The Seinfeld Chronicles

Season 4: 1992/1993

40 THE TRIP, PART I
FIRST AIRED 8/12/92
WRITER Charles
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Jerry (with George) heads for L.A. and a Tonight Show appearance. Kramer, still pursuing his Hollywood dream, ends up the prime suspect in a series of ''smog stranglings.''
CREATIVE CASTING Fred Savage cameos as the terrified victim of Kramer's pitch for his screenplay, The Keys.
CRITIQUE Kramer's Sunset Boulevard moment with a has-been starlet, and know-it-all George's backstage assaults on L.A. Law's Corbin Bernsen and Cheers' George Wendt (''enough with the bar already'') are the bright spots in an underwhelming season opener. B-

41 THE TRIP, PART II
FIRST AIRED 8/19/92
WRITER Charles
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Jerry and George try to reach Kramer and clear his name after he's falsely arrested.
CREATIVE CASTING Professional psycho Clint Howard (brother of Ron) in an inspired cameo.
CRITIQUE The duo are a scream as strangers in a strange land (L.A.). Note the particularly riotous display of juvenility in the back of a police car. B+

42 THE PITCH/THE TICKET (ONE HOUR)
FIRST AIRED 9/16/92
WRITER David
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSISImpressed by Jerry's stand-up act, a couple of NBC suits invite him to pitch a sitcom; George assumes they're a team, and the two come up with a revolutionary idea — a show about ''nothing.'' Elaine embarks on a whirlwind tour of Europe with her therapist, Dr. Reston, whose other patient, Crazy Joe Davola, is stalking Kramer and Jerry over a party-invitation slight — and ''the kiboshing'' of his own NBC deal.
WISE CRACK Jerry says of Neville Chamberlain, the pushover WWII British prime minister he and George revile: ''You could hold his head in the toilet and he'd still give you half of Europe.''
INTRODUCES Heidi Swedberg as NBC exec Susan Ross, George's future ex-fiancee; Bob Balaban as NBC prez Russell Dalrymple, a Warren Littlefield doppelganger; Terminator II's Steven McHattie as creepy Reston; and Peter Crombie as Crazy Joe.
CRITIQUE David and Seinfeld's roman a clef about their own NBC experiences includes killer pitch scenes. Too bad they had to muck it up with Kramer and Newman's inane courtroom antics. (Apologies to Wayne Knight: This is his favorite episode.) B-

43 THE WALLET
FIRST AIRED 9/23/92
WRITER David
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS The defective watch Jerry tossed in a garbage can in the last episode (later retrieved, in one of those aptly improbable turns of fate, by Uncle Leo) becomes an issue when his parents ask him about their gift. Seinfeld Sr.'s wallet is swiped at the doctor's. Elaine breaks up with her ''Sven-jolly,'' Dr. Reston.
SEXUAL DEALING Jerry defines The Tell: ''When you ask someone about their relationship and they touch their face, you know it's not going too well....The higher up on the face you go, the worse the relationship is getting.''
CRITIQUE In a show that amplifies neurosis to fever pitch, Jerry's respectful rapport with his exasperating family is the closest thing to normalcy Seinfeld offers. Unfortunately, that's the only salient point to come out of this. B-

44 THE WATCH
FIRST AIRED 9/30/92
WRITER David
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS George plays hardball with NBC and succeeds in dropping the price for his and Jerry's script. Elaine deals with Reston (who refuses to be dumped) via Kramer, then gives her number to a smitten Crazy Joe. Jerry regrets asking out Naomi (Jessica Lundy), a restaurant hostess with a braying laugh (like ''Elmer Fudd sittin' on a juicer'').
CRITIQUE None of the subplots really hang together, but worth it for George's hyperirritating pop-in with Dalrymple and Kramer's inept sparring with Reston. In fact, Richards scored his first Emmy win with this. B

45 THE BUBBLE BOY
FIRST AIRED 10/7/92
WRITERS David/Charles
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Susan invites George, Jerry, and Elaine up to her parents' cabin in ''pie country,'' and Yoo-Hoo salesman (Brian Doyle-Murray) guilt-trips Jerry into visiting his hermetically cocooned son on the way. When all is said and done, an enraged George has burst the bubble and a careless, stogie-puffing Kramer has burned down the cabin.
CRITIQUE Not only do they use a sick kid as a comic device, they make him into an obnoxious creep; his life-threatening Trivial Pursuit game with George (''Moors!'' ''Moops!'') is a nasty little gem. A+

46 THE CHEEVER LETTERS
FIRST AIRED 10/28/92
WRITERS David/Pope/Leopold
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS George and Susan give her father the bad news about the cabin — and present him with a recovered metal box containing love letters from his secret paramour, author John Cheever. Kramer, now hooked on Cubans, pays the embassy a visit and makes a deal for more contraband cigars. While bedding Elaine's secretary, Sandra (Lisa Malkiewicz), Jerry unwittingly offends her with some off-the-wall pillow talk: ''The panties your mother laid out for you?''
INTRODUCES Grace Zabriskie and Warren Frost as Susan Ross' blue-blood alcoholic mom and dour dad — Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on the Upper East Side.
CRITIQUE Discomfiting as all get-out, this also includes a spot-on depiction of writer procrastination as Jerry and George struggle to crank out the pilot. And, thankfully, Kramer's jacket subplot comes to an end. A-

47 THE OPERA
FIRST AIRED 11/4/92
WRITER Charles
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Picking up where ''The Watch'' left off, Elaine dumps Crazy Joe when she discovers he's transformed his apartment into a creepy shrine to her. The unmedicated I Pagliacci nut then stalks her and Jerry at a Pavarotti performance.
SEXUAL DEALING Jerry defines ''Get Out of Relationship Free Cards'': Monopoly-like passes people should be able to use to extricate themselves from romantic entanglements; can be overridden by an ''Eight More Months of Guilt, Torture, and Pain Card.''
CRITIQUE Another gleefully sociopathic Davola appearance puts this one nicely over the top — just like a good opera. B+

48 THE VIRGIN
FIRST AIRED 11/11/92
WRITERS Mehlman/Peter Farrelly/Bob Farrelly
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Jerry dates Marla (Jane Leeves), a closet-organizing virgin. Assuming his sitcom prospects will make him more desirable, George dumps Susan — but not as fast as he'd like. (''Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in.'') Ping sues Elaine over a jaywalking to-do.
SEXUAL DEALING Jerry to George, on when you know you have a girlfriend: ''What's your phone-call frequency? Are you on a daily? What about Saturday nights — do you have to ask her out or is a date implied? She got anything in your medicine cabinet? Let me ask you this, is there any Tampax in your house? Well, I tell you, what you got here...you got yourself a girlfriend.''
CRITIQUE At least three terrific scenes — the above-mentioned ''what's a girlfriend'' chat, Elaine's diaphragm remarks, and George getting dumped by phone while Kramer plays Jeopardy! — make this Mehlman and Farrelly brothers (Dumb and Dumber) effort a hall-of-famer. A

49 THE CONTEST
FIRST AIRED 11/18/92
WRITER David
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS George relates a story of his mother catching him, you know, with a copy of Glamour magazine, prompting a bet to see who can remain "master of their domain" the longest.
INTRODUCES Estelle Harris as Estelle Costanza, explaining a lot about the mess that is her son.
CRITIQUE Clearly on a roll, the show reached its zenith with this masterful tribute to sublimation. But what of its outcome? Since no one collects the purse, we wondered who, in fact, won the bet. Larry David claims, ''We resolved it'' in "The Puffy Shirt," where George boasts about prevailing. Seinfeld maintains that not only was it a tie, ''it's still going on.'' A+

50 THE AIRPORT
FIRST AIRED 11/25/92
WRITER Charles
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Jerry and Elaine are separated on a packed flight to La Guardia Airport: He ends up in first class, next to model Tia Van Camp (Jennifer Campbell); she gets stuck in coach. George and Kramer attempt to pick them up at the airport. Ha!
CRITIQUE Elaine's acute distress — intercut with Jerry's wine-sipping, slipper-wearing, sundae-eating idyll — is a joy to behold. Who doesn't relate to this class struggle every time they board a plane? A+

51 THE PICK
FIRST AIRED 12/16/92
WRITERS David/Jaffe
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Nose picking and nipple baring are Jerry and Elaine's respective scarlet letters in an episode that also finds Kramer confronting Calvin Klein (Nicholas Hormann) over aromatic plagiarism and George getting Susan back — to his dismay.
Wise Crack George on Moses, a biblical figure he thinks must have been a nose picker: ''You walk through the desert for 40 years with dry air, you're telling me you're not gonna have occasion to clean a little house?''
CRITIQUE Kramer, as CK underwear model, and George's Louis Pasteur shtick are prime examples of Richards' and Alexander's respective comedic genius: zany physicality and win-at-all-cost BS-ing. But scratcher-not-picker Jerry's Elephant Man invocation —''I am not an animal!'' — is the goofball piece de resistance. One nit to pick: a woefully unexploited therapy visit for basket case George. A

52 THE MOVIE
FIRST AIRED 1/6/93
WRITERS Steve Skrovan/Bill Masters/Jon Hayman
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS The four friends try to see a movie together.
HISTORIC MOMENT Seinfeld made up lots of movie titles, but Rochelle, Rochelle (''a young woman's strange erotic journey from Milan to Minsk'') turns up again, ultimately as a musical (104).
CRITIQUE Yet another attempt to recapture the high comic anxiety of ''Chinese Restaurant,'' but there's a fine line between transcendent and tiresome. Guess which side this falls on? D

53 THE VISA
FIRST AIRED 1/27/93
WRITER Mehlman
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS When George's relationship with a lawyer — Cheryl ''The Terminator'' Fong (Maggie Han) — goes kablooey, so do Babu's chances of remaining in the country and Elaine's opportunity to avoid a costly jaywalking judgment from Ping. Kramer goes to baseball fantasy camp (of which an incredulous George says, ''His whole life is a fantasy camp. People should plunk down $2,000 to live like him for a week: Do nothing. Fall ass-backward into money. Mooch food off your neighbors. And have sex without dating'').
CRITIQUE Nothing's funnier than Jerry being unfunny in this festival of ethnic ire — except, maybe, George's attempts to duplicitously ingratiate himself with yet another woman. A-

54 THE SHOES
FIRST AIRED 2/4/93
WRITERS David/Seinfeld
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS After George imperils the NBC pilot with an inappropriate stare at Dalyrymple's daughter's chest, it's Elaine — and her cleavage—to the rescue.
HISTORIC MOMENT Jerry's Superman magnet joins his fridge — coincidentally, or not, this episode also marks the beginning of the show's residence in the top 10.
CRITIQUE An off episode for Elaine, who gets stuck with a lame-o footwear subplot. Actually, this rare David/Seinfeld foul pretty much stinks for everyone. D

55 THE OUTING
FIRST AIRED 2/11/93
WRITER Charles
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS A joke perpetrated by Elaine leads a New York University student reporter (Paula Marshall) to assume that (single, thin, neat) Jerry and George are gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
HISTORIC MOMENT We learn that George met Jerry at JFK High School, when George fell off a rope in gym class and landed on Jerry's head.
CRITIQUE Except for another annoying jacket routine (this time Elaine refuses to take her parka off for no apparent reason), ''Outing'' strikes the perfect Seinfeldian balance: far-fetched and accessible. Then again, fortysomething Jerry dating a college girl? Get out! A-

56 THE OLD MAN
FIRST AIRED 2/18/93
WRITERS Charles/Bruce Kirschbaum
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Following Elaine's selfless example, Jerry and George sign up with the Senior Citizens Volunteer Agency to fill the ''deep yawning chasm'' of their lives. Elaine's charge is a goiter-sporting ex-lover of Gandhi (voiced by Edie McClurg); George and Jerry end up with geriatric versions of each other — Ben Cantwell and (in an obvious Abbott and Costello nod) Sid Fields.
CREATIVE CASTING Robert Donley and Bill Irwin as easygoing Ben and crotchety Sid; Irwin scored an Emmy nod.
CRITIQUE The perils of do-gooding yield big yuks once again — as does Jerry and George's confronting of the dual spectres of aging and (gasp!) maturity. B+

57 THE IMPLANT
FIRST AIRED 2/25/93
WRITER Mehlman
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Much mammarian speculation surrounds Jerry's current object of desire, Sidra (Teri Hatcher); George tries to use a funeral to make headway with new girlfriend Betsy (Megan Mullally). Kramer insists that he's seen Salman Rushdie at the health club.
SEXUAL DEALING Jerry on why funerals are a good dating gambit: ''It's a golden opportunity to advance the relationship. She's crying, you put your arms around her, you console her.'' Adds Kramer, ''It's like 10 dates in one shot.''
CRITIQUE Numerous guffaw-worthy interludes (George's mimed reaction to Betsy's emergency phone call, his ''double dip'' funeral fracas, plus the sauna scenes), yet the whole falls just short of its parts. B+

58 THE JUNIOR MINT
FIRST AIRED 3/18/93
WRITER Andy Robin
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Elaine rekindles her affections for an artist ex, ''Triangle Boy'' Roy (Sherman Howard), as he's about to undergo a Splenectomy — which Jerry and Kramer (taking the term operating theater a bit too far) observe. Jerry dates a woman (Susan Walters) whose name rhymes with a female body part — if only he knew which one.
Sexual Dealing According to Jerry, ''Once you make out with a woman, you can't ask her name.''
HISTORIC MOMENT Seinfeld has remarked that his ad lib ''Let's go watch them cut this fat bastard up'' opened the door for all manner of verbal envelope pushing.
CRITIQUE The combined punch of two trademark themes (the provocation — via the name-guessing game — of salacious thoughts, and George's hopes of benefiting from a death) adds up to a minor masterpiece. B+

59 THE SMELLY CAR
FIRST AIRED 4/15/93
WRITERS David/Mehlman
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Jerry wages an epic struggle against ''The Beast,'' otherworldly BO left in his BMW by a parking valet. George worries he's put Susan off men, after seeing her holding hands with Mona (Viveka Davis) — a golf instructor who, in turn, falls for Kramer.
CRITIQUE George as despairing sexual leper (''I drive them to lesbianism. He brings them back'') is, of course, a treat. But the titular predicament runs out of gas, as it were. B-

60 THE HANDICAP SPOT
FIRST AIRED 5/13/93
WRITER David
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS The ethically challenged meet the physically challenged as the foursome appropriate a handicapped spot at a suburban mall en route to an engagement party for The Drake (Rick Overton).
INTRODUCES John Randolph as Frank Costanza (his scenes were later reshot for syndication by his successor, Jerry Stiller — a TV rarity).
CRITIQUE While there are always moments of misanthropic self- centeredness, ''Spot'' is a veritable celebration of it — and good callous fun at that. B

61 THE PILOT (1 HOUR)
FIRST AIRED 5/20/93
WRITER David
DIRECTOR Cherones
SYNOPSIS Revolving around the casting, taping, and airing of Jerry, the NBC pilot, are Dalrymple's obsession with an uninterested Elaine, Kramer's constipation, and George's cancer scare.
CREATIVE CASTING Ellen's Jeremy Piven as ''George''
CRITIQUE What a missed opportunity! The show-within-a-show goings-on offered all sorts of riotous, hour-filling possibilities. Instead, Kramer and Elaine are thrown subplot bones, making what should have been a watershed episode feel padded and slack. B-