The folks from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia have tackled one of TV’s most iconic moments, recreating Seinfeld‘s famous ‘The Contest’ episode.
Back in November of 1992, television undoubtedly changed forever thanks to Jerry Seinfeld and co. When Seinfeld aired their ‘The Contest’ episode, they managed to change the way that certain topics are discussed, joked about, and even mentioned on primetime TV in the US.
For those who aren’t aware, ‘The Contest’ sees Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine entering a wager to see who can abstain from masturbation for the longest. Famously, the show never actually mentioned the word ‘masturbation’, instead giving us iconic euphemisms such as ‘master of my domain’.
Fast-forward 13 years, and US television show It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia made its debut on television. Famously given the tagline ‘Seinfeld on crack‘, the show tends to touch upon many of the same issues and storylines that Seinfeld did, just with a lot more irreverence, political incorrectness, and yelling.
This week saw the premiere of the It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia episode, ‘The Gang Does A Clip Show’. A subversion of the old clip-show montage, the episode actually sees the gang incorrectly remembering events that happened in their past, and making up new memories in the process. If you’ve ever seen South Park’s ‘City On The Edge Of Forever’ episode, it’s just like that.
However, the most memorable part of this new episode happens to feature The Gang creating their own shot-for-shot remake of ‘The Contest’s most memorable scene. With Frank appearing as George, Dee takes on Elaine, Charlie aptly becomes Kramer, and Mac and Dennis inexplicably perform as two versions of Jerry Seinfeld.
Quick video of both versions of “The Contest” from r/IASIP
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On paper, it sounds like an absolute mess, but the fact is that it works. Oh, it works so very well that one user on Reddit took it upon themselves to put the scenes side-by-side for comparison. In fact, if you take a close look, you can see that it’s recreated so well that even small details such as the angle of the blinds have been recreated for this new version.
While it’s been 20 years since we last saw new episodes of Seinfeld (save for that Curb Your Enthusiasm reunion), it’s good to see that the essence and spirit of madcap humour is still alive and well on television today. Nothing will ever compare to the original Seinfeld, but hey, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is still pretty close.
Check out It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s Seinfeld homage:
