Kramer gets opera tickets for the gang. Elaine discovers her new boyfriend Joey is a nutjob, and then both she and Jerry discover he’s actually Joe Davola, who has been menacing Jerry. Kramer and George try scalping their tickets.

Written by: Larry Charles
Directed by: Tom Cherones

Crazy Joe Davola is a classic moment of creativity from Seinfeld. It’s possible his behaviour is actually based on real people – his name is taken from Larry David’s real life friend – but my gut says otherwise. In a show about people trying to be normal, trying to enforce normality, and otherwise breaching minor social rules, he’s an out-and-out weirdo. As a man frequently considered eccentric but lovable and frequently baffled by random behaviours people refer to as ‘serial killer behaviour’, Joe Davola comes off as the writers asking ‘what’s the most serial killer behaviour we can think of?’.

The shrine is really what puts him over, obviously, to the point where I wonder if it’s too much, comedically speaking. It’s hard to laugh when a woman is standing between a huge guy and his shrine to her, and he’s standing between her and the door; I notice the audience is bordering on cheering when Elaine sprays him in the eyes. I think overall the scene is pretty funny, especially the payoff that she sprayed him with flavoured spray rather than mace (and then the joke where she smells it on him before she recognises him).

Joe Davola feels like a pleasurable indulgence in completely odd behaviour; I was thinking that many of Joe’s lines are things I would say as a joke (“The door was open.” / “I know. I like to encourage intruders.”), which made me realise how many of them are things Jerry would say sarcastically. Peter Crombie (RIP) delivers them with almost heartbreaking sincerity, which of course serves to make him seem even crazier. It’ll be even more interesting when we see more Seinfeld weirdos down the line.

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• Speaking of deranged, Kramer gets one of his weirdest moments yet when he tries explaining why opera exists and why Italians don’t sing-speak anymore (“It’s too hard to keep up. They were tired.”), and Jerry gets one of his when Kramer asks what Davola’s answering machine message is like (“Nice.”).
• Elaine wiping her hands on Jerry’s shirt is classic jerk friend behaviour.
• “It’s nice to be involved with someone who’s interested in something other than Nick At Nite.”
• “I’m a comedian of the United States! And I’m under just as much pressure.”
• I love the description of George’s bad toast – perhaps the worst toast of all time – because it seems like a moment of the plot stopping just to spin out some hilarious imagery (I love that we know George so well at this point that we can just be thrown these random images and can easily picture how it went – “He had me in a headlock!”), only for it to affect the plot later.
• Profound moments with Kramer: “People do. I don’t.”

Biggest Laugh: No idea why this random burn from Elaine caught me off-guard.

Next Week: “The Virgin”.