The Bris

The four go to the hospital to meet friends who have just had a baby. At the hospital, George gets a fortunate parking spot right in front of the hospital, which becomes unfortunate when a mental patient at the hospital suicidally jumps from the roof and lands on it. George then attempts to get the hospital to pay for the car’s damages. Kramer, having directed the mental patient to the roof without realizing his intention, stumbles into the wrong room at the hospital and becomes convinced that he has seen a “pigman”, an encounter he quickly develops into part of a conspiracy theory concerning the government and genetic mutation, claiming, “The government’s been experimenting with pig-men since the fifties!” The incident of discovering a pigman in a hospital bed parodies the British 1973 film O Lucky Man!. When George thinks there should be pigmen walking around, Jerry tells George that there is always some “group of perverts that’s attracted to it, ‘ooh, that little tail really turns me on.'” In Shallow Hal, Jason Alexander’s character has a little tail, and in fact, there is a group of females who are attracted to it.

Elaine and Jerry become nervous about the religious duties they must perform when they agree to become godparents to the newborn baby, obligated to arrange the bris, which involves booking a mohel and holding the baby during the circumcision. At the bris, Elaine’s unstable, shaky mohel arrives (guest star Charles Levin). Kramer, disturbed by the concept of the bris, attempts to stop it, and the mohel accidentally circumcises Jerry’s finger. The four go to the hospital, where Jerry’s finger is attended to. Kramer finds the “pigman” (whom he later discovers is actually a “fat little mental patient”) and “liberates” him from the hospital. The “pigman” steals George’s car, which was again conveniently parked. The ending of this episode is a tribute to The Godfather, even using the theme music from the movie. This is the last episode where Kramer gets applauded on his first entrance into Jerry’s apartment, because Larry David had begged the studio audience to stop doing so, since he felt it wasted screen time and it threw off the actors’ timing. According to the Notes About Nothing feature of the episode on the DVD, Jason Alexander has stated that this is the only episode he wishes was never made; his objections specifically centered around the character of the mohel, whose behavior (specifically, his hatred of children) bothered him.

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