Kramer’s girlfriend mumbles a lot, causing Jerry to accidentally agree to wear a puffy shirt on national television. Meanwhile, George becomes a hand model.

Written by: Larry David
Directed by: Tom Cherones

This holds the distinction for the first Seinfeld episode I ever saw in full. Seinfeld just wasn’t much of a thing where I grew up, for whatever reason; it wasn’t the kind of thing I was drawn to as a kid, even as I matured and my tastes extended towards the adult (M*A*S*H was a perpetual rerun and a favourite of my Dad’s, and I remember slowly ‘getting it’ until it became a favourite for me too). This happened to be airing on TV one day in my mid-twenties when I was at my grandmother’s with nothing to do, and I was floored at how solid it was – not formula, no real emotion, just twenty minutes of powerful comedy.

Anyway, there are a few big ideas going on here. The eponymous puffy shirt is a great physical symbol of a basic Seinfeld conflict, even a basic Larry David conflict: Jerry has to choose between humiliating himself or enraging someone perfectly nice – and through his own impatience, he manages to both at the same time. This episode stands out as a great example of the show blowing up ordinary feelings into absurd proportions; I think anyone who has ever lacked assertiveness knows, on some level, they would also be browbeaten into wearing the puffy shirt.

We also have George moving in with his parents. This is interesting for a number of reasons; the first being that I think the stigma has reduced for adults moving in with their parents simply as a matter of practicality since the economy shat itself, but only for other people – a person who moves in with their parents feels, as Jerry describes, as if they have failed badly, whereas the same person wouldn’t care if one of their friends did the same thing. I moved in with my parents three times in my adult life – once when I did, in fact, collapse emotionally and was completely dysfunctional, once when it made life easier but mainly I wanted to spend time with them, and once as a holiday between quitting a shitty job and taking up a slightly less shitty job.

Living with my parents on purpose really put in perspective how weird it is that people can be ashamed of it, especially considering that this is, you know, how people generally lived (regardless of class) up to about a hundred years ago. On the other hand… most people’s parents aren’t as insane as George’s. This was the first episode filmed with Jerry Stiller as Frank Costanza, and you really feel the energy clicking here – Frank somehow manages to seem furious about everything at all times, even when he’s happy, or even just describing things.

There’s something simultaneously bizarre and banal about Frank and Estelle Costanza; they escalate every argument they have because neither of them fully care about what they’re talking about but care deeply about winning. Jason Alexander remarked that meeting George’s parents ends up explaining a lot about him; you can see how he’s developed simultaneous insecurity and overexaggerated responses to every problem (I feel like you can even see Alexander having ‘aha!’ moments watching and responding to them).

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• “My father wears his sneakers in the pool.” This is a recycling of a line from “The Phone Message”, where George used the same information to distract his girlfriend for a moment.
• “My mother has never laughed. Ever. Not a giggle, not a chuckle, not a tee-hee, never went ‘hah’.” George is right, that is deeply unsettling. I think George easily wins the ‘crazy parents’ argument.
• I forgot this is the one where George becomes a hand model! Love the callbacks to “The Contest”, where we learn George apparently won.
• “What, are you kidding? Your knuckles are all out of proportion […] Where do you get off comparing your hands to mine?”
• “Jerry, you’re promoting a benefit to clothe homeless people!”
• Love how the structure of incidents makes “Is that what you’re wearing?” so funny.
• We constantly dismiss Seinfeld’s acting, so I must say how funny it is to watch him slowly die as the interviewer keeps bringing up his shirt.
• Kramer on dating: “I just can’t be with someone whose life is in complete disarray.”
• You can hear a woman in the audience shout “Oh my god!” when they see the homeless man in the puffy shirt.

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “The Glasses”