# New things you notice in Seinfeld **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 1, 2007, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445 "2007-02-01T19:26:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/21 "2007-02-02T05:07:29Z")
[QUOTE=The New and Improved Superman] I’ve noticed that there is one basic ‘New York City street’ soundstage. The characters are supposedly wandering around Manhattan. But almost every street they walk down is the same set, with the same basic building backdrops just redecorated with different storefronts, and shot at a variety of angles over and over again. I’ve noticed that same basic set used in ‘Friends’ and a variety of other NYC (or generic ‘big urban center’) set shows, and even a few movies. [/QUOTE] Yes - the series was shot in L.A. However, I’ve noticed that when Seinfeld does car or cab rides, the projected background is usually Broadway, sometimes in the Upper West Side, and sometimes between Columbus Circle and Times Square - you can see the Ed Sullivan Theatre (David Letterman show) which is between 53 and 54 street. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/22 "2007-02-02T06:12:32Z")
[QUOTE=USCDiver] I noticed several years ago when I was watching reruns from some of the very early Season 1 episodes that Jason Alexander really channels Larry David who I think the character of George is supposed to be modelled after. It’s almost dead-on for the neurotic character that Larry David plays on Curb Your Enthusiasm. [/QUOTE] Alexander has said that for first season he was channeling Woody Allen ---
**Author:** ![BabaBooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dfb087/32.png) [@BabaBooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BabaBooey)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/23 "2007-02-02T06:46:01Z")
One I didn’t notice until recently: Jon Favreau (Swingers, Friends, Elf) as the party clown that didn’t know who Bozo was. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/24 "2007-02-02T07:41:41Z")
Every episode has Superman in the background somewhere, usually in Jerry’s apartment. I’ve found most of them… ---
**Author:** ![initech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/439d5e/32.png) [@initech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/initech)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/25 "2007-02-02T08:48:28Z")
- How much of the show’s personality came from Larry David, rather than Seinfeld. Not just George, but all the characters. - Most show plots are stuctured very much like a nightmare (CYE does this as well). A slow build to the worst possible outcome, where the show ends and the story never resolves. - How truly great it was. Lots of good shows come and go, most age quickly once they’re off the air. Very few stand up after ten years (M_A_S\*H is the only one that comes to mind). Seinfeld would be a landmark show if it was airing today, and that’s impressive. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/26 "2007-02-02T14:10:21Z")
[QUOTE=Rodgers01] [hijack] I think this is a great testament to the show’s staying power and classic status. [/hijack] Speaking of “Seinfeld” extras who went on to become famous in other things, the episode with Tim Watley, the re-gifting dentist who later became Malcom’s dad, is on TV behind me… [/QUOTE] I think part of the staying power is that it invented this whole universe that, while it commented on realistic little things, isn’t real enough to date itself or place itself in reality. Only Jerry’s and Elaine’s clothes look dated after a while. Thanks for the tip on Tim Watley; I never made the connection to Malcolm! ---
**Author:** ![c\_goat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@c\_goat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c_goat)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/27 "2007-02-02T14:28:32Z")
I’ve also noticed Jerry’s girlfriends. Besides the ones mentioned there’s also: Kristin Davis (Charlotte from Sex and the City) as the toothbrush in the toilet girl. Desperate Housewives’ Marcia Cross (Bree) as the dermatologist. I love recognizing the various guest stars… sometimes it works backwards where I’m like “hey wasn’t that guy/girl on a Seinfeld episode”? I also noticed Michael Chiklis, but it took seeing that episode a few times (hard to recognize with hair). ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/28 "2007-02-02T14:53:14Z")
Another guest star was Brenda Strong as Sue Ellen Mishkie aka “The Braless Wonder”. She also played/voices Mary Alice Young on Desparate Housewives. ---
**Author:** ![randwill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/29 "2007-02-02T15:08:46Z")
I noticed in the early episodes, the pilot in particular, George is more confident, even giving Jerry romantic advice. In one of the Special Features on the DVDs, the set designer points out that the back of Jerry’s refrigerator would be out in the hall. The same guy has an intresting feature about the set used in the episode where they spend the whole show looking for their car in a parking garage. They built the garage in the studio. It was cheaper to move the apartment and coffee shop out of the way and build the garage than to go on location to an actual garage. There are a couple of shots where you can see a large mirror is used on the far wall to give the set more depth. Also note that there are no lines painted on the floor marking the parking spaces except for one scene where the lines are a story point. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/30 "2007-02-02T15:15:00Z")
[QUOTE=The New and Improved Superman] I’ve noticed that there is one basic ‘New York City street’ soundstage. [/QUOTE] Just one thing about that street that really annoys me: the sidewalk is way, way too narrow for any sidewalk with storefronts on the Upper West Side, or just about anywhere in Manhattan, for that matter. It is so obviously NOT New York City. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/31 "2007-02-02T15:15:49Z")
[QUOTE=c\_goat] I love recognizing the various guest stars… sometimes it works backwards where I’m like “hey wasn’t that guy/girl on a Seinfeld episode”? [/QUOTE] In the NCIS with the famous line about what Ducky looked like when he was younger (a deadpan Mark Harmon saying “Ilya Kurakin”), I kept wondering where I had seen the very weird funeral director mother before. It finally occured to me that she was Seinfeld’s mother. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/32 "2007-02-02T15:24:34Z")
How about it working forwards? For example, [Barney Martin](http://imdb.com/name/nm0551949/), who played Ralph Marolla, Linda Marolla’s (Liza Minelli) dad in “Arthur”, later of course turned up to play Jerry’s dad on Seinfeld. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/33 "2007-02-02T16:32:12Z")
[QUOTE=Fiddle Peghead] How about it working forwards? For example, [Barney Martin](http://imdb.com/name/nm0551949/), who played Ralph Marolla, Linda Marolla’s (Liza Minelli) dad in “Arthur”, later of course turned up to play Jerry’s dad on Seinfeld. [/QUOTE] Didn’t a different actor play his dad earlier on? A thinner, steel-gray-haired guy? > [@Fiddle Peghead](#): > > Just one thing about that street that really annoys me: the sidewalk is way, way too narrow for any sidewalk with storefronts on the Upper West Side, or just about anywhere in Manhattan, for that matter. It is so obviously NOT New York City. And in the finale when they end up somewhere in Massachusetts, the streets there look way too similar to the streets they walk in “NYC”. ---
**Author:** ![postcards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8e8cbc/32.png) [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/34 "2007-02-02T17:45:53Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] Didn’t a different actor play his dad earlier on? A thinner, steel-gray-haired guy? [/QUOTE] [Philip Bruns](http://imdb.com/name/nm0116575/) ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/35 "2007-02-02T17:49:43Z")
It’s my theory that anyone who is in anything today was on either _Seinfeld_ or _Law & Order_. Unless they’re in their mid-twenties, in which case they were on _Are You Afriad of the Dark?_. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/36 "2007-02-02T18:07:31Z")
[QUOTE=initech] - How much of the show’s personality came from Larry David, rather than Seinfeld. Not just George, but all the characters. - Most show plots are stuctured very much like a nightmare (CYE does this as well). A slow build to the worst possible outcome, where the show ends and the story never resolves. [/QUOTE] That reminds me of something I noticed in a Seinfeld rerun quite a while ago… one of the episodes seems to have a recurring motif (?) out of someone refusing a bite of pie. People are sitting down, one diner is really enjoying the pie and offers some to his dining companion or companions, who doesn’t want any. When pressed, the refuser is pushed to a nearly wordless state of terror, just shaking their head at the pie. The episode (IIRC) started with Jerry offering apple pie or something like that to his girlfriend, and we never find out why she refused. But later on the tables are turned, with the girlfriend offering pizza pie, and Jerry the germophobe abstaining because he saw GF’s beloved Poppy going to the bathroom, not washing his hands, and then throwing the pizza dough. George has ipecac syrup put into a chocolate pie to get payback on some guys from a job he was fired from or something, but when he shows up to witness the revenge play, they apologize and welcome him to their table. George plays along, but they offer to share the tainted pie and he doesn’t want to either eat, or explain too early why he won’t. It just seemed like a really odd and somewhat surreal moment to revisit like that. Either a nightmare memory or just something that someone saw in a restaurant that stuck with them, I guess, and they wrote an episode out of thinking about the reasons behind the refusal. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/37 "2007-02-02T18:29:04Z")
Another “Jerry’s girlfriends” thing: In the episode where Jerry shaves his chest hair – which is also the episode where Kramer has the Peterman Reality Tour, and Elaine and her old boss start a muffin-top business (the episode is called “The Muffin Tops”) – the girlfriend, Alex, is played by [Melinda Clarke](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0164918/). She went on to appear in many other shows (including an unaired episode of _Firefly_), but is best known as Julie Cooper on _The O.C._ ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/38 "2007-02-02T18:33:32Z")
[QUOTE=chrisk] George has ipecac syrup put into a chocolate pie to get payback on some guys from a job he was fired from or something, but when he shows up to witness the revenge play, they apologize and welcome him to their table. George plays along, but they offer to share the tainted pie and he doesn’t want to either eat, or explain too early why he won’t. [/QUOTE] Not quite. George snagged a dress jacket on sale, and figured it would be great for an upcoming job interview. Someone else wanted the jacket as well, and George beat him to the punch. And George rubbed the guy’s face in the fact that he got it. The interview was at a restaurant, and the interviewers told him that they really wanted to hire a team player. They tried to get him to share in a dessert. George saw the chef, and it happened to be the guy that lost the jacket. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/39 "2007-02-02T18:38:30Z")
[QUOTE=chrisk] George has ipecac syrup put into a chocolate pie to get payback on some guys from a job he was fired from or something, but when he shows up to witness the revenge play, they apologize and welcome him to their table. George plays along, but they offer to share the tainted pie and he doesn’t want to either eat, or explain too early why he won’t. [/QUOTE] In fact, you got this plot so wrong, I wondered where you came up with it. Then it dawned on me that you conflated two episodes. You’re thinking of the one where George quit his job, then pretended he hadn’t (like what happened to Larry David). He wanted to get revenge by slipping his boss a mickey. It worked perfectly, until the boss hired him back – and celebrated by drinking the tainted drink. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445/40 "2007-02-02T18:49:22Z")
There was also one where George bought a suit that some other guy wanted. He then went to lunch with a group of people from a company he was trying to get employed at. The Boss at the place wanted everyone to be a yes-man. The guy who wanted the suit was the dessert chef at the restaurant the group went to, and made a special pie for their dessert.George saw the guy and refused the pie: The Bad News is I didn’t get the jobl The Good News is I’m the only one who didn’t get violently ill. Speaking of the one where George slips his ex-boss the tainted drink, the woman on the bar stool is Kathy Kinney, without the outlandish makeup she wore as Mimi on Drew Carey. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-things-you-notice-in-seinfeld/390445.md?page=3)