Jerry is approached by NBC executives who are interested in making a TV show with him, and he and George develop a pitch for a pilot. Kramer and Newman make a trade that ends up saving Kramer’s life, which Newman tries to leverage into help getting out of a speeding ticket.
Written by: Larry David
Directed by: Tom Cherones
These two episodes were originally aired together, and I’ll admit that I found that incredibly exasperating. There isn’t a strong hour-long comedy tradition; actually, it is kind of funny that we’ll all happily watch a ninety minute comedy movie but be pre-emptively exhausted by an hour of a comedy show (unless we’re mindlessly binging it, I suppose). There’s a specific fast-paced rhythm to American TV comedy that gets exhausting when it’s allowed to spool out. I, of course, also have the additional problem of having more to talk about ands more I have to talk about.
This introduces that famous season four plotline of Jerry developing a pilot for a sitcom, lifting directly from the experience of developing Seinfeld for NBC. Like many things about the show, it faced some internal resistance; Jason Alexander feared it was a little too inside baseball. I think it works brilliantly for two reasons, both of which are deeply rooted in this show’s ethos.
Firstly, I enjoy that it’s one more element of the show’s philosophy, and indeed the only difference is that they actually are revealing their own personal thoughts. George isn’t really arguing for ‘no story’ – what he’s really saying is that the action doesn’t need to be exaggerated or bound to some absurd premise. Seinfeld does have some absurd action – see Newman bowling Kramer over in a courtroom – but it’s really about the funny things the characters say, and that can be over the most banal shit on earth.
Secondly, it fits with the way Larry David uses this show as a personal journal. That’s not fully accurate; it’s more true to say that David must write something funny, he has access to this particular funny experience, so he puts it into the show, but that effectively makes it a kind of journal. Some funny stuff happened to him while he made the Seinfeld pilot, so why not use it?
Meanwhile, ironically enough, the Newman and Kramer stuff ends up showing what I suspect is pure invention on the part of David. Newman here feels like a cartoonish exaggeration of George, with Wayne Knight working himself into a frothing hysteria trying to outsmart a banal problem and with absolutely none of George’s dignity or connection to reality. Newman’s dialogue is the most flowery of all the characters, and it’s extremely funny watching him bounce off Kramer.
TOPICS O’ THE WEEK
- George is at his most anxious in these episodes (“They’re men with JOBS, Jerry!”). I’ve always been struck by his obsession with proving he can spell last names correctly from an educated guess – surely the least useful skill known to man, next to television analysis.
- One of my favourite little bits is Jerry questioning why he’d be bothered by his fictional son not going into gymnastics. “Gymnastics is not for everybody!”
- This introduces Joe Devola, perfectly played by Peter Crombie. He is immediately closed off to the audience and everything he says is perfectly tuned to increase Jerry’s fear. Actually, these episodes set up a lot of comedy plots down the line, including Jerry throwing out the watch his parents gave him.
- Jerry roasts a telemarketer, making this a rare case of the writers using the show to own someone.
Biggest Laugh: I specifically think of the final button on the scene: “I think you may have something here.”
Next Week: “The Wallet”