SEINFELD - Season 4, Episode 8 - The Cheever Letters

“The Cheever Letters”

First Script Read: Friday, September 18, 1992

Filmed: September 22, 1992

Aired: 9:00 pm, Wednesday, October 28, 1992

Nielsen rating: 11.1

Audience share: 17

Directed: Tom Cherones

Writer: Larry David, Elaine Pope, Tom Leopold

Would Seinfeld have been even funnier if Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David et al had the freedom offered by a subscription network like, say, HBO to tell their stories? David's Curb Your Enthusiasm has been described as "Seinfeld on HBO." That's fair, but only in that both television shows are created by David and feature stories loosely based on his life and a certain side of his personality. The influence of the medium on the message is revealed in the differences between the two shows. In Seinfeld, Jerry and the gang hilariously dissect the banal. In Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry (pun intended!) explores the frankly risque, the politically incorrect, and the darkly absurd. David would have never succeeded with Curb Your Enthusiasm without his experience working on Seinfeld, and not simply because fans followed him to HBO. The behind-the-scenes mythology of the show portrays Seinfeld and David as pioneers laboring in the wilderness beyond the reach of NBC executives to create something totally different, but they could not help but be influenced and even confined by the NBC framework, the generic qualities of the sitcom, and the decency standards for network television. Creating a show for a broadcast network forced David to learn how to tell jokes for a mass audience. He had to learn how to be funny in Jerry's living room and Monk's restaurant before he could venture into HBO's bedroom.

Seinfeld avoids showing Jerry's bedroom, skirting the prurient activities that take place there. We hear Jerry tell far more often than we see him kiss. This episode is a good example. While Susan deals with the shock of learning her father had a long affair with author John Cheever, Jerry frets about Elaine hearing about his own strange bedroom tales. While the dirty talk of Jerry's girlfriend, Sandra, is concealed from the audience, Jerry does admit to George (and the microphones) what he said to her:

JERRY: Okay? So, she's taking about her panties. So, uh... So I said, "You mean the panties your mother laid out for you?"

It's a baffling line. George is puzzled, and calls it "abnormal, but it's not offensive." It's silly. It's suitable for network television. One can imagine David and the other writers grappling with what Jerry could get away with saying on network television, settling on that line, and agreeing that it was abnormal but not offensive. In a memorable final moment, Elaine reveals that she knew about the remark, but other than Jerry's ego, no one gets hurt. Elaine should hear what Larry David says on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

SEINFELD - Season 4, Episode 7 - The Bubble Boy

“The Bubble Boy”

First Script Read: September 9, 1992

Filmed: September 14 & 16, 1992

Aired: 9:00 pm, October 7, 1992

Nielsen rating: 12.2

Audience share: 19

Directed: Tom Cherones

Writer: Larry David and Larry Charles

"The Bubble Boy" returns to the "no good deed goes unpunished" moral the gang learned in "The Cafe." Perhaps it is more precise to say that this gang shouldn't be trying to do any good deeds, because things are bound to go awry. Such a "good deed gone awry" motif is an old one in comedy. In Seinfeld, things tend to go badly in more twisted ways, especially when Larry David is writing the script, but especially when Larry Charles is writing the script.

Jerry agrees to visit a boy whose illness forces him to live his life in a protective bubble. He happens to live in an upstate town on the way to Susan's family cabin. For Jerry, the bubble boy visit is a complete inconvenience. As usual, he is barely affected by the suffering of others. Elaine and the bubble boy's father dab their eyes thinking about the poor child, but Jerry takes a napkin to dab sandwich crumbs from his mouth. Jerry feels compelled to visit the boy out of his sense of duty towards societal expectations, NOT out of personal empathy.

But Jerry never makes it to the bubble boy's house. George, speeding ahead in a car with Susan, loses Jerry and Elaine on the highway. Jerry ends up at a small town diner where he is coaxed to make another nice gesture - sign a photo for the diner's wall of famous guests. He attempts to avoid this minor inconvenience with a lie; he claims to have no photo, but Elaine calls him on his fib. Begrudgingly, he signs the photo, "There is nothing finer than being in your diner." Elaine mocks this line, and Jerry tries to take the photo back, but the waitress refuses. A scuffle eventually breaks out when Jerry goes for the photo. Jerry could have politely declined to sign the photo in the first place, even over Elaine's manipulations, but it is not in his nature to stand up for his own discomfort. Or rather, it is more uncomfortable for him to take a stand against a social commitment then it is to give up and give in. Visiting the bubble boy... signing a photo for the diner... these are commitments for Jerry, actions society demands. He might try to wriggle out of them, but he will never refuse outright.

Meanwhile, George and Susan do reach the bubble boy's house. They find not a meek, sympathetic child but a whiny, aggravating adolescent. In the "Inside Look" DVD featurette on this episode, Jerry Seinfeld points out comedy demanded the bubble boy be unlikable. "It really wasn’t about making fun of anyone," he says. "The point of the thing is not, ‘This poor kid.’ In fact, we made him a guy you wouldn’t have sympathy for and we made him a guy who you wouldn’t see." George and Susan can see the bubble boy, but for the audience he is nothing but a grating, nasally, disembodied voice. Seinfeld understood that the bubble boy had to be dehumanized to leave room for comedy. The episode was protested by some advocacy groups, but, for the same reasons, it was a success with most of the audience. The bubble boy is so obnoxious and coarse that it is hard to think of him as a helpless innocent when, after George gets into an argument with him over a misprinted Trivial Pursuit card, his bubble breaks and deflates.

The gang is forced to flee town from a posse seeking revenge for the harm inflicted on the bubble boy. They arrive at the cabin too late to prevent a fire started by Kramer's negligent disposal of a cigar. The cigars were originally a gift from Susan's father to George. His own generosity cost him his beloved cabin.

SEINFELD - Season 4, Episode 6 - The Watch

“The Watch”

First Script Read: August 19, 1992

Filmed: September 1, 1992

Aired: 9:00 pm, September 30, 1992

Nielsen rating: 11.4

Audience share: 17

Directed: Tom Cherones

Writer: Larry David

Jerry buys his own watch back from Uncle Leo so his parents don't know he threw it in the garbage can. George, realizing NBC isn't going to negotiate, tracks down Russell Dalrymple and gets him to extend an offer for the show for less money than his original offer. And Elaine enlists Kramer to pretend to be her boyfriend so that she can break up with her therapist.

Amongst the continued storylines of the season, the character of Crazy Joe Davola continues to weave himself into the plot. Davola's insanity is originally revealed in "The Pitch:"

JOE: Hello Jerry.
JERRY: Hey Joe! How're you doing?
JOE: You're under no obligation to shake my hand.
JERRY: Oh, no. Just a custom. Uh, that's my friend, George. You look good.
JOE: Why shouldn't I look good?
JERRY: Oh, no reason. You're into karate right?
JOE: You want to hit me?
JERRY: What are you doing here?
JOE: I dropped a script off.
JERRY: Ah, good for you.
[They stare at each other]

JERRY: Well...

JOE: You don't have to say anything.
JERRY: No...

Joe Davola is crazy because he ignores the social conventions that Jerry and George are so obsessed with. He has no interest in the confines of etiquette, from the handshake to smalltalk. In fact, he takes Jerry's attempt at smalltalk seriously and literally. Eventually, Jerry is so thrown off by Davola's refusal to play by the rules Jerry is used to that he asks Joe if he is going to Kramer's party. Davola isn't because he wasn't invited. Even zany Kramer thinks he's a nut. Jerry tries to backtrack, but it is too late, and Davola begins to menace the show's characters for the next several episodes.

In this episode, he is walking on the street, singing out loud. Elaine overhears him and finds his singing endearing. She chimes in, harmonizing. The two strike up a conversation, and Elaine's irreverent flirting captivates Davola. She doesn't realize he is there to visit his therapist; the very same therapist Elaine is trying to break up with, and who was so worried that Joe wasn't taking his medication while he and Elaine were in Europe.

Though the norms of society drive George to neurosis, the one character who strays farthest outside those norms in Seinfeld is a dangerous crazy person.

SEINFELD - Season 4, Episode 5 - The Wallet

“The Wallet”

First Script Read: August 19, 1992

Filmed: August 24-25, 1992

Aired: 9:00 pm, September 23, 1992

Nielsen rating: 12.6

Audience share: 17.5 million viewers

Directed: Tom Cherones

Writer: Larry David

Jerry's parents are in town so Morty can visit a back specialist, where he loses his wallet. George tries to play hardball with NBC by rejecting their initial offer for their television show. And Elaine returns from traveling Europe with her therapist/boyfriend trying to find a way to get out of the relationship.

"The Wallet" is technically episode five, but it has been preceded by two hour-long airings of Seinfeld, "The Trip: Parts 1 & 2" and "The Pitch/The Ticket." "The Wallet" is the first half of another hour-long story, although this time the second part was aired a week later.

As discussed in the post for "The Pitch/The Ticket," Seinfeld was increasingly referring to past episodes. Seinfeld used cliffhangers more than most sitcoms did in this time, although now they are more common in the genre. Season three ended with the cliffhanger of Kramer moving to California. Season seven concludes with Jerry getting engaged. Still, the show was never one to play up the tension of an unresolved storyline. Indeed, when Seinfeld resumes in season eight, Jerry is no longer engaged, and the end of the relationship is explained in a brief flashback.

While storylines continued across several episodes, time never changed Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine. The irony of Seinfeld's memory is that its characters never learned any lessons. They never matured. They never overcame their faults. They never developed. The show deepened, but the characters never did.

SEINFELD - Season 4, Episodes 3-4 - The Pitch/The Ticket

“The Pitch/The Ticket”

Filmed: August 3-5, 1992

Aired: 9:00 pm, September 16, 199

Nielsen rating: 12.6, 12.4

Audience share: 20, 20 (Seinfeld lost its first head-to-head battle with Home Improvement on ABC, which got an 18.6 rating and a 29 share)

Directed: Tom Cherones

Writer: Larry David

An hour-long special kicked off a full season self-reflexive stories, as George and Jerry attempt to create and produce a sitcom for NBC that mirrors Seinfeld itself. Simultaneously, every episode this season referenced a past episode in some way, rewarding its faithful viewers more than any other sitcom that had come before.

This exchange from early in the episode is revealing of the type of humor Seinfeld increasingly used in season four:

GEORGE: They want you to do a TV show?
JERRY: Well, they want me to come up with an idea. I mean, I don't have any ideas. 

GEORGE: Come on, how hard is that? Look at all the junk that's on TV.

I will not break down the ostensibly obvious reasons why this is funny in the hopes of revealing something more. To appreciate the jokes, all the viewer needs is to be conscious that he is watching characters on a television show about their lives, and then notice that these characters are talking about making a television show about their lives. It also helps if the viewer knows the character Jerry Seinfeld, who is a comedian from New York, is played by a real life comedian from New York named Jerry Seinfeld. If a viewer also knows the show has already based many of its stories on events that happened to Jerry and some of his friends, he might appreciate the joke on an even deeper level. Thus, the more a Seinfeld viewer knows about the reality behind the show, the more there is to the joke. To put it another way, the more a viewer knows the more irony he will notice.

George's initial comment is laced with surprise and skepticism, which is ironic because the real Jerry Seinfeld's show is succeeding. Jerry's nervousness is ironic for the same reasons. George's second comment about the quality of TV is the most noticeably ironic. If he knew he was a character on a television show, George's comment would be self-deprecating. He doesn't know, so the joke is on him. The studio audience's laugh underscores the obviousness of the humor of this line.

Again, the more you know about Seinfeld, the more there is to appreciate in its humor because of the quantity of inside jokes. Postmodern culture is filled with inside jokes. I think part of the pleasure of the inside joke is narcissistic; we experience pleasure when someone shoots us a wink, acknowledging that they know that we know something that they know, something that not everyone knows. The exclusivity affirms our own knowledge.

Interestingly, Jason Alexander, interviewed on the Inside Look DVD feature for this episode, was concerned about the narcissism inherent in the direction the show headed in season four, creating an entire arc based on its own reality. In retrospect, he admits he was wrong that it was a mistake for Seinfeld, but he was NOT wrong in his categorization of the arc as "self-aggrandizing." Not only are the characters of Seinfeld narcissistic, but the creators of the show seem equally self-absorbed. This characteristic is one of the main reasons why Seinfeld is considered a classic of post-modern culture.