Seinfeld

What is this? What am I doing with my life? Watching all nine seasons of Seinfeld in five months and writing about my ten favorite episodes, that's what I'm doing! I thought I would do it, you know, just for the little kicks of it! It was a bit difficult choosing ten episodes! So grab a poppyseed muffin top and caffe latte and enjoy!

10.   The Race (Season 6, Episode 10)

This just makes my top ten because I think it has one of the funniest scenes in the show's history. Jerry is dating a woman named Lois (and as a Superman aficionado, he loves that her name is Lois and utters things to her like, "I'm faster than a speeding bullet, Lois!") It turns out Lois's boss, Duncan, knew Jerry and George in high school and there was a race that all the 9th graders were in and he accused Jerry of cheating. Jerry DID cheat because he went when their gym teacher (Mr. Bevilaqua - now that's a great question for a Seinfeld trivia question!) said "Get Set".  He was ten yard ahead of everybody else by the time Mr. Bevilaqua said "Go". He said he won and nobody had even noticed his head start which I find a little bit ridiculous! George is the only one who knows the truth. Duncan was the only one who was suspicious of Jerry's win, but Jerry refused to race anyone and would announce "I choose not to run!" whenever anyone challenged him to a race. Now that Duncan is back in Jerry's life, he wants to challenge Jerry to a race, but Jerry keeps avoiding him. 

Since Duncan doesn't know that George and Jerry know each other, George gets the idea to "accidentally" run into Jerry and Duncan and set the record "straight" about the race. We get this hilarious scene which I think is one of the funniest during the whole series, and well, you can watch it here:




9. The Stall (Season 5, Episode 12)

Elaine and Jerry's girlfriend of the week, Jane (played by Jami Gertz from The Lost Boys) unknowingly meet when they're both in the bathroom stall of a movie theater and Elaine sees she's out of toilet paper and asks the woman next to her if she can "spare a square", but the woman can not "spare a square". They each came with their date so we see Jane telling Jerry about what happened and we see Elaine telling her new boyfriend, "pretty boy" Tony about what happened. When Elaine tells Jerry the story the next day, he quickly realizes that Elaine was the other woman in the story his girlfriend told him about. Elaine says she will never forget that voice and the two couples are suppose to double date soon. In another scene where Elaine is coming up to Jerry's apartment while Jane is there, Jerry tells her she needs gum to freshen her breath and gives her a bunch of sticks so her voice is muffled when Elaine meets her for the first time. Of course, Elaine does eventually find out who she is and ends up stealing all the toilet paper from the Monk's restroom when Jane is about to go in there.

Meanwhile, Jerry calls Tony a "mimbo" (male bimbo) and accuses Elaine of dating him just because he has a perfect looking face (which is true). Both of them agree that George has a male crush on him because he's always talking about him. We see Tony and George having lunch together at Monk's and George even turns his hat around backwards just like Tony so he can emulate him. George wants them to go bowling, but Tony says you don't get a rush from bowling (though George argues that you do if you drop a bowling ball on your toe!) and wants to go rock climbing. George agrees to it as long as it's just the two of them and offers to make sandwiches. However, Kramer enters the scene and is invited to go with them which angers George. During the rock climbing excursion (terrible green screen, by the way), Tony ends up falling due to miscommunication between George and Kramer. At first, I thought he had died, but he just ended up damaging his face really bad. And Elaine is REALLY upset! "What happened to his face? What happened to his face?" I thought it was peculiar how he all his limbs were in tact, yet his face is the only thing bandaged up.

8. The Implant (Season 4, Episode 19)

Before she was Lois Lane in The New Adventures of Superman or Susan Mayer in Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher played one of Jerry's girlfriends. She's probably one of a handful who went on to have a successful career because there have been a lot of actresses to play Jerry's girlfriend of the week who you have no idea who they are now. Hatcher plays Sidra, who Jerry meets at the health club and really likes. Elaine tells him that her breasts are fake which is a deal breaker for Jerry and he breaks up with her. Elaine realizes she may have been wrong about her when they're in the sauna together and she trips and grabs on to her breasts to stop her fall. Sidra give Jerry a second chance and things seem to be going good until Elaine shows up (Jerry really needs to lock his door!) and Sidra realizes that she's his ex and believes that he set her up to feel her breasts. She leaves Jerry's apartment telling him, "By the way, they're real and they're spectacular!" which has become a great Seinfeld quote. When Elaine tells Jerry that Sidra's breasts may be real, he doesn't believe her because she hasn't touched any breasts, which doesn't make any sense because you think a woman would be the number one person to know if breasts were real or not since they already have them...duh!

Meanwhile, Kramer is convinced that Salman Rushdie is hanging out at the health club. "Salman" tells Kramer that his name is "Sal Bass" and he's a writer and he's spent some time in the Middle East.

Also, in this episode we see another well known actress play George's girlfriend. Megan Mullaly aka Karen Walker from Will & Grace plays Betsy. There's a funny scene where they're at her apartment and the phone rings, but George tells her not to pick it up and she asks what if it's an emergency and he tells her there's probably only 3 emergencies going on right now, what are the odds that this would be one? She answers the phone anyway and it turns out it IS an emergency because her aunt has died. George mutters, "All right, maybe four emergencies". It's funny seeing George in the background reacting to Betsy's phone call, who has her back to him. Jerry thinks George should go to the funeral (which is in Detroit) because it will score him big points and he'll be "the consolation guy". Kramer tells him "It's like ten dates in one shot". George is worried about it being an expensive flight (any mention of George being a cheapskate is always gold) and Kramer suggests he use the Death-in-the-Family fare which is where you go to the airline and tell them you have a death in the family and you get 50% off your flight. So apparently these were once a thing, called bereavement flights, but they don't seem to be offered by many airlines anymore...I'm sure many people took advantage of them as George did! There's a catch that he has to pay the full fare now, then when he returns with the death certificate, he will get a refund. The woman tells him they do this or otherwise people would take advantage and George says, "What kind of sick person would do that?" Haha.

At the wake, we get the "double dip" scene where George dips a chip, takes a bite, then dips it again and Betsy's brother sees this and calls him out on it. In my mind, I remembered it as George being the one to call the other person out doing the double dipping, but if George can take an eclair out of the trash that only had one bite taken out of it, then I can believe he would also double dip!

George talks to a family member, telling him he needs the death certificate because he's making a scrapbook for Betsy about her aunt's life. In the end, he never gets the death certificate, but tries to pass off a Polaroid of him next to the coffin as the next best thing, but it doesn't work.

7. The Dinner Party (Season 5, Episode 13)

The gang are headed to a dinner party. Elaine says they should stop to bring a bottle of wine and cake, but George says they should just bring Ring Dings and Pepsi because that's what he would prefer. (How ghetto, George!)

It's cold outside and George is wearing this ridiuclous puffy parka made out of Gore-Tex. I guess this was before they made thin coats that could keep you warm. There's a call back to an older episode where Jerry calls him "Bubble Boy." While Jerry and Elaine go to a bakery, George and Kramer stop to get a bottle of wine. George is infuriated that the bottle Kramer picks out costs $12 (LOL, I love how cheap he is) and he'll have to pay for it because Kramer forget his wallet. He only has a 100 dollar bill and the man tells him he can't give him change for that. Kramer tells him he can break the bill and goes outside, yelling, "Hey does anyone have change for a hundred?" before George tells him to stop. Kramer suggests that they buy some things at a newsstand to get change. Once they have change, they go back to the wine store to buy the bottle and when they go out to their car, someone has double parked in front of them. You can tell that a lot of time has passed because it's gotten dark and George is worried that Elaine is going to be mad. He's a little afraid of her because one time he was wearing a Panama hat when she got mad at him and she pulled the brim down so hard that his head came through the hat. Kramer is cold and they go back inside the store.  George knocks over a display of wine because of his ridiculous coat and he has to pay for all those bottles he broke. He doesn't have enough money, so he gives up his new coat. It is revealed that Saddam Hussein (or is it?) is the double parker. Super random!

At the bakery, Elaine and Jerry decide to get a chocolate babka, but when they forget to pick a number, they try to get it from a couple who they know they were ahead of. This couple is also going to the same party as them and they refuse to give up their number AND they buy the last chocolate babka. They end up getting the cinnamon babka and Jerry also buys a black and white cookie, which he loves because "it's two races living in harmony". However, the cookie isn't so harmonious because Jerry ends up getting sick and throwing up, ending his 14 year streak of not throwing up since June 1980. They find a hair on the babka (SO gross...when it comes to the "Would you rather have food in your hair or hair in your food?" debate, I always choose the former). Jerry says it's probably Elaine's, but she tells him she takes such good care of her hair, that "you could serve dinner on [her] head!" They exchange the babka for another one, but the woman is hacking and coughing and Jerry says, "Yeah, you want to trade your hair for some phlegm." As gross as hair is, someone coughing on your cake is much worse. I guess this explains why Jerry got sick, although this coughing fit for the woman seems to come out of nowhere as she was fine earlier. Surprisingly, Jerry will go back to this same bakery in "The Rye" where he will steal a loaf of marble rye from an old lady. If I went to a bakery where I threw up from eating one of their cookies, got a cake with a hair, AND someone was coughing all over my purchase, I would never go there again!

They go to the party, give their wine and babka to the woman, then leave. After the night they just had, I wouldn't want to stay at that party either!

6. The Betrayal (Season 9, Episode 8)

This episode should have been called "The Backwards Episode". It's the one with the gimmick of being shown backwards. If this were a regular episode, it wouldn't have made my top ten. Apparently, on the DVD you can watch it straight forward, but I've never seen it that way. They did a Memento before Memento was even a thing! It starts with the end credits and ends with the beginning credits and familiar theme song. We get title cards like "One day earlier" or "30 minutes earlier" or "5 minutes earlier". Watching it in "real" time, it honestly wouldn't be that great of an episode, but when you watch each scene from last to first, you get some great gags, like when Kramer goes between apartments talking to his nemesis and Jerry, the lollipop he's been licking keeps getting larger and larger. There's also a hilarious scene where Jerry opens his silverware drawer and finds a bowl of cereal (with milk!) in there for some reason. Well, a few short scenes later (earlier?), we find out that Kramer put the cereal in the drawer. He had been pouring himself some Fruit Loops and spilled them all over the counter and he hid it in the drawer when Jerry came back to his apartment. There's a funny scene where Kramer goes to Newman's apartment where he's having a birthday party and says he wasn't invited and Newman goes, "Your invitation must have gotten lost...in the mail!" and him and all his postal buddies start cackling like it's some stupid inside joke (which I'm sure it is).

Elaine, George, Jerry, and George's girlfriend, Nina, go to India to attend Sue Ellen Mischke's (played by another Desperate Housewife alum) wedding. The betrayal is in referral to Sue Ellen finding out that Elaine once slept with the groom and the wedding is off. (Who cares? It was a long time ago, before she even met him). Also, George is dating Nina, a friend of Jerry's who he asked Jerry to set him up with. He likes that Jerry has never slept with her and the reason for that is because there's never been an awkward pause in the conversation for him to make a move. To me, this doesn't make any sense. You think if two people got along so well, it would be easier for them to ignite that spark. But according to Jerry, he needs an awkward pause. He says that if Elaine ever left their group, then he would bring in Nina to be her replacement. However, he and Nina are chatting a few scenes later and there's an awkward pause and they end up sleeping together. Elaine finds out when she goes to Jerry's apartment and sees Nina leaving. Jerry pleads for her not to tell George and she says "I"ll put it in the vault" and Jerry says, "No good...too many people knows the combination!" and mimes drinking. George also knows that Elaine opens up when she's had too much to drink and when she seems weird when he mentions that Nina should go to India with them, he offers her a drink and she spills that Jerry and Nina slept together. All of this betrayal is revealed at the wedding. The show literally only has about five minutes of them in India. I love the "ending" (or rather the beginning) of the episode is "ten years ago" and has Jerry moving into his apartment and Kramer comes by to introduce himself and Jerry invites him over for pizza and Jerry tells him, "What's mine is yours." I'm sure he regrets saying that now since Kramer is such a moocher!

5. The Maestro (Season 7, Episode 3)

This episode is our first introduction to one of my favorite ancillary Seinfeld characters, lawyer Jackie Chiles who is clearly modeled after Johnnie Cochran. This episode aired in the fall of 1995 so this is primetime OJ Trial. In the previous episode, Kramer was going to the movies with Jerry, but had ordered a "caffe latte" (did people call it that back in 1995?), but he had to hide it in his pants because the staff at the movie theaters don't like patrons sneaking in outside food. Well, he ends up spilling the coffee and burning himself and that's when he finds out about Jackie Chiles who tells him he has a case against Java World. Kramer tells him he snuck in the coffee because he didn't want to buy the theaters' coffee and asks if that will be a problem and Chiles replies, "Yes, it will be a problem for THEM. This is a clear violation of your rights as a consumer. It's an infringement on your constitutional rights. It's outrageous, egregious, preposterous." Jackie also asks if there was a top on the lid and when Kramer tells him there was, he asks if Kramer put the top on or did they and Kramer says the coffee people did. He then asks his secretary to get him a caffe latte at Java World with a top so he can "run some tests on that top." He's actually asking some pretty valid questions about the ordeal. Obviously Kramer has no case because he was the one who put the coffee in his pants and snuck it in! Who does that with a HOT beverage?

Instead of going to court, Java World wants to settle and Kramer is excited because this means he's going to be a rich man. But things go bad when Kramer cures the huge burn on his stomach when he uses an herbal Chinese balm that the titular character gives him and now he's worried he won't get any money. Jackie is furious with him, wanting to know why he used the balm. But, lucky for them, Java World just wants to settle this before it gets in the papers and starts giving them bad publicity. In a scene we see of them before Kramer and Jackie meet with them, they decide to give Kramer $50,000 and free coffee for life at all their store. When they tell this deal to Kramer, they only get out "free coffee at any of our stores" when he blurts out, "I'll take it!" Jackie is furious, wanting to know what else was going to be offered. Now as much as $50,000 would be great to have, I honestly would be THRILLED to have free coffee for the rest of my life at either Starbucks or Scooters; I don't care, take your pick. I would save so much money. I don't want to reveal how much money I spend on coffee a month because, well, it's probably way too much! There's a funny scene where Kramer is talking really fast to Jerry because he's just had a few of his free cafe lattes.

Other story lines include George getting a chair for the security guard at the store Susan's (you remember Susan, she's George's fiance from season 7 who died from licking toxic envelopes because George was cheap when it came to choosing their wedding invitations!) uncle's store. He gets the guard a rocking chair so he doesn't have to stand all day, but the joke is the guard falls asleep while sitting in the chair and the store is robbed.

The titular character, "The Maestro" is the weakest part of the episode. It's some conductor friend of Kramer's that Elaine is dating. His real name is Bob Cobb, but he insists that everyone call him "The Maestro". There's this whole stupid storyline where he tells Jerry he's renting a house in Tuscany, but there are no other houses to rent, which is ridiculous. And just how rich is this maestro that he can rent a house in Tuscany...because that has to cost a fortune.

4. The Bizarro Jerry (Season 8, Episode 3)

The most memorable storyline of this episode is Elaine's, where she meets three new friends, three guys who share very similar physical traits to Jerry, George, and Kramer, but are their complete opposites, personality wise. They are the Bizarro Jerry, George, and Kramer. Elaine was dating Kevin (the Bizarro Jerry), in the previous episode but they decided to just be friends and he proves to be a better friend than Jerry is. Jerry forgets to pick up Elaine from White Plains and she tells him that Kevin is "reliable, considerate, he's like your exact opposite."It's so funny when Elaine walks into Jerry's apartment and she raises her arms and starts shaking her head and Jerry does the same thing, not having any idea why she's so angry. This is when Jerry tells Elaine that Kevin is "Bizarro Jerry". Elaine meets Kevin's friends, the short and balding and bespectacled Gene (Bizarro George) and the tall and doofy looking Feldman (Bizarro Kramer). We see Kevin's apartment, which is just like Jerry's, only everything is on the opposite side. Feldman knocks on the door and brings Kevin groceries he's bought him. There's even a Bizarro Newman named Vargus, also a postal worker, and of course he is great friends with Kevin.

We get this great scene towards the end of the episode where Elaine is on the sidewalk and coming from one side is Jerry, George, and Kramer, and coming from the other side are their Bizarro counterparts. Elaine decides to choose the latter and George asks if he can come with them, but she tells him they already have a George. However, she decide she likes her old friends better because all her new friends only read and Kevin doesn't like it when Elaine eats food out of his fridge. Plus they tell her she needs to leave when she does her famous "GET OUT!" push to Kevin and nearly hurts him.

3. The Puffy Shirt (Season 5, Episode 2)

It was really hard to choose my ten favorite episodes and rank them. To be honest, as much as I do love the episodes I chose as my #4-10, I could have easily chosen seven different episodes at another time, it would just depend on my mood. I also could have reshuffled the order depending on my mood. However, I really love the episodes I chose as my top three and these three episodes would always be in my top three of Seinfeld episodes.

Judging from the title of this episode, I know you already know which one it is. Jerry and Elaine go out to dinner with Kramer and his new girlfriend, Leslie, who is a low talker. (Fun fact: she is played by the same woman who played the teacher in The Wonder Years who Kevin had a crush on. At least you could hear her on that show!) She speaks so softly nobody can hear her, except for Kramer who is sitting right next to her, so I guess that is the trick! When Kramer uses the restroom, Leslie talks to Jerry and Elaine who are just nodding and smiling. Elaine tells her that Jerry is going to appear on The Today Show to promote a benefit for the Goodwill who clothe the homeless and the poor. Leslie, who we learn is an up and coming fashion designer, says something that of course Jerry and Elaine can't hear and they both nod and say "Sure, yeah, uh-huh."

Unbeknowst to Jerry, he has agreed to wear this awful puffy shirt when he appears on The Today Show that Leslie has designed that makes him look like a pirate, but when Jerry finds this out from Kramer, he whines, "But I don't wanna be a pirate!" It's hilarious when he sees the shirt and says, "THIS? I agreed to wear THIS?" Jerry is worried (and with good reason) he's going to look ridiculous wearing this on national TV and that it will look like he's mocking the Goodwill, especially since his aim is to help clothe the homeless. When Elaine sees Jerry in the dressing room wearing the shirt, she just starts cracking up and can't stop. She tells Jerry that he cannot wear this shirt because raising awareness for clothing homeless people, but Jerry tells her he has to because they've already put in more orders for this terrible shirt and they're making more as they speak. Leslie is depending on him wearing the shirt because she thinks if people will see it, they will get a lot of orders. (Is she really that delusional? She possibly can't think anybody would want to buy that shirt!) I'm on Elaine's side here - it's going to look really bad for the Goodwill if Jerry wears this shirt. Also, does it really count as a binding contact if you don't even know what you're agreeing to? Plus, Jerry never signed anything. But he appears on the show wearing the shirt and Bryan Gumbel gives him grief about it. Jerry, who is getting irritated with being made fun of, agrees with him and tells him he feels ridiuclous wearing it and that "it's the stupidest shirt he's ever seen." We hear Leslie SCREAM "You bastard!" from off screen and Bryan asks him if he heard that (how could you NOT hear that?) and Jerry replies, "THAT I heard!"

Meanwhile, George gets discovered by a woman who works as a modeling agent and she tells him that he has the most exquisite hands and now he has found his calling as a hand model. He gets manicures and wears oven mitts to protect them. While at a photo shoot, George learns about a man named Ray McKigney who had "the most exquisite hands you've ever seen" and that "he had it all". George asked what happened to him and finds out that while Ray could have had any woman he wanted, none of them compared to his own hands which became his "one true love". (What? Eww, LOL). We get a great call back to the well known episode "The Contest" when the man telling George the story tells him that Ray was "not master of his domain". Apparently he used his hands for that so much that they became "locked in a deformed position and he was left with nothing but a claw." He couldn't even hold utensils and  he was dependent on other people to feed him. (What the huh? This is just getting ridiuclous, but it's hilarious!)

George is feeling pretty good about his new career. He got a nice paycheck for doing like two minutes of work and an attractive woman working on the photo shoot asks him out. George goes to the dressing room where Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and Leslie are after Jerry's appearance to tell Jerry how great his life is now. He then proceeds to make fun of Jerry's shirt and asks him who dressed him. Leslie, who is looking furious in the background, gets up and pushes George who trips and falls into a table with a hot iron and burns his hands thus ending his short-lived hand modeling career.

2. The Soup Nazi (Season 7, Episode 6)

This is probably the most famous episode of Seinfeld. Either this or The Contest, but I would say this one. There's a new place that sells the most delicious soup you've ever had, but the owner has very strict rules about how people place their orders and if they don't obey the rules, then it's "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" Hence the reason his nickname is The Soup Nazi. Jerry and George tell this to Elaine when she's about to visit the place for the first time, but she's not really paying attention. There seems to be a lot of rules for how to place an order...I would be too intimidated to go to a place like that because I would be worried I would get yelled at! When George places his order, he discovers he didn't get his bread, but when he speaks up, the Soup Nazi tells him it will cost him $2, even though the bread is supposed to be free. He marks the price up to $3 when George tells him this, then tells him "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" when George is incredulous about this and the woman working behind the cashier snatches back his bag. When George goes back the next day, he does everything right this time, but when he sucks up to the Soup Nazi, he tells George, "You're pushing your luck, little man."

During Elaine' first visit to the soup stand, she bangs her hands on top of the counter, she tells the Soup Nazi she doesn't like lima beans and makes a face, and tells him he looks like Al Pacino from Scent of a Woman and goes "HOO WAH! HOO WAH!" Pretty much everything she does angers the Soup Nazi and he bans her for a year. Elaine gets her revenge when Kramer gives her an armoire that the Soup Nazi (who Kramer has befriended) gave him after Kramer tells him the one he was watching for a friend (who happened to be Elaine) was stolen. While going through it, Elaine finds all the soup recipes and returns to the soup stand to tell the Soup Nazi that she's going to have the recipes printed.

Jerry must choose between the soup and his girlfriend of the week, Sheila, when they are caught kissing in line and the Soup Nazi is angry at this and tells them, "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" Jerry pretends not to know Sheila (even though he was just literally kissing her a few seconds ago!) When Elaine is surprised that Jerry chose soup over a woman, Jerry asks her if she's ever tasted the soup and she agrees that he made the right delicious. I also agree that he made the right decision because Sheila was super annoying. She and Jerry would baby talk to each other and call each other "Schmoopie" which seemed way out of character for Jerry. Jerry also points out that it will be easier to make up with Sheila than the Soup Nazi.

And, in case you were wondering what kind of soup you can order from the Soup Nazi, these are the soups he offers: Mulligatawny (an Indian soup, a favorite of Kramer's), crab bisque, turkey chili, jambalaya (Newman's favorite), black bean, chicken broccoli, clam bisque, split pea, French onion, mushroom barley, and tomato rice. What? No Broccoli cheese? Or chicken tortilla? Very disappointed that the Soup Nazi doesn't serve two of my favorite kinds of soups! We will learn that the Soup Nazi's name is Yev Kassem when he testifies at their trial in the last episode.

1. The Yada Yada (Season 8, Episode 19)

To this day, I still use "yada yada" in my everyday phrase. Seinfeld of course didn't invent it, but it certainly popularized it. I had remembered Elaine as being the one who starts doing it, but it's actually George's girlfriend, Marcy. Elaine does use "yada yada" later on in the episode, so that's probably what I'm thinking of. It's just really funny how Marcy uses "yada yada" to skip over crazy parts of her stories and just get to the point. For instance, she tells him, "So I'm on Third Avenue, minding my own business, and yada, yada, yada, I get a free massage and a facial." See, completely skips over the entire part of the story of HOW she got this free massage and facial. Georges uses her "succinct" method of telling stories to tell her about Susan: "We were engaged to be married, we bought the wedding invitations, and yada, yada, yada, I'm still single!" When Marcy asks him, "So what's she doing now?", George replies, "Yada."  Ahhahaha! He probably should've just changed "yada" to "nada"! However, he gets suspicious when Marcy tells him, "Speaking of exes, my old boyfriend came over last night, and yada, yada, yada, I'm really tired today." He believes Marcy has yada yada'd sex (even though he just yada yada's over his ex-fiance's death - hmm, I wonder which one is worse?) and relays this to Jerry and Elaine. Elaine says she's yada yada's sex and this is probably what I'm remembering. George tells Marcy he doesn't want her using "yada yada" anymore and asks her to tell him about the free facial. She tells him that she went to Bloomingdales where she stole a watch, then went to the salon where she got her massage and facial and skipped out on the bill. So, yeah, she yada yada'd over being a shoplifter. She wants to know the rest of George's story about being engaged, but he just gives her a look.

Elaine's storyline involves being a reference for her friend Beth, and her new husband, Arnie to adopt a child. We met Beth (played by a pre-Will & Grace Debra Messing) in an earlier episode where she was married to someone else. Jerry has a thing for Beth and wanted to grab her when she got divorced from her first husband, but it never happened. Elaine ruins any chance of Beth and Arnie adopting a child because she tells the interviewer that when she went to see Striptease with the couple, she was talking to Beth and Arnie leaned over her and said, "WOULD YOU SHUT UP?" I have no idea what Elaine is thinking telling this story! She tries to backpedal when she sees the look on the interviewer's face and says, "But they're GREAT people!' Elaine finds out that their adoption application was denied because "the adoption agency feels that Arnie has a violent temper." Beth tells her they're asking everyone who had an interview with him to see what they said. Elaine says, "I just told him what kind people you are and what a big movie buff Arnie is, and yada, yada, yada, that is it!" The second time Elaine uses the "yada yada", so no wonder I remember this as being her catchphrase. Beth calls it quits with her second husband and Jerry decides this is the time to make a move on her...which he does, but it doesn't last very long when Beth reveals herself to be a racist and anti-Semitic. Ouch. (Did she not know Jerry was Jewish?)

Jerry's storyline involves his dentist Tim Whatley (played by a pre-Malcolm in the Middle and pre-Breaking Bad Bryan Cranston) converting to Judaism which angers Jerry because he believes Whatley is only converting for the jokes. When Jerry is getting a cavity filled, Whatley starts making some off-color jokes and when Jerry asks him if he should be making jokes like that, he replies, "Why not? I'm Jewish, remember?" He also says, "It's our sense of humor that sustained us as a people for 3,000 years." When Jerry corrects him, "5,000", he replies, "5,000, even better!" When Jerry confesses his feeling about Whatley to a priest, the priest asks him if this offends him as a Jew, Jerry tells him that it offends him as a comedian. It's funny when he goes to the confessional booth because he sits instead of kneels.

Kramer's storyline is the weakest. He and Mickey (his little person friend) pick up two girls at the Gap, but when they meet them for dinner, they're not sure which girl (who are both pretty similar) they're supposed to be dating. He and Mickey can't decide which girl they like and they fight over who gets who. Mickey ends up marrying one, but it turns out she really liked Kramer and the girl at the wedding who didn't marry Mickey was crying because she wanted to marry him. But despite the one weak storyline, lots of good things in here to keep you laughing.

I just know tomorrow that my top ten (except the top 3!) are all going to change...too many good episodes to choose from!