One of the most popular sitcoms of all time is coming to the largest streaming service in the world, as Netflix has announced that all 180 episodes of Seinfeld will launch on the service on Oct. 1. This will put an end to Seinfeld’s absence from streaming since it departed Hulu in June earlier this year.
To sum up, Seinfeld left Hulu on June 23 and yada, yada, yada, it’s now coming to Netflix. In all seriousness, Netflix acquired the streaming rights to Seinfeld back in 2019, paying $500 million for it according to The Los Angeles Times, but had to wait until Hulu’s rights ended in 2021. Netflix will now hold the rights for the next five years. In addition to it being the first time Seinfeld is available on Netflix, the streamer will offer the series in 4K for the first time.
Netflix officially announced the premiere date for Seinfeld with an announcement trailer, attempting to be coy with billing it as 2021’s hottest new show, before quickly qualifying it as a new show to Netflix. Maybe they should just let Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld stick to the jokes. Watch the trailer below.
Seinfeld initially premiered on NBC in 1989 and followed the daily life of a fictional version of Jerry Seinfeld and his three friends (George, Elaine and Kramer) as they get caught up in and debate social faux pas in New York. The series was famously billed as “the show about nothing,” which they then made a meta joke about in a season four storyline.
That was just one of many great jokes and episodes in the nine season run of the show. Other classics include the made-up holiday Festivus, the Soup Nazi, the puffy shirt, the group’s contest and plenty more.
While Netflix has made a big push for original content — Stranger Things, The Crown, Cobra Kai and The Witcher, to name a few — the service was initially built on licensing popular titles from network TV. However, as more and more streaming services have launched, Netflix has lost a few of these prized titles, including The Office to Peacock and Friends to HBO Max.
Seinfeld is the new big name comedy series that subscribers can watch on loop, joining other licensed titles that include Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, Criminal Minds and Manifest, which was a big licensed hit on Netflix and will now air its fourth and final season exclusively on Netflix.
If you want to be able to stream Seinfeld or any other Netflix titles, you will need to subscribe to the service. The base Netflix subscription is priced at $13.99, with additional plans available for enhanced features, including 4K.
