Entertainment

The first of Jerry Seinfeld's two shows at Fair Park Music Hall on Saturday night revealed a comedian who was not as self-absorbed and quirky as his eponymous protagonist from the famed Seinfeld comedy that ran from 1989 to 1998.

But he was still familiar to fans of that show, making many observations about modern life and acting shocked or appalled in front of the full- house crowd.

He wondered about the proliferation of cellphones and about how years ago a ringing phone was met with calls of "I got it," now replaced with cries of "Don't answer it!"

He didn't really set sail upon extended riffs, but strung three- or four-line (or more) jokes on the same subject together like pearls on a string.

Thus, the phone humor led to a bit contemplating the absolute cluelessness of the implications of the "*69" function on your phone package. "Didn't anyone that worked on this go to middle school?" Mr. Seinfeld said, noting that he didn't even want to know about the implications of "three-way calling."

He has always tended to focus on the day-to-day indignities of modern life (in this case, coffee shops, cellphones, interpersonal cookie politics), but since his marriage and three children, he has injected more family humor into his act.

"How can you deal with someone who poops their pants while they're looking right at you?" he asks, before adding, "and smiling?"

He also addressed the changes that come with matrimony. "Before I got married, I never even knew my voice had a tone," he said, admitting that since then, it's often the "wrong" tone.

He also dug a bit into local appeal, noting that the traffic on the Dallas North Tollway was "crazy, everybody one inch apart" and that when trying to merge, other drivers "want to see you earn it. They won't hurt you, but they won't help you, either."

Matt Weitz is a Dallas freelance writer.

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