Thursday, February 5, 2009

Watching Seinfeld with Dad or Not

A little while back I wondered if my son would enjoy fishing with me. Today I turn my inquisitive nature to a less active pursuit...watching TV. Seinfeld is my favorite TV show of all time. It has been in syndication forever so you are all probably familiar with the show but on the wild chance you are not you can check out some clips here. I used to watch 1 or 2 episodes every day after work. That led to me seeing every episode 10 or more times. Now I have all 9 seasons on DVD and can watch them whenever I want although being a husband and a dad has reduced my time with Jerry and the gang to 1 or 2 episodes a week. The question I have today is whether some day Braden will enjoy Seinfeld like I do, or will he shake his head and say "I can't believe you're watching that stupid show again Dad."


There is precedence for young people watching older shows. They are on TV all the time so they are certainly available. When I was a kid I watched old favorites like "Leave it to Beaver", "The Adams Family", "Gilligan's Island", "The Brady Bunch" and many others. Those shows were family friendly and I watched them at my Grandma's house most of the time. Also during those times there were not too many TV channels so I had limited choices. As an adult I enjoy "All in the Family" and "Sanford and Son". You can see that personally I enjoy older shows. I feel that a good show or movie is timeless and should be enjoyed by every generation.


Seinfeld has a lot of adult themes like "The Contest" and others so this question will not be answered for a long while. By the time Braden is old enough to handle the content there is no telling what other media options will be readily available. We can already watch video on the computer at the click of a button. We already have DVRs that will record everything and iPod's that make video download and storage extremely convenient. I hope all this technology and the certain improvements to come will help Braden enjoy some of my old favorites rather than make them obsolete.


I guess the biggest question is how does a brand new person develop their sense of humor. I am sure it's developed mostly based on the environment surrounding the child. I hope being around me will help Braden develop my sense of humor. If he doesn't then he will probably spend a lot of his life trying to figure out what is wrong with me. On second thought my sense of humor could be a curse because it is unique to say the least. I guess the best thing would be for our humor to intersect in just the right places like Seinfeld.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's a mix of environment and personality. For example, I love Sci-Fi because my dad is into it, so I grew up watching Star Trek, Star Wars, Twilight Zone etc. I also like classic rock because that's all my mom listened to when I was a kid. But somewhere along the line I also acquired a taste for indy films and punk rock. . .

Hopefully, Seinfeld will be something you two can share. Like my parents and the Raiders for me.

I like watching Sienfeld just to see his awesome feathered mullet! It's classic!

Anonymous said...

I agree with New Dad. I grew up on most of the shows you mentioned, and some of my Dad's favorites as well. He loved Carson and The Dean Martin Roasts. You watch some of those roasts today and they are still hilarious. Your son will get a good mix of his stuff, and your stuff.