Seinfeld question

Cafe Society
1

In the episode where Kramer gets a chicken and ends up part of a cockfighting ring, Kramer and Jerry are training little Jerry Seinfeld (the chicken). During one part before the big fight, Kramer says he’s going to draw a hot bath for the chicken. Jerry for some reason gets all serious and tells him to “Be careful”, to which Kramer nods some kind of understanding.

Now I’ve always understood that to be Kramer might accidentally boil the chicken, but I realized it only made sense if Jerry was warning Kramer so that he wouldn’t do it again. But he’s never accidentally boiled a chicken before, has he? Is there some cut scene that’s not show in syndication that I missed? Jerry warning doesn’t make any sense otherwise

2

I remember the scene you mean, and I think it’s just a joke where Jerry is pretending to be stern. I doubt there’s any deeper meaning.

3

He’s saying “Don’t accidentally kill the chicken”, but it’s also a callback to when George (after Susan died) was going to throw a party (or something to that effect) and said he would take care of the invitations. Jerry looked at him and said the same exact thing in the same exact way (because it was the invitations he had picked out that killed Susan), so it’s a double joke.

4

Oooh, thanks, I gotta watch that one again

5

I just saw that scene yesterday (on TBS) and I also thought the line was a little out of character.

6

Kramer’s not the most responsible guy in the world. I can see why Jerry told him to be careful before giving a live chicken a hot bath.

7

There was also an episode where Kramer had a hot tub in his apartment, and there was some sort of mishap. Might have been a callback to that.

8

“Far as I can tell, your entire enterprise is little more than a solitary man with a messy apartment which may or may not contain a chicken.”

9

I always thought that line was a little meta humour. As in “don’t worry audience, we aren’t going to do the accidentally cooked the chicken gag”.

10

And with Darren’s help, we’re gonna get that chicken!

11

I took the line reading as that Jerry was already thinking three steps ahead where Kramer boils the chicken alive and was nipping it in the bud.

12

Or when he buttered himself and fell asleep in the sun. “Put a fork in me, Jerry; I’m cooked!”

13

Any chance it was referring to the Simpsons episode where Homer draws a hot bath for Pinchy the lobster and accidentily cooks him?

14

Could it be that since dipping a chicken in hot water before plucking makes the feathers much, much easier to remove, he didn’t want wet stinky feathers and a bald chicken on his hands?

15

Or maybe the episode where Kramer spilled hot coffee on himself.

16

I thought it had to do with the fact that giving a chicken a hot bath is a stupid thing to do, and no matter how carefully you do it, it’s still stupid. It’s like a kid saying he’s going to play with matches, and the parent says “OK, just be careful.” I haven’t seen it in years, though, and I don’t remember it that clearly.

17

No, that episode of the Simpsons didn’t air until almost exactly two years after the Seinfeld episode did.