re: Who was Jerry closer to friendship wise? George or Elaine?

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I think that if you looked in on TV Jerry twenty years later, you'd find him still close with George but not as close with Elaine. A wife might put some distance between Jerry and his old girlfriend. Not so much with George.

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This exactly. Very well put.

George is clearly #1.

However I'm going to make a case for Kramer as Jerry's next closest friend. Here's why...

1. The Backwards episode: at the end, it shows Jerry first moving into the apartment and Kramer was there. So they've been neighbors for a long long time. It's only natural that they be friends.

2. Kramer goes to LA: if Kramer weren't so close to Jerry, why would Jerry feel so guilty over taking back his keys?

3. The Mom & Pop: kramer's nosebleed and Jerry taking care of him on the bus on the way to Parsippany.

4. The Kramanium: Newman doesn't want Jerry at his NYE party. It tears Kramer up inside and keeps him awake at night. He even sacrifices Newman's party to be with Jerry for the new millennium. He even uses Elaine as a reason to get Jerry to the party.

5. The New Area Code: Kramer gets lost downtown and Jerry drops everything to go get him.

I think that their relationship is very unconventional but there's no denying that they care about eachother. In an almost brotherly way.

The characters were definitely not evil. They were people who were generally a bit on the selfish side but most of them tried to be good when they could. This is how most of us are IRL. Kramer was probably the furthest on the "nice" side and George was furthest on the "selfhish" side, but none were evil.

And I totally agree the thing w/ Babu was not Jerry's fault. He made a suggestion to the guy.

The show stands up so well. One of the few that I can still watch 90% of the episodes and enjoy.

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Elaine tried to abandon the friendship more than once. Most notably with the bizarro friends.

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But George wanted to go with her ("We've already got a George").

Anyway, George is obviously the correct answer. They grew up together; even went to college together.

But there is a line from an episode that always bothered me. The episode where George and Mike ("Man, that Michael Jordan is so phony!") fight over the same parking space in front of Jerry's apartment. They mention that they both know Jerry, and George says he knows him "probably a lot better" than Mike does. How could that have even been in question, since Jerry and George were best friends since high school?

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You should check out the podcast Seincast. They are going through in meticulous detail of every episode. It's great.

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Thanks for the rec. I'll check it out.