Seinfeld Reference – Page 6 – A website about nothing

The Doll

While performing in Memphis, Jerry meets Susan’s old roommate, Sally Weaver (Kathy Griffin), who gives him a package that she wants him to deliver to the soon-to-be-married George and Susan, telling him to be careful with it. While on the plane, Jerry, because he has to be careful with the package, is forced to put his own bag in the overhead compartment and, in the process, a bottle of barbecue sauce in his bag is broken. Upon his arrival in New York, Jerry reveals to his friends that the bottle was decorated with a picture of a man who looked like Charles Grodin, on whose television show he would be appearing, and that he had planned to present Grodin with the bottle on the show. He also gives George the “delicate” package, which turns out to be a welcome mat. Meanwhile, Frank Costanza turns George’s old bedroom into a billiard room–“The Place to Be”–and Kramer challenges him to a game of billiards, only to discover that the space is a bit tight. Frank later invites the Maestro to get a picture of a man who might be his cousin in Tuscany. Once there he plays with them and shows them an old conductor’s trick: he takes off his pants when he sits down so he doesn’t lose the crease in the pants before his performance. After he leaves for the bathroom, he leaves his conductor’s baton which Kramer then uses as a pool stick to win the game. At the Costanza/Ross residence, Susan unpacks her doll collection, including one that looks exactly like George’s mother. While Susan denies the resemblance, George struggles with the image of his mother and eventually begins to imagine it talking to him. Sally is coming to New York, so Jerry asks her to bring him a bottle of the barbecue sauce to replace the one that was broken. When she arrives, however, she brings him a case of a different barbecue sauce, claiming that this sauce is much better, leaving Jerry with nothing still to present on his appearance on Grodin’s show.

Also, Elaine returns from Tuscany with “the Maestro”, trying to replace an autographed picture of “the other guy,” his favorite of the Three Tenors, that was damaged while they were in Tuscany. She discovers that he will be appearing on “The Charles Grodin Show” and decides to accompany Jerry to the show. She gets his autograph but must lug that and an Oro-Dent electric toothbrush put in a large box given to her by Jerry across town. She gets battered and coffee spilled on her but she makes it and gives the Maestro the poster. He loves it and wants to meet her after his performance, but after he leaves Elaine picks up the Oro-Dent box, knocking over a wine bottle and ruining the autograph yet again. Then at the Maestro’s concert, his performance is ruined because his conductor’s baton is broken in two after Kramer used it to play pool. Meanwhile in the dressing room, with nothing to say on the show, Jerry has an idea: have George bring a picture of Estelle, along with the doll. Unfortunately, the only person at home when he calls is Sally, who is visiting Susan in New York. She agrees to bring the doll, but arrives shortly thereafter with the wrong doll, saying it is much funnier. The Third Tenor meanwhile wipes off his mouth of spaghetti sauce with Jerry’s pants after he took them off doing the trick he learned from Kramer. Jerry receives his cue to go on stage, with no material and no pants. Later, Frank stops by George’s place to show him a picture of a man in Tuscany he believes to be his cousin. When Frank sees the doll, he begins to hear his wife’s voice and goes crazy, beheading the doll and leaving George saying, “I told you it looked like her.”

During the credits, Frank goes to Tuscany to meet his supposed cousin. However, the man reveals that his name is different and that he’s not Frank’s cousin, so Frank leaves upset.

The Shower Head

Kramer and Jerry are not pleased with the new “low-flow” shower heads that the building’s maintenance department has installed. Elaine is surprised to find out that opium was present in the urine sample she gave at her physical in preparation for her trip to Kenya. Mr. Peterman, once an opium addict himself, tells Elaine that she will not be able to accompany him to Africa after all. Kramer goes to Elaine’s office to ask her if he can use her shower, and is mistaken by Peterman as a drug addict when Kramer begs for the “good stuff”. Jerry is frustrated by the fact that his parents aren’t moving back to Florida and George is elated because his parents are considering moving to Florida. George’s parents decide to go to annoy the Seinfelds, seeing the Seinfelds’ conviction that there are no available condos in Del Boca Vista as a challenge; this scene alludes to the episode The Maestro, wherein Jerry and Kramer attempted to prove that there were indeed available villas in Tuscany. However, the Seinfelds find out and decide to stay, causing the Costanzas to stay.

Jerry’s Uncle Leo complains about an overcooked hamburger and says the cook is anti-Semitic, which Jerry jokes about on The Tonight Show. Leo’s girlfriend laughs at this, Leo calls her anti-Semitic, and they break up. Elaine discovers her opium results were from her eating poppy seed muffins. After she is about to retake the test and believes she accidentally ate poppy seeds in a chicken dinner, and still desperate to go to Africa, she asks Jerry’s mom to take a urine sample for her. Elaine is later shocked to find that the urine sample proved that Jerry’s mom has osteoporosis and is menopausal.

Kramer and Newman track down new shower heads from a shadowy Serb selling them from a van in much the same manner as guns. The one Kramer buys is actually for washing elephants at the circus, and the pressure is too high as a result, causing him to be knocked out of the shower by the spray.

The Cadillac

The Cadillac, Part 1

Jerry comes back from a high paying gig and awes Kramer with his earnings. Jerry surprises his parents by buying them a new Cadillac Fleetwood; learning about his financial situation, Elaine becomes infatuated with Jerry once again (The Fleetwood base model cost $36,995 at the time). The cable company wants to meet with Kramer, who makes sure he isn’t at home when they arrive, to retaliate for their lateness when his cable was installed. George reconsiders his engagement when one of Elaine’s friends reveals that she is friends with actress Marisa Tomei who happens to love “short, quirky bald men” and that had it not been for Susan, she would have set George up with her. After hearing this, George begins to develop an obsession for Marisa. Jack Klompus accuses Morty of embezzling funds from the office of condo president to pay for his new Cadillac (Jack doesn’t believe Jerry has enough talent to earn so much money, convincing the rest of the board of this). George wants to meet Marisa for a cup of coffee, even when Elaine’s friend is in the hospital with a heart condition.

The Cadillac, Part 2

Elaine calls Jerry in Florida and tells him she wants to come and join him, but Jerry demurs. Kramer continues to avoid the cable guy. George’s obsession with Marisa Tomei makes Susan suspicious. George obtains Marisa’s phone number and works with Elaine to create a cover story involving Elaine and her fictitious “boyfriend”, Art Vandelay. In a scene that is a nearly exact inversion of the walking date in The Soup, George meets up with Marisa Tomei and they have a similar date in the park. Marisa is initially enchanted by George but when he tells her he is engaged, she is furious with him, decking him and storming off. Susan suspects George is having an affair with Elaine and questions her regarding his whereabouts. Controlling herself (having initially burst out into spontaneous laughter), Elaine answers the questions. The answers follow the cover story they agreed on earlier, but Susan trips her up on one of the questions and is still suspicious and asks another question they hadn’t anticipated. After Susan leaves, Elaine frantically tries to contact George so he will be able to give a matching answer to the question. George returns to the apartment and is met by Susan who asks the same question. George gives a wrong answer and receives his second decking that day. Morty is relying on the vote of Mabel Choate to save him from impeachment. Mabel is coincidentally the same woman from whom Jerry stole the marble rye (“The Rye”). The vote is reversed when Mabel hears Jack Klompus refer to her as an “old bag,” triggering her memory of the incident when Jerry had used that same epithet on her. Having lost her vote Morty is impeached. The cable guy repeatedly tries to confront Kramer, but he always gets away in spoofs of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The cable guy finally concedes defeat and apologizes on behalf of cable guys everywhere, promising better service. Kramer appears and has an emotional reconciliation with the cable guy. Morty and his wife leave the condo in a scene spoofing Nixon leaving the White House.

The Seven

Elaine strains her neck trying to get a bike down from the wall in a store. In pain, she impulsively claims that she would give up the bike to whoever fixes her neck. When Kramer gives her a treatment that makes her feel better, he demands the bike despite it being a girl’s bike. Elaine reluctantly complies, but her neck pain soon returns worse than ever, so she demands the bike back. The pair decide to have a neutral third party, Newman, decide who should keep the bike. In a reference to the Judgment of Solomon, Newman decrees that the bike be cut in half, with both Elaine and Kramer receiving one half. Elaine thinks the idea is ridiculous but hesitantly agrees, but Kramer tells Newman to give the bike to Elaine, saying he would rather it belong to her than see it destroyed. Much to Elaine’s outrage, this leads Newman to decree the bike should be Kramer’s (although Kramer later sells the bike to Newman for $50).

Meanwhile, George reveals to Susan that he wants to name his future firstborn child Seven (after Mickey Mantle’s jersey number) but Susan disagrees, claiming that a number isn’t a name and she doesn’t want her future firstborn child to have Seven as its name; regardless, George sticks with Seven. When Susan discloses this to her expectant cousin Carrie and her husband Ken, they love the name and decide to give it to their child. This outrages George, who follows them to the hospital as Carrie is going into labor, desperately trying to get them to switch to a different name (among his ideas are Soda, Eight, and Thirteen) but to no avail.

Jerry is puzzled because he can’t figure out why his girlfriend seems to be wearing the same dress every day he sees her. He tries various schemes to find out if she has any other outfits, but they are all frustrated by circumstances and fail to definitively answer the question. Elaine bumps into her and Jerry tries to get her to tell him what his girlfriend was wearing, but because of her neck trouble, she had to tilt her head straight up and she could only see the girlfriend’s face. When he wrangles a visit to her apartment, he sees a 1992 photo of her wearing the same outfit. Consumed with curiosity, he finally loses control and starts rummaging through her closet looking for other different outfits but she catches him and dumps him on the spot, insisting that he leave before he can find out.

The Caddy

Kramer befriends a caddy, who helps him improve his golf game and offers him other advice. George leaves his car at work, and Mr. Wilhelm and George Steinbrenner think he’s been working extra hard. Elaine encounters Sue Ellen Mischke (Brenda Strong), an old high-school friend who is now an heiress to the Oh Henry! candy bar fortune and a “braless wonder”. After Elaine gives Sue Ellen a bra as gift, Sue Ellen starts wearing only a bra without a top. Having to take George’s car to a car wash, Kramer and Jerry get into an accident with it when Kramer is distracted by bra-clad Sue Ellen. Finding the car in this state, with blood from the accident, all of George’s coworkers think that George got into a bad accident. Mr. Wilhelm tells Steinbrenner, and they begin an immediate search for George. They can’t find him and declare him dead. When George later returns to work (faking injuries after being told by Jerry what had happened), he finds out he didn’t get the position of assistant manager. Kramer and Elaine take her rival Sue Ellen to court for damages after the accident, and only Jerry may stand in the way. At the trial, the caddy tells Kramer to get Sue Ellen to try on the bra. She tries, but the bra doesn’t fit, costing Kramer the trial.

The Rye

Elaine dates a jazz saxophonist named Johnny Germaine and admits to Jerry that she is upset because Johnny doesn’t do “everything,” a reference to oral sex; in spite of this, Jerry tells one of the band members that Johnny and Elaine are “hot and heavy.” Susan’s parents meet and have dinner with the Costanzas for the first time. The Costanzas bring a loaf of marble rye bread which, when it isn’t served after the meal, Frank takes back home. George thinks that by getting Susan’s parents out of the apartment for one evening, he can get a new rye and place it in the kitchen, making it appear as though it had always been there. Kramer has taken over a friend’s horse-drawn tourist carriage for a week and has agreed to take Susan’s parents on a hansom cab ride in the Central Park area as a distraction for George.

The plans fall apart when neither Kramer nor Susan’s parents can bear the smell emitted by the horse after consuming an entire can of Beef-A-Reeno. Meanwhile, Johnny wants to try adding something “new” with Elaine and takes her back to his place before a performance in front of some record executives. Furthermore, Schnitzer’s Bakery sells the last rye to an elderly woman (portrayed by Frances Bay) who refuses to sell it to Jerry for fifty dollars. Jerry then follows the woman down the street in order to obtain the marble rye loaf, though she still refuses to sell it. Eventually he steals it from her. By now the Rosses have returned and the only way George can retrieve the rye is by fishing it out of Jerry’s hands from a third story window and is subsequently caught by Susan and her parents. Johnny shows up late to his show with Elaine and finds he can’t play even a single bar well. Elaine sheepishly sneaks out of the club.

The Gum

Kramer is active in the re-opening of the Alex movie theater. George’s nemesis Lloyd Braun, who had a nervous breakdown after messing up David Dinkins’ reelection campaign in “The Non-Fat Yogurt”, has a pack of Chinese chewing gum that Kramer insists everyone tries. George begs off, stating that he doesn’t chew gum.

At the theater, Elaine doesn’t want to sit near Braun, so she invents the story that she has to sit with Jerry close to the screen because he supposedly forgot his glasses. While watching the movie, Elaine’s ivory button falls off, and she accidentally “reveals herself” to Lloyd and Kramer. Elaine’s exposed blouse convinces a policeman to tell a florist to disconnect a hose he was washing the sidewalk with.

George visits a friend, Deena, and her father who had a mental breakdown. Deena’s father starts tinkering with George’s car’s engine. George thinks a cashier at Monk’s kept a 20 dollar bill of his that he doodled on. He pursues her, and has to buy a pack of gum to look inside the register, much to the surprise of Lloyd, who thought George didn’t chew gum. While confronting the cashier in her car on the street, George’s “Jon Voight Car” catches fire from the above mentioned engine work, and it can’t be put out by the hose because the florist had to disconnect it.

Jerry must wear glasses while around Lloyd to keep with Elaine’s excuse. He exchanges glasses when the ones he got from the lost and found were discovered to belong to Jeffrey Harharwood, an elderly man who owns a film costume institute. The new glasses Jerry wears make it impossible to see clearly, and he inadvertently gives Lloyd a $100 bill to buy the Chinese gum. Kramer eats a hot dog “from the Silent era” and throws up on the sidewalk, and the florist brings his hose back out to clean it. Elaine confronts him about this and he accidentally sprays her. When she comes to the Alex in a wet shirt, Kramer reprimands her because “the Alex is a family theater.”

George’s friend Deena thinks he is showing signs of mental illness, when he tries to explain the true situation, which sounds ridiculous to her. George wears a Henry VIII costume for a movie, and discovers he had the $20 bill all along, but Deena sees him in the costume and thinks he has gone insane. Elaine sees the button on the elderly man and undoes it.

The Sponge

Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer are at Monk’s Cafe and they mention that Jerry still wears a size 31 pair of jeans. Kramer also mentions the female contraceptive sponge is being taken off the market. Kramer passes both of them an AIDS Walk sheet for them to sign. While reading the list of signatures Jerry sees a girl’s name (Lena, played by Jennifer Guthrie) whom he once met, but doesn’t know her unlisted number. Jerry takes down the number and calls the girl. When George and his fiancée Susan get into a fight about sharing their secrets, in order to get back into her good graces George tells her that Jerry does not actually wear size 31 jeans.

Meanwhile Elaine goes on a 25-block radius hunt to find the contraceptive sponges. When she finally arrives at a pharmacy which still carries them, she purchases a full case. Her limited supply requires that she restrict her usage. She puts her current boyfriend, Billy (Scott Patterson), through a rigorous examination to make sure he’s “sponge-worthy.” Jerry tells George that he found his new girlfriend on the AIDS walk list. George then tells Susan against Jerry’s wishes. Susan then tells her friend, who tells a friend until the phone tree reaches Jerry’s new girlfriend. When George comes to Jerry’s apartment Jerry tells him that he is “out of the loop”, because he told Susan about Jerry.

When Kramer takes part in the AIDS Walk, he refuses to wear an AIDS ribbon in opposition to “ribbon bullies”, led one more time by Bob and Cedric from “The Soup Nazi” episode. The storyline appeared to be based on the real-life controversy of former Days of Our Lives actress Deidre Hall, who, in 1993 publicly refused to wear AIDS ribbons at public events, such as the Daytime Emmys. Hall claimed that the volunteers who passed out the ribbons bullied celebrities into wearing the ribbons.

At his new girlfriend’s, Jerry finds out that she has a lifetime supply of contraceptive sponges (assuming the boxes shown are all she has, there are approximately 720 sponges). While trying to disguise that he has seen the sponges he tells her his secret about his jeans and she dumps him.

The Pool Guy

Elaine befriends Susan. Jerry meets his pool guy outside a movie, and then he can’t get rid of him. George is worried by Elaine wanting to get to know Susan (“The two worlds collide!”). Kramer’s new phone number (555-FILK) is similar to a film information line (555-FILM). When Kramer keeps receiving wrong numbers, he begins giving out the information for movie show times posing as the Moviefone man. George then goes to meet Jerry at the Coffee Shop but when Jerry arrives, he sits down with Susan, Kramer, & Elaine at a separate table. When George arrives, it proves the “worlds are colliding” phrase. Susan, Elaine and Jerry then go to a movie, and George arrives to look for them, using Kramer’s information. He hung up the phone before Kramer tells him that the movie is playing at two theaters, so he shows up at the wrong theater and starts yelling for them. At the end of the episode, George is pulled out by security and Kramer is confronted by the real Moviefone man.

The Secret Code

As Elaine had written a good piece on the Himalayan Walking Shoe for the J. Peterman catalog, Peterman insists on taking her out for dinner. As she finds his endless stories boring, she pleads with Jerry to join her, who in turn tricks George into coming as well. Meanwhile, George and Susan fight after George refuses to tell her his secret ATM code, believing it to not be selfish for him to have some secrets.

Elaine, however, does not appear at the dinner, on account of plans made with the forgetful Fred (played by Fred Stoller), a friend of Jerry. Elaine had met him at a party some time before, but his lack of recall for the meeting mesmerizes her. After it becomes clear that Elaine is not coming, Jerry makes up an excuse to leave, leaving George to have an awkward dinner with Peterman. On the drive home, Peterman receives a call that his mother is “at death’s door”, and George is forced to stay the night. While Peterman is out of the room, George, whilst keeping her company, reveals his code (“Bosco”) to Peterman’s mother. Somehow, she seizes upon the word, and repeats it at her moment of death, leaving Peterman bewildered.

Jerry meets with appliance store owner Leapin’ Larry (Lewis Arquette), who walks with a prosthetic leg, to discuss appearing in television commercials. After Jerry’s foot falls asleep, however, he accidentally offends Leapin’ Larry, who believes Jerry’s limping to be an impression. After Jerry explains the misunderstanding, they meet again, but Jerry’s foot once again falls asleep. Not wanting to offend Leapin’ Larry again, he stamps his foot, accidentally causing a can of paint thinner to spill onto some exposed wiring, starting a fire.

Meanwhile, Kramer buys an emergency band scanner and decides to help at the New York City Fire Department. When they receive a call about the fire at Leapin’ Larry’s, Kramer accidentally knocks out the fire engine driver, forcing him to take the wheel, realizing his lifelong dream. However, he is unable to steer correctly and crashes the fire engine, allowing the fire to spread further.

Coincidentally, the fire occurs down the block from Peterman’s mother’s funeral, where George is attending. The attendees rush to find a man with his sleeve stuck in an ATM; Peterman insists that George give the man his card, forcing George to finally reveal his code.

In the closing scene, George and Jerry are in George’s apartment, where Susan teases George about his code. Jerry finds a passage in the latest J. Peterman catalog in which Peterman accuses George of murdering his mother.