Season 3, Episode 7: The Cafe

“Maybe the test was gender biased. You know, a lot of questions on hunting and testicles.” - Jerry

After two rather unconventional episodes we see a return of the familiar formula. George’s story is about his new girlfriend’s IQ test that she’s created and wants to try on George, which he is not enthusiastic about because she’ll find out he’s a moron. “People think I’m smart, but I’m not smart.”

“Who thinks you’re smart?” Jerry asks. His story is an obsession with a new restaurant that’s just opened up in the neighborhood run by Babu Batt. Jerry, in a fit of compassion, is troubled that he’s never seen anyone go into Babu’s establishment.

Kramer, meanwhile, is hiding from a man whose jacket he’s been wearing for the last two years. In fact, he was wearing the jacket in the previous episode, The Parking Garage. The story here, as explained in The Parking Garage, is that a man left it at his mother’s house and Kramer took the jacket.

Elaine, explaining that she has a high IQ, helps George cheat on the IQ test.

This is another episode that is a lot funnier than I remember it being when I was younger.

So Jerry watches Babu’s from his apartment through binoculars, like a scene out of Rear Window. Elaine asks why he’s obsessed with this restaurant. Jerry likens it to watching a “spider in the toilet struggling for survival.” George enters with an SAT book. He’s still nervous about the IQ test and what it will mean for his relationship with Monica. After Jerry reminds George of a time in college when he cheated on a test and Elaine mentions her high IQ, George gets the idea to cheat again via the same method. He’ll pass Elaine the test out of a window.

Jerry has lunch at Babu Batt’s Dream Café. He’s the only one there. Jerry, thinking he’s great guy helping out a struggling restaurateur, dishes out superlatives and heaps praise upon Babu to make him feel better. He even has an internal dialogue about how no one else does things for other people.

George started the IQ test with Elaine pacing back and forth outside the window waiting for George to pass her the test. After Monica leaves the room and George locks the door he passes the test to Elaine who takes it to Babu’s. Then Kramer joins them and explains his situation. He doesn’t want to give it back. “Anyway, it’s been two years. Isn’t there a statue of limitations on that?” he asks.

“Statute,” Jerry says with emphasis on the ending of the word.

“What?”

“Statute of limitations,” he elaborates. “It’s not a statue.”

“No. Statue.” Kramer is sure.

“Fine, it’s a sculpture of limitations,” Jerry concedes.

Kramer bothers Elaine about this. “Statute,” Elaine says. “Well, I really think you’re wrong.” Kramer continues to bother her about the IQ test, not really understanding why she would take a test for George. George meanwhile reads The New Yorker as he waits for Elaine. She comes back with the test but it has pasta stains all over it from Babu spilling the plate on Elaine’s table. When Monica comes to collect the test George concocts the best George story ever. Monica asks what happened to the test. George, in the most smooth and casual manner, answers, “Oh, I spilled some food on it.”

“Food? What food?” Monica asks.

“What are you talking about?”

“Where did you get food?”

“From my pocket.”

“From your pocket?”

“I had a sandwich in my pocket.”

“And coffee?” she says examining the paper.

“Yes, had some coffee,” he nods.

“Where did you get the coffee?”

“Where did I get the coffee? Where do you think I got the coffee? At the grocery store.”

“How did you get there?”

“I walked.”

“How did you get out of the apartment? I didn’t see you leave.”

“I climbed out the window.”

“You climbed out the window?”

“Of course.”

“Why didn’t you go out the door?”

“The door?” he asks as though only a lunatic would think to do that. “The window’s right here.”

Jerry tells Babu that he might have more luck with the restaurant if it were Pakistani themed. He’d be the only authentic Pakistani restaurant in the area, an idea that appeals to Babu and he agrees to renovate immediately.

Turns out all the distractions led to a poor test from Elaine, George’s IQ is only 85. Elaine agrees to cheat again to prove the first test was a fluke. “You should have seen her face,” George says of Monica. “It was the exact same face my father gave me when I said I wanted to be a ventriloquist.”

Elaine takes the second test at Jerry’s while he eats at the new Babu’s. Jerry doesn’t catch on at first but Babu is not pleased to see Jerry; he stares a hole through him while he’s eating. After Jerry mentions his shrimp is stringy. This sets Babu off who blames Jerry for the restaurant failing. He hasn’t had any customers since he rebranded as a Pakistani restaurant. “You bad man. You very, very bad man.”

While Elaine is taking the test Kramer bursts in and locks the door behind him. The man who used to own his coat has found him and won’t leave until Kramer returns it. Elaine has to get back to George but Kramer won’t let her leave. Her tardiness causes Monica to catch the two of them cheating on the test and when Elaine finally arrives Monica is waiting for her. “Let’s hope you do better the second time.”

The gang watches Dream Café shut down and we see where they’ve ended at. Kramer doesn’t have his jacket. Elaine’s IQ is 151. They discuss where to have dinner. Mexican? Italian? Chinese? Jerry finishes with, “you know what’d be great…”

Season 3, episode 6: The Parking Garage

“There’s elevators all over. Everything looks the same! We’re like rats in some experiment!” - George

The 3^rd season has gotten off to a great start with classic after classic and the trend continues with The Parking Garage. This was the second straight episode of the production order to take place entirely outside Jerry’s apartment (although they didn’t air back-to-back). That was done so they wouldn’t have to take down and put back the set for Jerry’s apartment twice.

Similar to The Chinese Restaurant from season 2, The Parking Garage takes place on a single set, though not in real time, and is essentially the same in structure: a loose plot which follows our characters as they encounter other people within the setting, almost vignette style. In order for there to be some sort of motivation to find the car, Elaine has Goldfish which can only survive in their plastic bag for so long, and George needs to meet his parents for their anniversary. Jerry has to go to the bathroom, and Kramer is carrying a heavy air conditioner (and he really was per Michael’s method acting policy).

I won’t bother recapping every encounter but I’ll go over the best ones (completely out of sequence). The first is George coming across a convertible parked across 3 spaces and wanting to spit on it. Jerry dares him to do it and he’s about to when the alarm disengagement goes off and the owner gets in the car.

“Jerry, are you aware that adult diapers are a $600 million dollar a year industry?” That’s just one of the things Kramer tells Jerry to goad him into urinating behind a car. Jerry does, gets caught and leads to the great uromysotisis explanation: “Why would I do it unless I was in mortal danger? I know it’s against the law. Because I could get uromysotisis poisoning and die, that’s why. You think I enjoy living like this? The shame; the humiliation.”

I also really enjoyed Elaine’s repeated attempts to ask other people for help and being rejected every time. It deals with the selfishness of humanity in a completely honest way. Everyone she talks to could help her, but they don’t. Why? Because they don’t feel like it. There’s no reason for it. They just don’t. And that’s how the world is. People could help strangers, but they never do.

As much as I love this episode – its position in my top 10 is almost assured – the best material was left out, and it may be nitpicking, but it kind of bothers me.

At the very end when Kramer returns with the air conditioner, he slams it in the trunk of the car and cuts his lip. Jerry and Julia start laughing and turn away from the camera. Michael never breaks character and says, “I really hurt myself, Elaine.” All of that was taken out of the final cut. After Kramer slams the air conditioner in the trunk it cuts to Kramer asking about Elaine’s fish, from a different take.

Then, after they get in the car and it doesn’t start, you can only see Jason start to laugh for a split second before cutting to a long shot of the lone car in the parking lot, leaving out a sequence where Michael tries to start the car a second time, fails, gets out of the car, leans on the door, looks off into the horizon and gets back in the car.

It’s a fine ending as they left it, but 20 extra seconds on those two things could have lifted it even further in the pantheon of great Seinfeld endings.

Season 3, episode 5: The Pen

“What is going on in this community? Are you people aware of what’s happening? What is driving you to this behavior? Is it the humidity?” - Jerry

The Pen is the second episode of the series that doesn’t feature Michael Richards as Kramer and the first that doesn’t feature Jason Alexander as George. Jerry and Elaine are the only two principal cast members in The Pen and as a result the episode doesn’t feature any interconnecting B or C story, which was really unusual for the show after the first season and a half. After the episode was shot, Jason Alexander went to Larry David and told him never to leave him out of an episode ever again.

Many people, including Jerry and Larry, count the Pen among their favorite episodes. I’m not sure where it’s going to wind up in my own rankings but I can understand why they think so highly of it. The Pen has some of the best work on the show in building the most humorous situations from the most inconsequential and ridiculous social slights imaginable: possibly because of the setting for the episode; senior communities. Jerry’s back and forth’s with his parents, Helen and Morty, are classic and never more so here, where their timing and tone are perfect.

The episode begins with Jerry and Elaine arriving at Jerry’s parents’ Florida condo community for an event for Jerry’s father, where their tardiness has already flustered Helen:

Jerry - “We had to wait 35 minutes in the rent-a-car place.”

Helen - “I don’t know why you had to rent a car, we could have picked you up.”

Jerry - “What’s the difference?”

Helen - “Well, you could have used our car.”

Jerry - “I don’t want to use your car.”

Helen - “What’s wrong with our car?”

Jerry - “Nothing, it’s a fine car. What if you want to use it?”

Helen - “We don’t use it.”

Morty - “What are you talking? We use it.”

Helen - “If you were using it, we wouldn’t use it.”

Making a mountain out of this mole hill is the running theme for the seniors. Of what consequence is it that Jerry rented a car? Or that he didn’t get insurance. “How could you not get insurance?” Morty asks. No matter what the situation is they always have some rhetorical remark for it which just exacerbates the most minor of incidents on an exponential scale.

When Elaine feels badly about taking Helen and Morty’s bedroom, Helen insists she takes it and has several reasons she should escalating on the absurd.

“I’m up at six o’clock in the morning,” she says after Elaine turns down her offer. “I can’t kick you out of your bed,” Elaine replies. “We don’t even sleep,” Helen insists. “It’s a sofa bed you’ll be uncomfortable,” she continues. “What about you?” Jerry asks. “Why should I be comfortable?...I’ll sleep standing up.” Morty responds. These people are out of their minds.

Helen and Morty’s neighbors, Jack and Doris, arrive. With him Jack has ‘The Pen’. It’s an astronaut pen: It writes upside down. When Jerry expresses a passing interest in it Jack offers him the pen. Jerry doesn’t want to take it but Jack is insistent. “Do me a personal favor and take the pen.” Jerry takes it, reluctant but happy in having the pen. Not 5 seconds later Helen has to interject. “Whadya take his pen for?” she says in that motherly tone. This sets off a whole thing about how Jerry shouldn’t have taken the pen even though it was offered to him. Elaine can’t help but just shake her head at the entire situation.

After a night of not being comfortable in the sofa bed, Elaine wakes up with back pain, ruining her plans to go scuba diving with Jerry. Jerry goes anyway but comes back with burst capillaries.

And as Helen had predicted, everyone in the community has heard about Jack giving Jerry the pen. Another neighbor comes over and asks about the pen straight away. And Helen receives a phone call: “Oh, hello, Gussie… No, Jerry wouldn’t do that… Jack gave him the pen.”

So Jerry gives Jack the pen back which sets Morty off. “You’ve got a hell-of-a-nerve taking that kid’s pen.”

“Do you think I take everything everybody offers me? Yesterday you offered me sponge cake. Did I take it?” Jack says.

“You said you didn’t want it!” Morty yells.

“Of course I wanted it! I love sponge cake!” Jack yells back. Now Jerry is the one just shaking his head.

So the Seinfelds and Elaine must attend the dinner for Morty with he and Jack, who is MC, now hating each other. Because of the burst capillaries, Jerry wears sunglasses the whole time. And in order to be pain free, Elaine takes muscle relaxers (but waaaay too many of them). At the event, Elaine is completely whacked out on pills and when Jerry introduces his Aunt Stella (Uncle Leo’s wife!) she begins the craziest Marlon Brando impression: “Stella!!! STELLA!!!!!!” And it just gets worse at the event as Morty doesn’t take to kindly to Jack’s roasting of him and confronts him over the pen incident. Chaos erupts as the two fight and Jerry tries to calm everything with his routine.

“Have you noticed how they always give you the peanuts on the plane?” Jerry begins. “I’d rather have a bottle of scotch!” the disembodied voice of Larry David yells out.

The end result is the community threatening the Seinfelds with expulsion from the community for unruly behavior. And Elaine’s back is too painful to travel on for another five days; stuck in the heat…and the humidity…

Season 3, episode 4: The Library

“’71, that was my first year on the job. Bad year for libraries. Bad year for America.” – Lt. Bookman

Possibly the best episode of the series so far (in my top 3 with The Chinese Restaurant and The Pony Remark) and unquestionably the best of what is so far a very strong season 3, albeit we’re only 4 episodes in. The Library gives us the brilliantly named Lt. Bookman, a flashback to George and Jerry in high school (and still played by Jason and Jerry with wigs – And Jason’s may have later been used by Jeffrey Tambor in AD for those flashbacks for all I know, it’s that similar!), Kramer hooking up with a librarian, and about 3 or 4 of the series best monologues which I will try to transcribe in full (because I care!).

It starts with Jerry on the phone with the New York Public Library. In 1971 Jerry checked out Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and never returned it. Jerry is positive he returned it and recalls the details of that day very vividly to Kramer; he was with a girl named Sherry Becker who was wearing an orange dress.

Jerry, Kramer and George go down to the library to take care of Jerry’s overdue fine. Jerry and Kramer observe the librarian leading to the first monologue from Kramer:

“Look at her. This is a lonely woman looking for companionship. A spinster. Maybe a virgin. Maybe she got hurt a long time ago. She’s a school girl, there was a boy – it didn’t work out. Now she needs a little tenderness. She needs a little understanding. She needs a little Kramer.”

“Then she’ll need a little shot of penicillin,” Jerry replies. After getting the librarian’s attention Jerry passes her the notice he received in the mail. She tells him that his case has been referred to the library investigation officer, Bookman. “That’s like an ice cream man named Cone,” Kramer remarks.

George comes running in from outside setting up the B-story. He thinks he saw his and Jerry’s gym teacher from High School, Mr. Heyman, now homeless and outside the library.

In Elaine’s story, we finally get to see her work, Pendant Publishing, and her boss, Mr. Lippman, though he’s not played by Richard Fancy in this episode. Elaine’s co-worker didn’t ask her  what she wanted for lunch, and in her neurosis, Elaine interprets that to mean that she may be on her way out of the company. She grills Mr. Lipman’s secretary who claims not to know anything. “I don’t know anything means there’s something to know. If you really didn’t know anything you would have said ‘you’re crazy.’”

At lunch George explains to Elaine what happened in High School. “He purposely mispronounced my name. Instead of saying Costanza he’d say ‘Can’t-stand-ya’! He made me smell my own gym socks once.”

“I remember he made you wear a jock on your head for a whole class,” Jerry piles on. George recalls the incident which led to Mr. Heyman being fired. “He gave me a wedgie.”

“Boys are sick,” Elaine responds. “Well, what do girls do?” Jerry asks. “We just tease someone until they develop an eating disorder.”

Jerry gets home from lunch to a waiting Lt. Bookman who Larry Charles based on Joe Friday (the second time he’s done that on the show. Recall Kramer in The Statue). Rather than describe the scene I’ll just let the words of Lt. Bookman (and a little bit of Jerry) speak for themselves:

“You got any coffee?”

“Coffee?”

“Yeah, coffee.

“No, I don’t drink coffee.

“You don’t drink coffee? How about instant coffee?

“No, I don’t have-

“You don’t have instant coffee?

“Well I don’t normally-

“Who doesn’t have instant coffee?

“I don’t.

“You buy a jar of Foldgers crystals. Throw it in your cupboard and forget about it. And later on when you need it it’s there. It lasts forever. It’s freeze-dried. Freeze-dried crystals.

“Really? I’ll have to remember that.

“You took this book out in 1971.

“Yes, and I returned it in 1971.

“’71, that was my first year on the job. Bad year for libraries. Bad year for America. Hippies burning library cards. Abbie Hoffman telling everybody to steal books. I don’t judge a man by the length of his hair or the music he listens to. Rock was never my bag. (sticking a finger in Jerry’s direction) But you put on a pair of shoes and walked into the New York Public Library, fella.

“Look, Mr. Bookman. I returned that book. I remember it very specifically.

“You’re a comedian. You make people laugh.

“I try.

“You think this is all a big joke, don’t you?

“No, I don’t.

“I saw you on TV once. I remembered your name from my list. I looked it up. Sure enough it checked out. You think that because you’re a celebrity that somehow the law doesn’t apply to you? That you’re above the law?

“Certainly not.

(sticking his finger in Jerry’s direction again)“Well let me tell you something funny boy. You know that little stamp? The one that says New York Public Library? Well, that may not mean anything to you but that means a lot to me, one whole hell of a lot! Sure, go ahead laugh if you want to. I’ve seen your type before: flashy, making the scene… Yeah I know what you’re thinking: why’s this guy making such a big stink about a library book. (again with the finger) Well, let me give you a hint junior, maybe we can live without libraries, people like you and me, maybe. Sure, we’re too old to change the world. But what about that kid, sitting down opening a book right now in a branch of the local library, and finding drawings of pee-pees and wee-wees in the Cat in the Hat and The Five Chinese Brothers. Doesn’t he deserve better? (finger!) Look, you think this is about overdue fines and missing books, you better think again. This is about that kid’s right to read a book without getting his mind warped. But maybe that turns you on, Seinfeld. Maybe that’s how you get your kicks, you and your good time buddies. Well, I got a flash for you, joy boy: Party time is over.

Talk about a writer and actor nailing a scene. Right as Bookman is leaving, the librarian, Marion, is entering Kramer’s apartment. She quickly ducks inside when she sees Bookman coming out of Jerry’s.

Jerry decides to track down his high school girlfriend, Sherry Becker. They meet at Monk’s. Sherry’s gained weight and her recollection of the day is very different from Jerry’s. She was wearing a purple dress and they were reading Tropic of Capricorn. Jerry then remembers that he loaned Tropic of Cancer to George in the locker room and runs out of Monk’s to go find him.

Kramer and Marion return to the library after hours but Bookman is waiting for them:

“I remember when the librarian was a much older woman. Kindly, descreet, unattractive. You didn’t know anything about her private life. You didn’t want to know anything about her private life. She didn’t have a private life. If you’re thinking about that, think about this: the library closes at five o’clock, no exceptions. You got that, Kewpie doll?”

At the apartment, Kramer starts crying while reading a book of Marion’s poetry leading Elaine to think that if she takes the poetry to Lippman, he’ll like it enough to publish it. She’s still paranoid that he’s going to fire her after he didn’t like her latest publishing recommendation, a biography of Columbus. George comes in and confirms that the homeless man is his old gym teacher, Mr. Heyman. How does he know? He sat next to him outside the library and said ‘Can-t-stand-ya?’ He got up to run away but something was holding him back. “He had my underwear. There I was on the steps of the 42^nd street library; a grown man getting a wedgie.”

“At least it wasn’t atomic.”

“It was.”

Jerry tells George what happened to Tropic of Cancer. George remembers. George dropped it as he was getting the wedgie that Mr. Heyman was responsible for. The book lost forever, Jerry pays the overdue fine to Bookman. Elaine’s boss didn’t like the poetry book form Marion. George tells Jerry that Mr. Heyman is gone from outside the library. They wonder what happened to him.

Heyman is shown later at night outside, repeating ‘Can’t-stand-ya’. Near him is the old beat up copy of Tropic of Cancer.

Season 3, episode 3: The Dog

“You can’t tell someone how you feel about their girlfriend until after they stop seeing them.”

“I tell you.”

“You. I’m talking about people.” – Jerry and Kramer

I remember not really liking this episode much when I was younger, but upon reviewing it now, I’m much more receptive to it. It’s not close to making my top episode list, but there’s some good bits and pieces and I like how the Elaine/George relationship evolves in this episode.

The Dog starts out with Jerry flying home, presumably from a west coast trip based on making an emergency landing in Chicago. He’s in first class but stuck next to a WASPy drunk Englishman, Gavin Polone, who goes on and on about his dog (currently enjoying the trip in the baggage compartment. Gavin falls ill, prompting the emergency landing, and Jerry is asked to take care of the dog, Farfel.

Three days later and Jerry is having a miserable time with Farfel, who chews up Jerry’s shoes, ruins furniture and generally makes a mess of everything. We never see Farfel in action, aside from Jerry and Elaine trying to pry articles of clothing away from the dog who is kept hidden. We only ever here him barking, and shockingly (to me anyway) Farfel’s voice was NOT provided by Frank Welker. Another voice actor, Tom Williams won the role.

Jerry is hoping to escape for the night with Elaine and George to watch Prognosis Negative (this was a real unproduced screenplay that Larry David wrote. I had no idea!) while Kramer watches the dog, but Kramer backs out in order to break up with his girlfriend (whom we also hear but never see). Kramer is excited to break up with her, as are Jerry and Elaine. “If you see her personality it would be like one of the Elephant Man exhibits where they pull off the sheet and everyone gasps,” Elaine tells him. Jerry adds, “I can’t believe anyone hasn’t killed her yet.”

Without a dogsitter, Jerry backs out of the group outing. Elaine doesn’t want to go alone with George and the feeling is mutual. Both are of the opinion that they don’t have anything in common without Jerry. George and Elaine decide to watch a different movie, but it’s sold out and they end up at Monk’s instead. Over coffee the two engage in really trite small talk and it isn’t until they turn the conversation to Jerry that it picks up and they start laughing and having a good time.

[There is one continuity error here that bugged me. Elaine mentions that she moved to New York in 1986. And George asks Elaine if she’s ever seen Jerry throw up, which she has. But in a later season, Jerry mentions having not thrown up in 18 years (a record I remember very vividly because I was pleased when I surpassed it myself) which would be impossible if she moved to New York in 1986 (and I’m assuming that she didn’t know Jerry before that).]

Kramer breaks up with his girlfriend (How could I be with someone like you?) and gets back together with her is the very same scene (I can’t live without you. I’ll do anything).

Fed up with Farfel, Jerry decides he’s going to take Farfel to the pound. He tracks down the hospital that Gavin Polone was in and learns that he checked out several days ago. This seals it for Jerry to take Farfel to the pound but Elaine talks him out of it, at least for one more day. Elaine even offers to watch the dog so Jerry and George can go see a movie. Kramer tells Jerry and Elaine that he got back with his girlfriend. The two back track from their previous comments but Kramer has a good memory and removes some of his belongings from Jerry’s apartment.

Elaine fights with Farfel and almost decides to take matters into her own hands when Gavin calls Jerry’s apartment. Jerry and George end up seeing Prognosis Negative without Elaine after the other film is sold out.

Gavin, possibly still drunk and recovering from a fit of Bell’s Palsy, picks up Farfel. Elaine wants to go see Prognosis Negative but Jerry, having now seen it and not liking it, is trying to back out claiming he ‘heard from George’ it was terrible. Elaine says George didn’t mention anything. Jerry asks why Elaine and George got together. “I wanted to talk about how we have nothing to talk about.”