Yes Jerry Seinfield was funny.
Look- I know he's a douchenozzle now. And maybe his style of comedy hasn't aged as well- I mean he was a stand-up in the 80's, and I can't explain to you younguns what it was like in those days, at the peak of the stand-up boom.
But this trend where folks go back to claim they never really liked someone who was great because they're now an asshole is really annoying. Someone tried to tell me that Kevin Spacey wasn't that good an actor and I was like lol shut-up. We don't wanna believe that someone can be good at something and also a jerk, a moron, or even a criminal?
I dunno maybe it's because the form of art/entertainment I'm most passionate about is music and like pretty much all of my musical heroes were, unfortunately, garbage human beings, that I'm sort of used to this dichotomy. Once I learned about the lives of James Brown, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker, it became easy to reconcile these things.
Yes, Seinfield's stand-up was good. It's one of those things where "oh all he did was talk about mundane things" but he did it well, it was original enough, and it has broad appeal. It's the comedy equivalent of a Dua Lipa song- it's weird to HATE it, but it's not gonna be most people's most favorite music of all time. It's broadly nice and comfortable and if you sneer at that you're not as cool as you think it is.
Sure the sitcom doesn't hold so well now but honestly what sitcom does? Ok, I guess the Simpsons, and that is one reason it's the single greatest comedy show every made IMO. But all of the greats- Friends, All in the Family, I Love Lucy, the Honeymooners, heck even the Office- go back and watch some of those episodes, you will cringe sometimes.
Of course Larry David was a primary reason for this. No one denies this, including Seinfield! The show was a partnership. It's really dumb to take something that was wildly successful and declare it would still have been great without one of the main contributors. "Seinfield {the person) didn't have anything to do with Sienfield's (the show) success" is one of those things that now people say to sound clever but it's so fucking dumb based on just the obvious logic and how words work that it's infuriating.
And yes, he's become increasingly a dumbass and yes it's gross he started dating his current wife when he was 35 and she was 18 and yes he can shove his anti-woke garbage up his out-of-touch smug asshole. All these things can simultaneously be true.