The Junior Mint

Having neglected to ask the name of the woman he is dating (played by Susan Walters), Jerry tries to solve the mystery. Given the clue that her name rhymes with a part of the female anatomy, Jerry and George come up with possible candidates: Aretha (for urethra), Celeste (for breast), and Bovary (for ovary). The payoff to the joke comes at the end of the episode when she presses him to say her name. Jerry guesses Mulva (for vulva), causing her to storm out of Jerry’s apartment. As she is leaving, Jerry incorrectly guesses another name, Gipple (for nipple). Then, in a flash of insight, Jerry runs to the window and yells “Dolores!” Her name is never explicitly revealed to the audience (being listed as “Mystery Woman” in the credits), but it is revealed to be “Dolores” when the character returns in season 8’s “The Foundation”.

Meanwhile, Elaine goes to visit her ex-boyfriend Roy (played by Sherman Howard), an artist whom she dumped because he was fat, in the hospital and, noticing that he has slimmed down (due to depression from her breaking up with him), becomes interested in dating him again. Kramer and Jerry observe the artist’s splenectomy and accidentally drop a Junior Mint from the viewing gallery into the patient’s body (in actuality, a Peppermint Pattie was used for filming this scene as a Junior Mint was too small for the camera[1]). When George hears that Roy is in bad condition (after he develops an infection), he decides to spend $1900 (which he collected in interest from a bank account from the sixth grade) to buy some of Roy’s art, thinking it will appreciate in value when Roy dies. Roy’s condition suddenly turns around and he recovers. Although Roy attributes the change to George buying his art, the doctor attributes the limited effect of the infection to “something from above.” (This marks the second time that George regrets his decision to purchase a piece of art. The first came in “The Letter”, when he bought a piece of art from Jerry’s girlfriend for $500.) The triangle art that George purchases in this episode can be seen on the shelves in his apartment in many subsequent episodes. As Kramer offers the doctor a Junior Mint, Elaine decides to cancel her date with Roy, whom she observes eating enthusiastically again in his hospital room after the surgery.

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