"Seinfeld" writer Peter Mehlman said he thinks many of the sitcom's plots wouldn't work today with such conveniences as cell phones. "There would be a million instances of one character being able to call another character and saying, 'Don't do that!'" he said. "For instance, in the episode where Elaine is dating a guy with the same name as the serial killer Joel Rifkin, Kramer goes to a stadium to pick up football tickets, but he doesn't have his ID with him. So the stadium makes an announcement to sixty-five thousand fans: 'Will Joel Rifkin please come to will call'.... But if there were cell phones available back then, Kramer could have simply called Elaine and asked, 'Can you come meet me downstairs' and that would have been that.... When you think about it, convenience doesn't make for good comedy."
NBC/AP
