Great out of the ordinary thinking/outside the box episode! Non stop laughs! Excellent writing!
10 Reviews
The Scooter, the Marx Brothers and the Hindenburg
FlushingCaps16 January 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This episode is about as good as it gets. I just saw it again and we not only laughed ourselves silly during the show but during the "Inside Look" on the DVD--where the actors/director/writers talk about the episodes.
The four stars get their parts of the plot wrapped up together, to an extent. Mostly on his own is Jerry, who is greatly troubled because his girlfriend brushed her teeth with her toothbrush, not knowing that Jerry had just fished it out of the toilet after knocking it in there. He intended to tell her but she was brushing before he knew it. From then on he couldn't bear to kiss her, no matter how much she scrubbed her teeth.
George was given a souvenir key fob in the shape of Yankee announcer Phil Rizzuto's head. When you squeezed it, you heard the "Scooter's" favorite expression, "Holy Cow!" But George accidentally dropped it in a pothole he was leaping over and had to pay some highway worker friends of Kramer's $50 for the privilege of being allowed to use a jackhammer to try to retrieve the fob. George being George, you just knew something bad would happen when they turned him loose with a jackhammer, but you wouldn't expect it to have a big impact on Jerry and his girlfriend. I loved the scene where cars driving over the now repaired pothole caused enough compression in the tar that we could still hear "Holy Cow!" on each passing car.
Elaine was desperately trying to get some flounder from a certain Chinese restaurant delivered to her despite living on the wrong side of the street--just over their delivery zone boundary. Now I have no idea why they would need a boundary--what, is Al Capone running things and keeping the North Side gang on their side of town? But her efforts included entering an apartment across the street and making use of a janitor's closet to pretend to live there so they would deliver to her. But one of the tenants kept wanting her to do janitorial work. One of the best scenes here saw the four stars crowding into that closet, reminding us of the classic stateroom scene from the Marx Brothers movie A Night at the Opera.
If that is all there was, this would have been a really good episode, but the wildest plot involved Kramer "adopting" a one-mile stretch of a highway. He insisted on keeping it clean all by himself, even though he almost got run over picking up litter. Things really turned sour when he decided to widen the lanes, to give the cars more room in each lane. But what really made this episode stick out was the disastrous result of Kramer's attempt to change the lanes back the way they were. This involved a sewing machine dropped by Elaine, paint thinner spilled by Kramer, and Newman singing "Three Times a Lady." In case anyone reading this hasn't seen it, I'll just vaguely say that the ending scenes is where a reference to something from the 1937 Hindenburg disaster comes into the show.
I went to IMDb to rate this a 10 and saw that I had already done so a few years ago when I last saw it. The ones that get the highest score from me are pretty rare, but there is no question this deserves it.
The four stars get their parts of the plot wrapped up together, to an extent. Mostly on his own is Jerry, who is greatly troubled because his girlfriend brushed her teeth with her toothbrush, not knowing that Jerry had just fished it out of the toilet after knocking it in there. He intended to tell her but she was brushing before he knew it. From then on he couldn't bear to kiss her, no matter how much she scrubbed her teeth.
George was given a souvenir key fob in the shape of Yankee announcer Phil Rizzuto's head. When you squeezed it, you heard the "Scooter's" favorite expression, "Holy Cow!" But George accidentally dropped it in a pothole he was leaping over and had to pay some highway worker friends of Kramer's $50 for the privilege of being allowed to use a jackhammer to try to retrieve the fob. George being George, you just knew something bad would happen when they turned him loose with a jackhammer, but you wouldn't expect it to have a big impact on Jerry and his girlfriend. I loved the scene where cars driving over the now repaired pothole caused enough compression in the tar that we could still hear "Holy Cow!" on each passing car.
Elaine was desperately trying to get some flounder from a certain Chinese restaurant delivered to her despite living on the wrong side of the street--just over their delivery zone boundary. Now I have no idea why they would need a boundary--what, is Al Capone running things and keeping the North Side gang on their side of town? But her efforts included entering an apartment across the street and making use of a janitor's closet to pretend to live there so they would deliver to her. But one of the tenants kept wanting her to do janitorial work. One of the best scenes here saw the four stars crowding into that closet, reminding us of the classic stateroom scene from the Marx Brothers movie A Night at the Opera.
If that is all there was, this would have been a really good episode, but the wildest plot involved Kramer "adopting" a one-mile stretch of a highway. He insisted on keeping it clean all by himself, even though he almost got run over picking up litter. Things really turned sour when he decided to widen the lanes, to give the cars more room in each lane. But what really made this episode stick out was the disastrous result of Kramer's attempt to change the lanes back the way they were. This involved a sewing machine dropped by Elaine, paint thinner spilled by Kramer, and Newman singing "Three Times a Lady." In case anyone reading this hasn't seen it, I'll just vaguely say that the ending scenes is where a reference to something from the 1937 Hindenburg disaster comes into the show.
I went to IMDb to rate this a 10 and saw that I had already done so a few years ago when I last saw it. The ones that get the highest score from me are pretty rare, but there is no question this deserves it.
Fantastic episode
calebmcenroe18 February 2019
A Well Balanced Episode
Samuel-Shovel10 April 2019
Warning: Spoilers
In "The Pothole", George drops his keys into a pothole which is then filled in. Wanting the commemorative keychain on his keys, George tries to hire a group of construction workers to dig it up. Kramer adopts a stretch of highway and starts making edits to the lanes and signs. Elaine lives too far away from a Chinese restaurant's delivery radius so she uses a nearby janitorial closet as her delivery address. Jerry accidentally drops his girlfriend's toothbrush in the toliet and can no longer kiss her. She gets back at him by secretly putting one of his things in the toliet but won't tell him what it was.
This is one of the good episodes of Seinfeld where each character's subplot is genuinely funny as a standalone premise. Often times, we'll get 3 out of 4 funny ones or even half of them... But here I think they're all pretty solid. George's is probably the least memorable and his gets the title of the episode!
But this episode is main character driven; all the focus is in the big 4. We don't even see any secondary recurring characters until Newman appears at the very very end. Maybe that's why this episode works so well, it's not overpacked.
This is one of the good episodes of Seinfeld where each character's subplot is genuinely funny as a standalone premise. Often times, we'll get 3 out of 4 funny ones or even half of them... But here I think they're all pretty solid. George's is probably the least memorable and his gets the title of the episode!
But this episode is main character driven; all the focus is in the big 4. We don't even see any secondary recurring characters until Newman appears at the very very end. Maybe that's why this episode works so well, it's not overpacked.
Easily Top Ten
Hitchcoc15 April 2023
So much is going on here. George is given a key ring shaped like Phil Rizzuto's head. When squeezed it says "Holy Cow." He loses it in a pothole which is filled by the city. Jerry's girlfriend is brushing her teeth. When she goes in the other room, Jerry knocks her toothbrush in the toilet. He fetches it and then watches her continue brushing her teeth. Germophobe Jerry needs her to clean her mouth without telling her why. Elaine wants some fish delivered but is in the wrong delivery zone. There is a scene that is remindful of the Marx Brothers "A Night at the Opera," as the four main characters end up in a janitors' closet. There's even more with Kramer and George.
Tooth brush
bevo-1367823 June 2020
Worst episode ever
marinostattaris24 April 2022
Guest starring Kristin Davis
safenoe2 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
The Pothole has the hilarious sight of George jackhammering, and it's so funny and all. Also, The Pothole, which is from season eight, guest stars Kristin Davis as Seinfeld's girlfriend, Jenna. This is Davis's first of two appearances in Seinfeld, with her second being in the season nine opener. Anyway, Davis had previously been in Melrose Place, and ironically a few seasons earlier, Jerry was revealed to be a big fan of Melrose Place in the season six episode, The Beard. Also, Radmar Agana Jao guests stars as the Delivery Guy. Radmar Agana Jao in real life later become a priest so it's interesting what happens to the Seinfeld guest cast.
It's Obvious that Elaine is Pregnant!
PomegranateHoney22 March 2023
It's asking a lot for viewers to suspend their belief and pretend like a normally petite woman like Elaine is not PREGNANT! You shouldn't have to work as a viewer to do that. Just write it into the show or have her take time off like she did the first time. It ruins shows when they do this! Just like Daphne with Frasier.
Kramar's storyline was sort of funny.
No other storyline was funny in this episode.
Seriously can't stand Elaine though. As the series went on, she got more and more annoying as a person, friend, and human being. I wish she would've just left when she got pregnant in real life.
Kramar's storyline was sort of funny.
No other storyline was funny in this episode.
Seriously can't stand Elaine though. As the series went on, she got more and more annoying as a person, friend, and human being. I wish she would've just left when she got pregnant in real life.
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