I've always hated that tone, but I do agree it just works for Seinfeld. Absolutely nowhere else. Probably because it is such a ridiculous charicature of what a bass is; like the characters in the show are of people.
A younger, pre-bass-playing me just assumed it was some wanker slapping a Steinberger (I probably didn't know they were called that at the time, but I had seen enough of those ugly fuggers to know I was not interested) or Roland synth bass.