How did the Seinfeld pilot get greenlit?

I looked on the wiki and I thought this was interesting.

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The show premiered as The Seinfeld Chronicles on July 5, 1989. After it aired, a pickup by NBC seemed unlikely and the show was offered to Fox, which declined to pick it up. Rick Ludwin, head of late night and special events for NBC, however, diverted money from his budget by canceling a Bob Hope television special, and the next 4 episodes were filmed.[45][46] These episodes were highly rated as they followed summer re-runs of Cheers on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m., and the series was finally picked up. At one point NBC considered airing these episodes on Saturdays at 10:30 p.m., but gave that slot to a short-lived sitcom called FM. The series was renamed simply Seinfeld after the failure of short-lived 1990 ABC series The Marshall Chronicles.[47] After airing the remaining four episodes of its first season the summer of 1990, NBC ordered thirteen more episodes. Larry David believed that he and Jerry Seinfeld had no more stories to tell, and advised Seinfeld to turn down the order, but Seinfeld agreed to the additional episodes.

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It came so close to not being made. Even Larry didn't believe in it.

Don’t they go over this situation on Seinfeld? I’m pretty sure the whole “Jerry” show on nbc situation was similar to how Seinfeld went down

Season one is difficult to get through because the show doesn't yet have any inkling of what it wants to be. There are flashes of what it would become with episodes like the Chinese Restaurant. Beyond that, however, the first season isn't too memorable. Had that show premiered in 2019 instead of 1989 it wouldn't have made it to a second season.

I still remember the first episode of Seinfeld I saw, it was The Jacket. We should have seen more of Elaine's dad throughout the series.

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Season one is difficult to get through because the show doesn't yet have any inkling of what it wants to be.

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You can use this to describe almost every big or important sitcom

Which is why I always chuckle when someone comes on here and says some shite like “I’ve watched 3 episodes last night and I didn’t laugh once. Awful show. Can’t believe people like it.”

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Rick Ludwin also backed Conan after Jay Leno initially retired, then came back to NBC and started undermining Conan to get his job back.

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Okay...this needs to be debunked once and for all. Leno didn't leave the Tonight Show on his own volition. He was FORCED out by the suits. The thinking was when it was announced in 2004 that Leno would give the show to Conan in 2009 that Leno's ratings would be in decline as his brand of humor aged out. Problem was...he was still the #1 late night host in America when it came time for him to hand the reigns over. Not only that...Leno never wanted to give the show away to begin with. Because he was still popular in the ratings, NBC wanted to keep him with the network instead of giving him to a rival network. So they gave him his own variety show which ended up tanking.

Conan's ratings were terrible because his brand of humor wasn't suited for that time slot. By the end of his run on the Tonight Show, Conan was losing to Letterman re-runs. When Leno returned to the Tonight Show, after the initial backlash had worn off, the show went back to #1 in the late night ratings. So clearly it was the right move from a business perspective.

Bottom line...Conan FORCED Leno out the first time when he threatened to leave NBC if they didn't promise him the Tonight Show. That deal was done in 2004 and NBC figured they made the right move because Conan was the younger talent. Turns out everyone came out the loser. They should have never caved to Conan and called his bluff.

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Okay...this needs to be debunked once and for all. Leno didn't leave the Tonight Show on his own volition. He was FORCED out by the suits. The thinking was when it was announced in 2004 that Leno would give the show to Conan in 2009 that Leno's ratings would be in decline as his brand of humor aged out. Problem was...he was still the #1 late night host in America when it came time for him to hand the reigns over. Not only that...Leno never wanted to give the show away to begin with. Because he was still popular in the ratings, NBC wanted to keep him with the network instead of giving him to a rival network. So they gave him his own variety show which ended up tanking.

Conan's ratings were terrible because his brand of humor wasn't suited for that time slot. By the end of his run on the Tonight Show, Conan was losing to Letterman re-runs. When Leno returned to the Tonight Show, after the initial backlash had worn off, the show went back to #1 in the late night ratings. So clearly it was the right move from a business perspective.

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Not to derail this thread, but Leno also initially languished in ratings in his early years. When Letterman moved to CBS, he regularly beat Leno. Things didn’t change until the Hugh Grant interview in 1995.

BUT I do agree that there was a fundamental mismatch between the Tonight Show brand and Conan. I’m not sure it could have ever worked out.

But Leno had the ultimate leverage in 2004. If he didn’t want to surrender the Tonight Show, he shouldn’t have agreed to the transition.

[Also, absolute size of viewership is not the end-all metric that advertisers look at. Conan was still doing better amongst the 18-39 male crowd, which is an advertiser gold mine.]

Tierney had a legit reputation for being both a tough guy and crazy.

This was around the time that Tarantino brought him in as Joe Cabot in Reservoir Dogs and Tarantino has been honest about him being difficult to deal with.

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How early in the run was the episode where they spent the entire time in the garage looking for the car?

That pretty much sums up the whole “show about nothing” concept.

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I think the Chinese Restaurant did that and that aired first. The Parking Garage was in the 3rd season, which was actually the first full 22-23 episode season. The Chinese Restaurant was the season before that