Jerry Built

YEARS ago, at lunch with an NBC executive, I happened to mention a promising new series on his network. The Seinfeld Chronicles, it was called. It had aired three times in a terrible time slot in the middle of summer— the boneyard, the death trap, the place, in other words, where networks dump their least promising shows.

“Oh, that,” he said, with a dismissive swat of his hand. “That show is dead. We shoulda just flushed the money down the john. Woulda been faster.”