My Ten Favorite "Seinfeld" Episodes

H. L. Mencken once wrote: "What is primarily needed, in order to write short stories of any dignity, is not a thimble rigging technic, but a capacity for accurate and original observation. The best short story writer, like the best novelist, is that one who observes the life about him with the greatest clarity and shrewdness, and sets it forth in the simplest and most understandable way. The materials of fiction are not to be got out of books, but out of life itself....The best short stories in the world teach nothing and preach nothing; they do not expostulate, and neither do they mourn; they simply set forth what has been seen and felt."

When I recently came across this passage, I immediately thought of the TV shw "Seinfeld". The rule of thumb for "Seinfeld" is "no hugging, no learning"; it simply seeks to depict the oddities and quirks of everyday life. The show has its roots in Jerry's standup comedy, which was developed while he was still in high school, keeping a notebook in which he chronicled the oddities of human behavior which he observed daily.

The show has become known as "a show about nothing", but Larry David has recently said that in the beginning the show set out to be a show about "how comedians get their material". Here are my ten favorite episodes.

1. The Yada Yada (S8, E18). This is my all-time favorite episode. There is so much going on that I had no trouble coming up with a 25-question trivia quiz about the episode. The title refers to the phrase "Yada Yada Yada" that George's girlfriend Marcy liked to user to shorten her stories, and during the episode the others started using the phrase also.

During the episode Jerry's dentist, Tim Whatley, memorably played by Bryan Crasnston, converts to Judaism and starts telling Jewish jokes. This offends Jerry, not as a Jew, but as a comedian. Jerry complains that "If Whately ever gets Polish citizenship, he'll have total joke-telling immunity".

Kramer and his midget friend Mickey meet two women at The Gap, but can't decide which each one likes the best. The matching shirts they bought are hilarious.

Elaine is a character reference for her friends Beth and Arnie, who are trying to adopt a child. Elaine tells the adoption agency that Arnie has a temper, and this scuttles the adoption. Elaine tries to make it up to her friends by dating the adoption official.

Kramer calls Jerry an "anti-dentite" for his disparaging remarks about dentists. In the final scene, in which Mickey marries Karen, one of the women he and Kramer had met, Karen's parents are played by Robert Wagner and Jil St. John. The Wagner character calls Jerry an "anti-dentite bastard".

Jerry cmes to the wedding with Beth, who by this time has broken up with Arnie. The episode ends with Beth telling an anti-dentist joke, and Jerry says "Yeah, dentists, who needs them", to which Beth replies, "Not to mention the blacks and the Jews".

Whatley was a character in four other Seinfeld episodes besides this one. These include "The Mom and Pop Store" (in which he hosts a party on the evening before Thanksgiving), "The Label Maker" (in which he is called a "re-gifter"), "The Jimmy" (in which he is discovered to have a Penthouse magazine in his waiting room), and "The Strike" (in which he gives charity donations as Christmas gifts).

2. The Contest (S4, E11). This is the most famous Seinfeld episode. It is this episode that first made me aware of the series, due to all the newspaper publicity leading up to the airing of the episode. The characters have a contest to see who can go the longest without "pleasuring themselves".

3. The Invitations (S7, E24). This is the episode in which George's fiancee, Susan, dies from licking the envelopes containing their wedding invitations. What makes the episode memorable for me is the stunning guest appearance of Janeane Garofalo as Jerry's girlfriend. She is just like Jerry, a fact which intrigues Jerry so much that he proposes to her, and then regrets this. They later have "the first totally mutual breakup in relationship history". Garofalo's guest appearance is one of the most memorable in the history of the show.

Kramer has a story line in which a bank has offered $100.00 if a customer is not greeted with a "hello". When a teller instead greets him with "hey", Kramer tries to claim the $100.00. The bank exective says "You got a greeting, it started with an 'h", how does twenty bucks sound?", an offer which Kramer snaps up immediately.

The Susan character was never remotely appealing, and the actress who played her never fit in with the show's cast. Her relationship with George was never believable, and her exit from the show was most welcome.

4. The Soup Nazi (S7, E6). Another memorable episode. The actual guy who the character was based on disliked the portrayal so much that he banned the entire "Seinfeld" cast from his restaurant! "No soup for you!"

5. The Apology (S9, E9). This episode features a guest appearance by the great James Spader, who is in AA and working the 12 steps. George is upset because the Spader character has not apologized to him for a perceived slight years ago, whivh George sees as a violation of step nine. The episode depicts three different types of 12-step programs--for alcoholics, for rageaholics, and then for germaphobes. The ending has Puddy and Elaine and one of Elaine's co-workers having supper at Kramer's apartment, and then recoiling in horror when they realize he prepared the food in the shower.

My favorite scene is when Kramer calls Puddy to ask for help in installing a garbage disposal in his shower. "Is David Puddy there?" "This is Puddy." "Puddy, this is Kramer." "Yeah, I know."

The David Puddy character appears in ten episodes, two in season six and then eight more in season nine. The appeal of Puddy is that he is such a simple man, a delightful contrast to the sophisticated Elaine character.

6. The Wife (S5, E17). In this episode Jerry and his girlfriend, played by the beautiful Courteney Cox, pretend to be married so that she can get a 25% discount on dry cleaning. Jerry initially loves being in this pretend marriage, and he seems happier than he has ever been. But eventually, he concludes that he is "not ready for a pretend marriage". Jerry has had many beautiful girlfriends, but none of them are as attractive as the great Courteney Cox.

7. The Race (S6, E10). There are two great themes in this episode--Superman and Communism. The episode starts out showing Jerry dating a woman named Lois, and she says "Boy, you sure like saying my name".

Lois is working for Duncan Meyer, an old high school classmate of Jerry's who still insists that Jerry got a head start in a race they'd run against each other in ninth grade. Jerry and George concoct a scheme wherein George will show up at Monk's, pretending that he hasn't seen Jerry since high school, and then confirm that Jerry did not get a head start in the race. Elaine is daitng a guy, Ned Isakoff, who is a Communist, and she is intrigued by the idea of dating a Communist. Elaine gets blacklisted from Hop Sing's, a Chinese restaurant, for refusing a delivery. But her boyfriend Ned wants to continue patronizing the restaurant, as that is where his father used to hang out after being blacklisted in the '50s. So he places an order, but when the delivery man sees Elaine at the apartment he also blacklists Ned.

Kramer and Mickey get jobs at a department store, Kramer as Santa and Mickey as his elf, but they get fired when Kramer starts spouting Communist propoganda to the kids.

George gets his hands on a copy of the "Daily Worker" from Ned, and is instrigued by a personals ad from a woman who said "appearance not imortant". When they talk on the phone, a secretary overhears the converation and suspects that George is a Communist. Far from being outraged, Steinbrenner likes the idea, and sends Geroge to Cuba to recruit ballplayers for the Yankees. When George meets with Fidel Castro, Castro blabbers on and on, just like Steinbrenner, and George quietly leaves the office.

Duncan and Jerry arrange to have a rerun of their ninth-grade race, but Kramer's car backfires and Jerry again gets a head start, while Duncan is left waiting for the actual starting gun. Duncan has promised Lois a two-week vacation in Hawaii if he lost, and so after the race she asks Jerry, "Will you come to Hawaii with me." Jerry says, in true Superman style, "Maybe I will, Lois, maybe I will." He then winks at the camera, the only time in the history of the show that the fourth wall is broken.

8. The Marine Biologist (S5, E14). This episode featuresd the longest sustained laugh in the history of the show, when George pulls out the golf ball that he took out of the whale's blowhole. Kramer then follows up with "Is that a titleist?".

9. The Junk Mail (S9, E5). What makes this espisode special is the guest appearance of Wilford Brimley as the Postmaster General of the United States, who travels to New York to meet with Kramer after Kramer decides he doesn't want his mail anymore. The meeting with Kramer is a take-off of Brimley's memorable role as the Attorney General in the Paul Newman movie "Absence of Malice".

10. The Finale (S9, E23&24). The Finale was an inspired episode which brought back an amazing number of secondary characters. Chief among these was Jackie Chiles as the lawyer for the four friends in their trial for violating the "Good Samaritan" law. Chiles, a parody of the O.J. Simpson lawyer Johnny Cochran, had previously appeared in three season seven episodes ("The Maestro", "The Caddy", and "The Friar's Club), and the season eight epiasode "The Abstinence".

Many "Seinfeld" fans have expressed their dislike of this epiosde. I feel sorry for them, as it seems they don't undertand that the episode is an inspired parody of "Inherit the Wind", the great movie abnout the Scopes monkey trial.

Larry David admitted they blew the ending when he ended "Curb Your Enthusiasm" with Larry getting a prison sentence for proividing water to a woman waiting in line to vote in Georgia, and then, when he was released on a technicality, he said "This is how we should have ended the final episode". But despite this drawback, the finale episode still ranks among the best, in my opinion.

On Birthright Citizenship

On President Trump's first day in office, he signed an Executive Order changing the rules for birthright citizenship. This Executive Order has been struck down by every federal judge who has considered the issue. The problem for Trump is that the Order violates the plain language of the 14th Amendment, which says that if you are born here, you are a citizen.

The substantive issue was not before the Supreme Court in yesterday's argument. What was before the Court was whether a single federal district court judge can issue an injuncton which applies nationwide.

All 21st-century presidents have complained about this. The problem is the judge-shopping which both sides have been guilty of. Conservatives file cases in red Texas, and liberals file cases in blue California, and the judges then issue injuntions which apply nationwide.

The problem for the Supreme Court justices is this: how do we fashion a rule which limits the ability of a single judge to issue these sweeping rulings? What the justices want to do is allow such a sweeping ruling when the issue is clear, as it is in the birthright citizenship case, but limit it in the more questionable cases. In their questioning yesterday, all of the justices recognized the problem, but none proposed a workable solution.

The problem with allowing a district court ruling to apply only to the litigants who brought the case to court is that every single aggrieved person would then have to bring their own lawsuit to obtain justice, a clearly untenable result. Amy Coney Barrett seemed to be joining the three liberal justices yesterday, but it is not clear what sort of ruling will command the support of a court majority. This is a hard case which will likely result in bad law.

"Pitfall" and "Nora Prentiss"

These are two film noirs from the '40s that I have watched online in the past two days. In both of these movies, we have a middle class white collar worker with a happy family life, who gets involved with a femme fatale, to disastrous consequences.

In "Pitfall", the happy family man is played by Dick Powell, who meets the femme fatale, played by Lizabeth Scott, in the course of his work, and he falls for her. She is not really a typical femme fatale, in that she is not portrayed as being particularly seductive; rather, she presents a wholesome image. In the end, he shoots a recently released prisoner but it is deemed to be self-defense, while the femme fatale is arrested for shooting the cad who has been stalking her. An interesting back story is that the script got the movie in trouble with the Hays Code, because the adulterer was not sufficiently punished for his errant ways. The director solved the problem by meeting with two of the Hays Code members, telling them he knew that they were both married and had mistresses!

"Nora Prentiss" starts with the main character being imprisoned, and the whole movie is then shown in one long flashback. He is a doctor who meets the femme fatale, played by Ann Sheridan, by chance when she is involved in a car accident. She is more like the stereotypical femme fatale, a lounge singer who can be quite seductive. There are more plot twists and turns in this movie than in "Pitfall", and we wonder throughout who the doctor has killed.

Both movies are rated 7.1 on IMDB, and that sounds about right to me, as both are entertaining, with believable characters. Both movies reveal the underlying tedium and pointlessness of the supposedly ideal American life, with the white picket fence, wife and kids, and days which are all way too much alike.