Storylines: Jerry has a woman come in to visit him, but misreads signals, which George tries to help him understand better.
Personal Take: The one that started it all, the Seinfeld Chronicles actually established a purpose for the show (it wasn’t originally going to be a show about nothing). Seinfeld was about how comedians got their material. It actually seemed like a novel idea. It was fun to watch Jerry’s stand-up comedy put together all the little bits and pieces of discussion throughout the episode. Obviously the show took different directions for the better, but it’s cool that it didn’t truly stray from the original idea.
Gaps in Society: A lot of what Jerry has said the show tries to address/explain in its comedy is the unspoken rules and understandings in society that often lead to problems. He called them gaps in society. In this episode, he invites a woman to stay with him in his apartment in a sort of romantic way. But it turns out she’s engaged. If he had known that, he wouldn’t have invited her over. How is it that something like that can fall through the cracks? Was he in the wrong for assuming the woman would know what his intentions were when he invited her? These sort of misunderstandings get called into question throughout the series as the group tries to understand why things are understood a certain way
Jerry’s bit: The early episodes had longer, extended bits of Jerry doing stand-up comedy, since the show, after all, was about how a comedian gets his material. The material often connected very strongly with the storylines in the episode.
His first bit was about people getting ready to go out, then, once they were out, thinking about getting back.
His next bit was about laundry, which includes one of the best lines ever. “So they’re showing me on the commercial how to get out blood stains. Is this a violent image to anybody, blood stains? I mean come on, you got a t-shirt with blood stains all over it, maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem right now. You need to get the harpoon out of your chest first.”
Another bit he does is about how many cotton balls ladies need, and why they’d need so many.
His final bit is about what men want (women), and how they get them. “How do we get women? Oh, we don’t know that. We don’t know, the next step after that, we have no clue. This is why you see men honking car horns, yelling from construction sites. These are the best ideas we’ve had so far.”
Best lines:
George: I can’t believe you’re bringing in an extra bed for a woman that wants to sleep with you. Why don’t you bring in an extra guy, too?
Jerry: You can’t over-die, you can’t over-dry.
Tidbits: The opening dialogue about the second button being the key button was, of course, the same dialogue exchange Jerry and George have in the series finale. Perfect way to end the show....The episode originally was going to be called “Stand up.” ... After the pilot episode, NBC placed an order of four episodes, the smallest order in television history....Kramer’s dog was written into the script because Jerry had a dog bit he was going to perform during his stand-up routine. But the bit was cut (because it didn’t pertain enough to the show), so the dog is there for no reason, and never appears again.
References/running jokes/connections:
George mentions to Jerry that he shouldn’t trust what his instincts tell him, but that he should do the opposite. This theory gets proven true in “The Opposite.” ... Kramer interestingly knocks on Jerry’s door before coming in, something he rarely does....This is the only episode in which Elaine does not appear. George says “I am aware of you” to Kramer, which becomes a theme in a couple of episodes, most notably “The Barber.”
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