I seriously doubt whether Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld ever imagined that their classic sitcom “Seinfeld” would find an audience among young children who’d never even masturbated, let alone considered the challenge of going a day without doing so. But having spent much of the last few weeks watching episodes from the first few seasons of “Seinfeld” on DVD with my children – Sam, who’s 11, and Annie, 10 – I discovered, happily, that the genius of “Seinfeld” transcends generations. My children instantly recognized in Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine the same kind of kindred spirits that collect around the ball fields and playgrounds of their own life. They needed no translation.

“Seinfeld” represents their first full-scale plunge into the wacky world of adult-oriented TV comedy. Like most kids their age, they mostly watch family comedies like “Full House” and “Lizzie McGuire” and animated classics like “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “The Simpsons.” They’d taken an occasional glance at grown-up shows like “Friends” and “Will & Grace” and never found much of interest, and I can’t say I blame them. Both those shows have an obsession with the kind of bawdy sex jokes and silly double entendres that plague most sitcoms but never found their way into “Seinfeld.” Like me, my kids much preferred the sensibility of “The Contest,” the hysterically funny “Seinfeld” episode in which the four battle over who is master of their domain. It has far more to do with competition and self-discipline than sex, and as it turns out, can be easily explained to pre-teens without corrupting their minds forever.

I’ve found that it’s impossible to predict what shows or movies my kids will embrace; usually, if I’ve recommended it highly, it’s a sure sign they’ll hate it. So it was with some trepidation that we sat down together to watch the pilot episode of what was then called “The Seinfeld Chronicles.” My wife and I bragged to our children that we’d watched it when it originally aired and had told all our friends how great it was, and how they’d ignored us. (Why parents insist on being seen by their children as resident geniuses is a topic for another day.) Interestingly, it appeared that our children were about to ignore us with the same fervor as our friends once had. They seemed bored with the episode’s languid pace and figured that we’d yet again led them down the garden path to disappointment. There was no Elaine in episode one, nor had co-creator Larry David yet mastered his eventual template of interlocking stories and neurotic foibles that defined the series at its comic heights.

It wasn’t until the middle of the second episode – “The Stakeout,” in which Jerry enlists George to help him find a girl he’d met at a dinner party – that the interplay between the two engaged my kids a little. The show’s high point comes when Jerry and George are working out a cover story for why they’re staking out the woman’s office, and George insists on pretending to be Art Vandalay, the architect. “Let me be the architect,” George implores. “I can do it.” I think it was Jerry’s eye-roll that did it – the same sort of mocking skepticism that I see in the interplay between my kids and their friends. George and Jerry might have been grown-ups, but they were behaving like children and would continue to do so for several seasons to come, joined by Kramer and Elaine in their endless hijinx.

From there it turned into a smooth ride: They loved “The Chinese Restaurant,” in which the foursome fights in vain to be seated for dinner at a neighborhood noodle joint, and were mesmerized by the two-part episode (elegantly joined on the DVD box set) in which Jerry becomes pals with Met first baseman Keith Hernandez. It didn’t take long to explain to them the Kennedy assassination subplot that runs through those – and hey, it was about time for them to get started on conspiracy theories, anyway. “The Parking Garage” cracked them up, especially the scenes when Jerry was detained by security for urinating in public. We can’t wait for season four, which comes out on DVD May 17.

“Seinfeld” showed television that there was a new way to make old jokes. By focusing its attention on manners and human behavior, the series went beyond the obvious into the unexpected humor of what we think but can’t express. Which American male hasn’t played out in his mind how he’d deal with being arrested for public urination? Jerry gave us some hilarious answers. Even the opening stand-up riffs (dropped from later seasons) still stand up to scrutiny and introduce kids to the notion of observation and wit. Jerry may have looked like the Jewish kid next door, but his uncanny gift for finding the irony in everything made him a universal pleasure to watch. Matched with the priceless comedy gifts of Larry David, the cheery cynicism of “Seinfeld” represents a wonderful way to introduce your children to the painful realities of American adulthood.

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I found exactly one funny joke in the first episode of “Stacked” last week – the moment when the vampy, sex-bomb music that accompanies the first entrance of Pamela Anderson turns out to be the sound of her ringing cell-phone. For some reason, all I could think of while watching was that bad comedian in “Annie Hall” who Woody Allen interviews with for a possible writing job – the one whose wretched act includes a moment when he cups his hands under imaginary breasts and says, in a mock French accent, “And what do I do with theeeze?” That appears to be Ms. Anderson’s problem. She handles her lines well enough, but no one – including the writers and producers of “Stacked” – seems to know what to do with those breasts of hers. It’s a shame, because they strike me as the show’s only real hope for laughs.