyone knows, George is O’Brien. Now that white supremacists like O’Brien are unfortunately back on the rise, the twisted mistaken-identity satire of “The Limo” rings even truer.

The Rye

Season 7, Episode 11

George and Susan finally introduce their parents to each other in season 7’s “The Rye,” and it goes just as horribly as you’d expect. Frank and Estelle bicker and yell across the dinner table, throwing out wildly inappropriate remarks, and Mr. and Mrs. Ross are not impressed.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. From there, the episode escalates into a Marx Brothers farce where Kramer drives a hansom cab, Jerry steals a loaf of bread from an elderly woman, and George uses a fishing rod to hook a peacekeeping marble rye.

The Marine Biologist

Season 5, Episode 14

George is used to keeping up his own web of lies, but he has to play along with one of Jerry’s lies in “The Marine Biologist.” After Jerry tells the “it” girl from their high school that George has a successful career in marine biology, he has to keep the ruse going — even when he’s asked to save a beached whale.

The denouement of “The Marine Biologist” epitomizes the comedic genius of Seinfeld. George’s monologue is perfectly written and perfectly delivered, and the twist that the whale was beached by Kramer’s golf ball is a dovetailing masterclass.

The Contest

Season 4, Episode 11

“The Contest” is bound to come up in any discussion of Seinfeld’s best episodes. It’s often described as one of the greatest episodes of television ever produced. Larry David ingeniously worked around the network censors to do a full half-hour episode about masturbation without using the word “masturbation” once.

From “master of your domain” to “treating your body like an amusement park,” David came up with all kinds of hilarious euphemisms to have his satirical cake and eat it, too. It’s the kind of premise that would only work on Seinfeld.

The Fire

Season 5, Episode 20

While “The Contest” is a masterpiece of television writing, it’s not quite the funniest episode of Seinfeld. Pound for pound, laugh for laugh, the most hilarious episode of Seinfeld is season 5’s “The Fire.”

This episode is just one great scene after another: George pushing women and children out of his way to escape a fire; Kramer describing his Batman-like act of heroism to salvage a pinky toe; Jerry going down to a heckler’s office to heckle her right back. “The Fire” is Seinfeld at its absolute finest.