Seinfeld & the Pet Shop Boys: Such A Winning Combination
It starred the incredible talents of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David and the proof that "a show about nothing" would actually fly. Obviously it surpassed everyone's expectations. The cast (Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, playing a woman named Elaine Benes ,Jason Alexander as George Costanza and Michael Richards as the wild and crazy Cosmo Kramer.) Jerry Seinfeld portrayed himself, obviously. Without going on and on about how hopeless the four of these New York characters come across, I'll get right to the insanity:
One particular episode was about masturbation. The four of them decided to have a contest, the winner being the contestant who could hold out the longest from self-gratification. I was laughing my head off at the incident where George was home alone at his parents place (he was unemployed at the time) and picked up an issue of Glamour magazine and well.....not hard to figure out the answer to that. What occurred next, when Mr. and Mrs. Costanza arrived home, his always-in-a-state-of-insanity mother Estelle, freaked out, fell and hurt her back. Jerry was incredulous: (Glamour?). George had the option of zipping up or catching his mother before she fell--it's not hard to guess the answer.
Estelle ended up in the hospital and when her still-red-faced son came to visit, she said that George was "treating his body like it was an amusement park." Funny stuff.
Now, getting straight to the point, George, Elaine, Kramer and Jerry decided to give silly names to represent the aim of the contest. Jerry quipped, how long could they be "Master of their domain."
So, I know from Catholic friends of mine that you essentially have to be masters of your domains until wed. That never made any sense to me. I'm glad that Neil rebelled and no longer felt any guilt about "doing it." And this Medieval practise is *still* going on. Unbelievable. I mean, that entire religion is based on constant guilt-tripping. Get out of the dark ages for God's sake.
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| Not sure exactly what's eliciting such tremendous dances of pure joy here, but it's probably something illegal. |
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| Elaine shows off her (ahem) dancing skills at a staff party as she lets loose with kicking and jerking thumbs, seemimgly convulsing. George, when he saw this "performance, exclaimed "Sweet fancy Moses" and later described it to a T. "It was like a full body dry heave set to music." |
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| George gets a lesson in "double dipping" when he takes a potato chip, dunks it in the dip for a second time, thus getting his germs on everyone's mouth. "It's like you put your whole mouth in the dip. |
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| Poor Elaine--she goes to congratulate Jerry when he wins a race and gets knocked aside when he embraces his girlfriend |
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| A pissed off grocer kicks Kramer out of his store after he complaines about the produce. This bit could be used for kicking someone out of message boards. |
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| One of Jerry's more annoying neibours, Jack Clompiss insists that Jerry take a new pen he had bought because it wrote upside down. The two of them argued back and forth numerous times until Jerry finally got the pen. Then, Jerry's mother, Helen Seinfeld admonishes him: "Why did you steal Jack's pen?" In other words, Jerry should have returned it to the guy. |
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| A soup seller, who makes soups that make you weak in the knees because they tasted fantastic. The "Soup Nazi", a non-smiling, strict and was known for kicking people out of his restaurant. George ticks the guy off and is told "No soup for you!" A non-smiling staff member gives George his money back and seizes the bag containing the soup. |
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| Ah yes, here's Baboo Bot, a recent immigrant to America with the longest and strangest finger ever. Jerry screwed him over twice: One time, he encouraged Baboo, who ran a Pakistan restaurent across from Jerry's window. He encouraged him to change his restaurant from selling Pakistani cuisine to good old American fare, but nobody came in and so Baboo told Jerry that he was "a very bad man." Then, sometime later, Jerry was going on a road trip and left Kramer, Elaine and George to make sure the mail was always picked up. Upon Jerry's return, he learned that the mail had just been set aside. Unfortunately, Baboo's immigrent papers had to be renewed within a certain period of time and the poor guy was shipped back to Pakistan. |
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| Jerry is caught with what was thought to be a nose-picking session. The blonde woman who is horrified had met Jerry when they both flew first class and revealed that she was a model. In actuality, he was just rubbing the side of his nose. When they deplaned, they had promised to get together, but she was above dating nose pickers and refused to see Jerry again. Don't you just love snobbish New Yorkers? |
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| Elaine shows George how to drink with no hands. |
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| Here we are with Kramer, who with his three friends, concocted that "contest" to see which one of them has the most restraint and would therefore win the competition and be officially crowned "Master of his domain." ( remember that?) Kramer had noticed a woman in the apartment across from Jerry was naked all the time. Needless to say, he was no longer in the running. Jerry demanded to pull her window shades down so he wouldn't be the next to cave. |
Here we are with George, who talks about the one job he would really love to have and that's to be an architect. He tells Jerry, "You know how much I like pretending to be an architect." Chris, you can likely see where this is going, although you actually were one--at least, had completed all your courses and even graduated.
I just loved this: There were no subjects that the Seinfeld team of writers would steer away from and it's my opinion that it was this factor that catapulted the show, into the stratosphere. I believe, personally, that it was the daring storylines, the chemistry between Elaine, Jerry, George and Kramer---not to mention the litany of others (Newman the lazy postman, for example).
One show dealt with the subject of homosexuality. Jerry, Elaine and George were in their favourite coffee shop and Elaine noticed that a young woman sitting behind them, listening to the chatter and decided to give her an earful. (paraphrased, because I can't remember the exact words.) "Just because you're homosexual it's no big deal. Just come out and be gay already." The nosy woman behind them turned out to be the film student who was to interview Jerry for the university paper. Without writing page after page, I will say that there was a quirky edge, as Jerry and fellow writer, Larry David, who with Seinfeld and Howard West created the series. Rarely the subjects were deemed too controversial. This issue is extremely significant and with lesser actors and writers, could have really produce a hot mess.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that" is one of my favourites. I don't have to explain what that means, particularly if you're fans of Seinfeld and the Pet Shop Boys.
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Here we are with George, who talks about the one job he would really love to have and that's to be an architect. He tells Jerry, "You know how much I like pretending to be an architect." Chris, you can likely see where this is going, although you actually were one--at least, had completed all your courses and even graduated.
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| Come on, Neil. It's been awhile for me too, I'm not reduced to gobbling mics--particularly those really long and skinny old Price Is Right ones. Saliva can get in the mic and dramatically reduce the volume. |
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