Preposterous

Part of this blog is supposed to be a log of things that happened. This weekend, I got into one of the most absurd, strange arguments of the many strange, absurd arguments of my life. Two of my friends argued Frasier was a better show than Seinfeld. It was an utterly absurd premise. I can understand people have diverse tastes (one may insert bad for diverse), and might "prefer" Frasier to Seinfeld. But no living human being can accurately argue that Frasier is "better" than Seinfeld from any sort of critical or cultural standpoint. To put it simply - I have never, ever, before this weekend, ever heard a single person ever recommend, talk about, discuss, reference, or otherwise mention Frasier outside of perhaps a guilty admonition that they wasted 30 minutes watching it. Ever. Seinfeld, on the other hand, now over 12 years off the air, still comes up almost every other day in some form of discussion - oh, that's just like when Jerry and Elaine did this and that - Seinfeld is part of the very fabric of American culture going far past the influence of what most television shows and movies ever hope to achieve. Now if that factor alone does not make Seinfeld a "better" show, fair enough. More people watch Jersey Shore than The Wire and probably "reference" it. Nevertheless, Seinfeld is to the sitcom what Michael Jordan is to basketball. The consensus best sitcom ever. Plenty of people disagree - there are arguments for Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlin, etc. But if you want to get into a dumb argument about "the best," it is asking folks not to take you seriously if you go out and try to claim Charles Barkley is the best basketball player ever. Barkley, sure, won the MVP once or twice while Jordan played. He was a rival to Jordan (like Frasier was to Seinfeld), but no sane person who knows the first thing about basketball or watched either of the two play, could seriously suggest Barkley was better than Jordan. There is zero objective evidence to even suggest Barkley was as good as Jordan. I'm sure there are people who prefer watching Barkley to Jordan, people who like Barkley more than Jordan (me), people who rooted for Barkley over Jordan, but he was not "better" than Jordan.

Frasier being better than Seinfeld is a laughable premise, not even worthy of this paragraph of discussion.