>> ALEX: This Technicality episode is brought to you by Squarespace.
Hey guys, I’m here, let’s get technical.
I’m 16 years old, and, even though I born years after Seinfeld ended, I still love watching
episodes to this day, just like how my parents loved watching episodes when they first aired.
There’s something about Seinfeld that transcends generations and makes it still incredibly
astute and enjoyable.
However, while it does transcend time, it doesn’t transcend geography.
It turns out Seinfeld is actually is one of the hardest shows to translate to another
language.
Despite having a massive fanbase in America, with it’s series finale being the 6th most
watched television event of all time, boasting somewhere between 76 and 108 million viewers,
and despite the usual success of American sitcoms in other countries, it’s struggled
to find a mainstream audience all over Europe.
A matter of fact, the only place besides America where it’s gained some traction is in Latin
America.
Why?
Why is Seinfeld so uniquely hard to translate?
There are two reasons, but let’s start by learning more about how Jerry Seinfeld writes
a joke.
>> TRACY MORGAN: You wanna know why people laugh at that? It's the *bad scary adult word* truth.
>> JERRY SEINFELD: No, it's not. Funny is funny. Funny has a certain life to it, a certain magic to it.
If you only needed truth, people would just read the paper and howl.
Jerry doesn’t believe something is funny just because it’s true, as seen in that
clip from Jerry’s show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
Yes, episodes of Seinfeld are true and relatable to an American audience (we’ll get back
to that later), but Seinfeld’s relatability doesn’t make the show great solely on its
own; there are many other factors that make up FUNNY.
So what is that magic?
To find out, let’s look at a couple clips from this interview Jerry did with the New
York Times on his joke-writing process.
One of those factors that makes up funny, arguably one of the most important factors
when it comes to Seinfeld, is how much of the humor relies on the nature of English,
how words are said, and what the connotations of those words are.
This is the first problem with translating Seinfeld: humour based in words.
Word-based humour makes up a large chunk of Seinfeld/ For example, take this scene from
the season 3 episode The Boyfriend.
The phrase “You’ve got to see the baby” isn’t inherently funny, but the way Jerry
says it (the cadence, the voice, the inflections etc.), makes it so.
Notice how, in the German version, the phrase is...
Let’s compare that to the German version.
Notice how, in the German version, the phrase is...
“du musst das Baby sehen.”
I...
I didn’t wanna butcher it.
Sehen, meaning see, is placed at the end of the sentence, and thus given the emphasis,
and when the emphasis is on see and not baby, some of the humour is lost.
Moreover, as you just saw, many European countries strongly prefer dubbing to subtitles.
There are a variety of reasons for this.
First, nationalism.
Dubbing first arose in Europe in 1930s, where many countries were under fascist leaders
and governments, and believed that if they heard their language in pop culture, it would
validate it and increase country pride.
Second, there’s a whole industry built around dubbing in various countries now, and third,
in some languages, the information per character is smaller than in English, meaning some subtitles
can’t even physically fit on the screen.
Thus, because dubbing is so heavily prefered, even more of word-and-cadence-based humour
is lost.
Uhh, random sidenote here, I’m such a big proponent of subtitles over dubbing that I
Now Alex, you say, “We’ve got to see the baby” is such a tiny example
This adds nothing to video, I just wanted to share one of my greatest accomplishments.
Now Alex, you say, “We’ve got to see the baby” is such a tiny example
Just cuz one line is a bit different and the humor is lost doesn’t mean the whole series
is doomed.
Well, yes, but since Seinfeld is based so heavily on word-based humor, this happens
all the time, and all of it takes a hit.
Take the “These pretzels are making me thirsty” phrase from the season 3 episode The Alternate
Side.
*with an exaggerated emphasis* These pretzels are making me thirsty.
me thirsty; what’s funny is the nature of the words and how each character says it.
*with an exaggerated emphasis* These pretzels are making me thirsty.
And that’s just kinda lost in translation, as they say.
However, things do sometimes work out.
In the season 3 episode The Library, George Costanza’s gym teacher calls him Cantstandya.
In the Germasn version, it was translated to Kotztanzo, which does sound like
Costanza, but is also an insult.
In the Germasn version, it was translated to Kotztanzo, which does sound like
Costanza and is a German insult.
At this point in the video, it’s probably a good idea to explore what made Seinfeld
so unique and so great.
What is the show about nothing really about?
Seinfeld was so revolutionary because it would pick a mundane aspect of our social life,
actually created by Seinfeld), a minute aspect of human life that wasn’t usually
Whether it was close talking, exclamation points, the speed dial, or regifting (a term
at least, that’s what we think.
actively discussed in society was picked, and, yada yada yada, we have a Seinfeld episode.
at least, that’s what we think.
This is Elke Van Cassel, author of Getting the Joke, Even If It’s About Nothing: Seinfeld
from a European Perspective.
It’s one of the many essays in this phenomenal book: Seinfeld, Master of Its Domain, Revisiting
Television’s Greatest Sitcom.
She asked both American and Dutch participants in a focus group what they thought of Seinfeld’s
plots.
“‘Seinfeld is a show about reality,’ said one of the American participants.
The show, she pointed out, is about “nothing in particular, but it’s everything about
what we deal with every day.’...
As another of the American participants pointed out, the show’s humor is about ‘the little
things people never talk about, but everybody knows about’ and the ‘tacit assumptions
about the way people are supposed to act.’...
While American participants stressed their recognition of trivial everyday annoyances
and situations, breeches of social eduqiute, and dating rules portrayed on the show, Dutch
participants emphasized that on Seinfeld everything is blown out of proportion, and the humor
is often over-the-top.”
How can two groups of people watch the same thing, and come away with different interpretations?
The answer: relatability.
Americans love Seinfeld because they talk about American social issues, while Europeans
say it merely reminds them of Americans they know, which doesn’t really spur the same
passion for and enjoyment of a show as personally relating to it does.
“[An] American participant pointed out that a lot of the jokes are about American culture,
giving the example of Jerry’s opening stand-up comedy bit in “The Wife,” in which he
talks about Americans fervently obeying dry-cleaning tags, but not paying attention to government
warnings.”
“Another American participant pointed out that Seinfeld says a lot about the American
character: ‘I really believe that humor is indicative of social values, what we perceive
as funny, [and] what we perceive as being immoral.’”
This is the second problem with translating Seinfeld: the subject matter discussed on
Seinfeld is so largely centered around American culture, customs, and etiquette that it doesn’t
really translate to other countries.
While pretty much all sitcoms have pop culture references, they’re usually rooted in universal
concepts, like family or romantic love, which transcends geographic location.
Seinfeld, the show about nothing, is based on none of that; it instead finds itself generally
rooted in commentary on American social customs, something that DOESN’T translate super well
at all.
While Seinfeld is overflowing with examples I could use to support this point, my personal
favourite is songs the characters casually sing.
Take, for example, the season 3 episode “The Note,”
Kramer claims he saw Joe Dimaggio, a baseball player for the New York Yankees, in a donut
shop, and then goes on to claim that he was very focused and calculated when eating and
dunking his donuts.
Kramer ends up, in the middle of a completely different conversation about how one of their
acquaintances is under investigation for insurance fraud, singing the song “Joltin’ Joe”
*kinda laughing* This doesn’t translate.
Not only does the actual sound of words not translate (“go joe”), but think about
the cultural knowledge you have to have to fully understand that.
You gotta know about Joe DiMaggio, baseball, the Yankees, and it wouldn’t hurt to have
at least heard the song “Joltin Joe” before, which they play the original version of over
the credits of that episode.
This whole situation would be like an American watching a sitcom about how a famous cricket
player eats a certain food, and then randomly starts singing some song about him.
*Maybe* it would still be funny, but certainly not *as* funny to an American than to someone
from the original country.
Wanna even harder song to translate?
Because, yes, this isn’t the only example of singing and American culture being fused
in Seinfeld.
In the season 8 episode “The Susie.”
In it, George is trying to avoid his girlfriend Allison because he heard she wanted to break
up with him, and quote "If she can't find me, she can't break up with me."
*laughing* this is a great show.
Anyways, in that process, he lets all of his incoming calls go voicemail, and we can hear
his answering machine message.
If you didn’t catch that, that was George adapting the theme song of the show “The
Greatest American Hero” to his voicemail message.
If you’re curious, the original theme song from that show that’s sampled in George’s
production is playing in the background right now.
This was a tricky translation.
Not only did you have vibe of the song (George’s lackluster singing humorously plastered on
top of this theme song), you also had to know The Greatest American Hero, cuz, if you didn’t,
it would just be George singing to some song.
Here’s the German version.
It doesn’t really have the same effect.
When Ekle Van Cassel asked the Dutch focus group about dating in Seinfeld,
the concept of dating.
When Ekle Van Cassel asked the Dutch focus group about dating in Seinfeld,
many were straight up confused.
You know how Jerry basically has a new girlfriend in every episode of Seinfeld?
Dutch viewers didn’t get that; they said casual relationships like that don’t really
happen in the Netherlands.
Heck, there’s no direct equivalent of the word dating in Dutch.
Ultimately, the problem with translating Seinfeld is that it did something so revolutionarily
American, it just doesn’t work as well in other places.
Is Seinfeld a thing in your country?
Or, is it as big as it seems to be in America?
Let me know in the comments down below; I’m really interested.
Is all hope lost for Seinfeld?
No, not at all.
The impact it’s made on culture is undeniable, and it’s still incredibly popular.
Back in 2015, Hulu reportedly paid $160,000,000, or about $875,000 an episode, to put Seinfeld
on its streaming service, and a new generation is getting hooked on the game-changing sitcom.
If you’re going to create a show about nothing, you better have a stunning website to go along
with it, and the absolute best way to create a website is with Squarespace.
Alex Nickel here, for Squarespace.
TO SHOW YOU THE POWER OF SQUARESPACE, I SAWED THIS BOAT IN HALF.
I put one half in this video, and one half on my Squarespace website, which you can click
the i to check out.
Not having a website can do major damage.
Having a website is absolutely crucial if you wanna showcase your work, sell a product,
or have a hub for your online presence.
That means Squarespace is perfect for YouTubers, Artists, Gamers, or literally anyone!
And I’m pretty sure you fall into one of those categories.
Don’t ask my how I know it’s just... it’s psychic.
Squarespace keeps working, even in the toughest conditions.
There’s never anything you need to patch or upgrade.
Uhh but in all seriousness, trying out Squarespace really does help Technicality
if you wanna add your own HTML or CSS or JavaScript, you can do that to.
Uhh but in all seriousness, trying out Squarespace really does help Technicality
so if you wanna do that and make a state-of-the-art website, go to Squarespace.com/Technicality
and start your completely free trial today.
Plus, when you fall in love with your website, you can use the code Technicality at checkout
at get 10% off.
Thanks y’all!
If you liked this video, it really helps if you gently click that like button.
No need to smash.
Don’t wanna break your phone and/or other device you’re watching this on.
Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already and check out the other videos on screen right
now.
Thanks to all my patrons at Patreon.com/Techicality, especially these awesome people.
For the secret code this episode, the number is 1 and the word is I'm.
Thanks for watching, DFTBA, and explore on.