Yada yada yada. Millions of “Seinfeld” fans finally get what they’ve been waiting for so long this week: the first DVD of the hit show about nothing.

Seasons 1, 2 and 3 will go on sale today, and the classic Jerry Seinfeld sitcom is expected to quickly become the master of its digital domain.

Huge advance orders from fans – eager to again see Jerry, Elaine, Kramer and George, the four wacky New Yorkers whom America came to love – have already pushed it up the top-seller lists.

Some experts predict “Seinfeld” will become the biggest-selling TV-show DVD of all time.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

For fans of the show – which drew some 76.3 million viewers to its farewell episode more than six years ago – it has been a long wait.

Internet fan sites have been inundated in recent days by hundreds of thousands of Seinfeld admirers talking about the DVDs’ finally being released.

“People are really grasping at straws trying to get hold of this,” said Steve Schlesinger, 58, a New Yorker living in San Diego.

He set up one of the first Net-based “Seinfeld” fan clubs, Vandelay Industries (named after a fictional company from one of the episodes).

“People around the world started asking about four years ago if I knew when the shows would be released and how they can get hold of them. They’ve wanted recordings of these shows since Seinfeld went off the air in 1998.”

Diehard fan Mark Carey, 30, from Toronto, runs a “Seinfeld” Web site, stanthecaddy.com, that gets thousands of hits daily.

He said, “Watching the original showings was a ritual – it was like a religion. Every Thursday, millions of people stopped what they were doing and watched.

“It’s still amazingly popular, and this is a show that stopped being made six years ago. I know of nothing like it. I get people from all over the world getting in touch with me.

“This DVD has been a long time coming and a lot of people are looking forward to it, as I am. I cannot wait.”

The DVDs will be released in two volumes, with each set containing four discs. Volume 1 includes the first two seasons, and Season 3 is in Volume 2. A special gift set of all three seasons will also be available.

Extras include commentary by the show’s stars, footage of Seinfeld’s standup comedy, original trailers, deleted scenes and bloopers.

Meanwhile, Seinfeld is set to reunite with Jason Alexander (George), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine) and Michael Richards (Kramer), along with series co-creator Larry David, for a Thanksgiving Day hour-long special about the DVDs on NBC.

The long delay in releasing the show on disk has been attributed in part to disagreements about payments to cast members.

“It’s true only Jerry and Larry David got rich from the original series, and the rest of the cast would want to make money from this,” said Schlesinger. “But I think the main reason for the delay was to build demand.

“It’s six years after it went off the air, and “Seinfeld’ is more popular than ever.”

Scott Hettrick, editor-in-chief of DVD Exclusive magazine, agreed.

“There is so much pent-up demand that I cannot believe this will not be the biggest-selling, and biggest-grossing, DVD release of a TV series of all time,” he said.

During the ’90s “Seinfeld” was known as the ultimate “water cooler” show – the one everybody would talk about at work the next morning.

“Seinfeld” terms like “sponge-worthy,” “bad breaker-uppers,” “anti-dentites,” “double-dippers” and “re-gifters” quickly found a place in everyday vocabulary.

“I think the only reason it was so popular was that it was so good,” said David Wild, a fan who wrote “Seinfeld: A Totally Unauthorized Tribute.”

“It should have failed for so many reasons. It was too smart, too New York, too Jewish. But it was also too good to fail.

“It was a rare example of really well-written and -acted comedy.”



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