Anticipation filled the Great Hall Wednesday night when approximately 500 “Seinfeld” addicts gathered together to pay tribute to the sitcom and its last performance.

The “Seinfeld Send-Off” was hosted by the inspiration behind the character Cosmo Kramer — Kenny Kramer, the one-time estranged neighbor of “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David.

The send-off was a 90-minute multi-media presentation that included the highs and lows of David’s career as a comedian, the beginning of David and Kramer’s friendship and the inception of “Seinfeld.”

“‘Seinfeld’ is really from the comedy clubs in New York where Larry and Jerry [Seinfeld] used to perform,” Kramer explained.

According to Kramer, David and Seinfeld started their comedian careers within a small group of popular New York clubs, where only the best-of-the-best survived, and got paid $5 a night.

“They weren’t even friends at this point,” Kramer said. “Larry didn’t like Jerry’s observational comedy but that’s what Jerry does best, he’s perhaps the only one in the industry who does it that well.

“But Jerry liked Larry,” he continued. “What you have to understand is that Larry is the comedian’s comedian, and he was one of Jerry’s heroes.”

But Larry didn’t view himself as a comedian’s hero.

“Let me describe Larry to you in two words,” Kramer said. “George Kostanza. He has angst, guilt, self-doubt, paranoia and always defensive.

“For example, say he was coming out here to perform and he saw these two pretty girls whispering to each other, he’d probably think they were talking about what an asshole he was,” he explained. “People who would go to see him at a comedy club thought they walked into a psycho drama. Does this sound familiar?”

But they eventually became friends and co-workers when Seinfeld approached “his hero” about co-writing a sitcom for $18,000, whether it aired or not.

Larry had nothing better to do, Kramer said.

As most avid “Seinfeld” viewers know, most of the characters on the show are based from characteristics of David’s friends and family.

Elaine is Michelle Yates, David’s ex-girlfriend; Estelle Kostanza has the same attributes as David’s mother and Morti Seinfeld is based on David’s father.

“He always thought they should be in a separate family,” Kramer said. “So this was his chance.”

And, as everyone knows, Kramer was the inspiration of the neighbor everyone wants — Kramer.

“Larry used to observe my lifestyle,” Kramer said. “I was always having parties and always doing something even though I had no visible means of support and he was always hard at work. He’d write eight to 10 hours a day. We were completely different, and he thought I belonged on a TV show.”

As Kramer explained, he never knew his several years of friendship with David would end up on a prime-time sitcom.

“I never thought my everyday life would become a TV show,” he said. “I didn’t think people would ever know what a dufus I was. I never knew that people were going to know I tried to build levels in my apartment.

“It’s true,” Kramer explained. “I always wanted a sunk-in living room, so to do that, I had to build stairs around it so you had to walk up them and then down again. Larry thought it was a dumb idea and two weeks later I agreed with him.

“But there was one misconception,” he added. “I was the one with a house full of food. Larry didn’t have any food and always went out to eat. He would always come across to get a couple of snacks during the day and kept a list on the fridge of what he took. ‘One oreo, about 19 cents, and four ounces of milk, about 10 cents.’ Sound familiar?”

And the stories started coming — the antics of Kramer and David when they were neighbors. And they all sounded familiar.

For example, the episode where Jerry, Elaine and George had a bet as to who could go the longest without masturbating — was real.

“We had a contest to see who could refrain from ‘treating our bodies as an amusement park,'” he explained. “I didn’t join because I knew I wouldn’t win.”

Even the “Can I play Kramer? … But I am Kramer” conversation took place in Kramer’s kitchen before it did seven years later in Seinfeld’s.

Although “Seinfeld” is at an all-time career high now, it hasn’t always been one of America’s most watched TV shows. As a matter of fact, the NBC pilot was rejected.

“The test group hated it and said it didn’t have the qualities of becoming a popular show,” Kramer explained. “Larry has a copy of the letter framed in his bathroom and Jerry has one in his place. It’s ironic.”

Kramer believes the eventual airing of “Seinfeld” was a fluke.

The company that produces “Seinfeld” is Castle-Rock and, at the time the pilot came out, NBC wanted the broadcast rights to it.

In an effort to not lose Castle-Rock, the vice president of late-night programming allocated $7 million for four test episodes.

After filming these four episodes, NBC executives brought in creators Seinfeld and David and gave “suggestive” ideas to change the show in order to make it more marketable.

“They wanted to make it like the other hit shows, and that’s not what it is,” Kramer explained. “So after the meeting with the executives, everyone met out in the parking lot and everyone else was saying, ‘let’s make these changes,’ but Larry didn’t want to. It was going to be the way it was or else he wasn’t going to be a part of it.

“Larry walked away and Jerry could have easily said, ‘We don’t need him,’ but he didn’t. He had the balls to stand behind Larry,” he added.

The third and perhaps most important “fluke” happened when “Cheers” had its own send-off. The producers that owned this time spot also owned the spot after it [“Wings” spot] but had no legal rights to it after “Cheers” left.

“Seinfeld” moved in and the rest is TV history. “Joes Fruits” became popular, the “Jiffy Parking Lot” remains in people’s minds and “Tom’s Restaurant” is a legacy.

Kramer created a multi-media tour of these now famous New York landmarks so even Iowa fans of “Seinfeld” could feel at home.

The last episode of “Seinfeld” will air May 14 from 8 to 10 p.m. on NBC.

“It’ll be a real doozy,” Kramer said. “It’ll be fabulous and full of surprises. And, after two years away from the show, Larry came back to write it. Feel free to throw a party.”