How A Real-Life Event Forced A Seinfeld Season To Premiere Early

"Seinfeld" is widely recognized as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time because of its ingenuity to think outside its television constraints. Whether it's an episode taking place in a single location like "The Chinese Restaurant" or breaking television taboos with a masturbation contest (that never even says the word), the NBC comedy kept breaking new ground. It all makes sense when you remember that the show was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, both of whom were comedians throwing all these crazy ideas out there to see what sticks. "Seinfeld" certainly had its missteps along the way, but for the most part, its plots and gags were starting to ingrain in the pop culture zeitgeist. It took time, however, for the show to really become the water cooler phenomenon it's remembered for.

Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), George (Jason Alexander), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Kramer (Michael Richards) were quickly becoming the kind of chaotic, yet memorable television characters that didn't adhere to any semblance of life lessons or moral grounding. It was truly unpredictable what kind of predicaments they were going to get themselves into next. By the time "Seinfeld" had reached its fourth season, it was off to the races, with some considering it as the show's best season overall.

In addition to having infamous episodes like "The Bubble Boy," season 4 was really leaning into multi-episode arcs, with the most famous being Jerry and George trying to sell their comedy pilot to NBC. But, like clockwork, they would run into some kind of roadblock in the process, leading to its further delay. The end of season 3 culminated in a cliffhanger with Kramer having up and left New York to go live in Los Angeles. "Seinfeld" would feel naked without Kramer among the ensemble, so it wasn't so much a matter of if they would bring him back, and more a matter of how. The season 4 premiere "The Trip" was a hilarious two-parter that saw Jerry and George head to LA and inadvertently get wrapped up in Kramer being mistaken for a local serial killer called the "Smog Strangler."

Most shows with 22 episode stretches often get their start in the Fall around September in order to accommodate all those airdates going into the following year, but "The Trip" got a head start on everyone else because of a world event television viewers were already glued to.

It might surprise you to learn that NBC was not just the home of "Seinfeld" (shocking, I know), but it was also the central hub for airing the Olympics. From July 29 to August 9, the 1992 games were held in Barcelona, Spain, with all eyes on the celebrated network to broadcast the weeks-long stretch of athleticism back to the United States. In a DVD featurette, "Seinfeld" writer Larry Charles talks about how NBC saw the ratings bump as the perfect opportunity to get more eyeballs on "Seinfeld" by bumping up the season 4 premiere a month early:

"[NBC executive] Warren Littlefield wanted to take advantage of the Olympics as a kind of platform for the show, and Larry [David] was just not really in the mood to do that. And he said 'if you want to do it, go ahead and do it.' So, again, it gave me the opportunity to be ambitious and to explore and experiment, and the idea of a three-part episode that would actually be completed with the opening of the next season really interested me."

"The Trip" would only end up being two parts, but it was a successful gambit nonetheless, garnering 16.3 million viewers in the process. What's most interesting about this strategy, however, was that "Part 1" aired on August 12, 1992, three days after the Summer Olympics had already ended. You think that you would want to air your hot new property right after the games had concluded for the day to take advantage of straggling viewers. Airing special episodes or upcoming pilots is a tactic networks use all the time after with events like the Academy Awards, the Grammys and the Super Bowl. We all remember "Animal Practice," don't we? But in this case, everything was already over.

If anything, it at least gave "Seinfeld" an advantage over everyone else, especially with "Part 2" airing the following week on August 19. Season 4 would continue from this point over a month later on September 16.

Every episode of "Seinfeld" is currently streaming on Netflix.