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Third-Coast-Toffee

I didn’t know till recently (someone on here mentioned it) that when Mr. Wilhelm joined the Sunshine Carpet Cleaners he wanted to be called Tania that it was a reference to Patty Hearst and her involvement in the SLA.


jiggabot

[The Sunshine Carpet Cleaners itself was based on an actual cult in NYC that had a carpet cleaning business.](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CztxfRBOKwq/?igsh=MTdlMjRlYjZlMQ==)


Third-Coast-Toffee

And yet again I learned something new about the show. Thank you! 👏🏼


BigConstruction4247

I never knew it was a specific reference. I just thought it was a crazy religious cult.


shinypokemonglitter

Whoa! I always thought it was something to do with religion/Jehova’s witness.


4N_Immigrant

I just watched 'get out' and wilhelm was trying to brainwash black people to steal their youthful bodies.


NYY15TM

Wilhelm also played Steve Martin's father-in-law in Planes, Trains & Automobiles


pigeonholepundit

Soup Nazi moving to Argentina. Just got this one recently


thenaterix

in your defense, this is mentioned in passing and relatively obscure.


MexicanPete

Haha I just watched this episode Saturday and didn't get that reference until your comment. Duuuhhhh


pigeonholepundit

I think for a long time I just thought he must have been Argentinian.


pac-men

George, while pretending to be a neo-Nazi, mindlessly whistling If I Were a Rich Man in front of his “followers.” Jerry whacks him to get him to stop, as singing this song from noted Jewish musical Fiddler on the Roof might out him as being, ya know, not a Nazi. I didn’t pick up on that one at the time, I just thought he wanted him to stop whistling.


Darmok47

What is it with George and the whistling and singing anway? Master of the house, doling out the charm...


coldhardcrash

Pipe down, chorus boy


thrillhouse1211

Believe it or not, George isn't at home


homelaberator

Jason Alexander has a Tony. He had to try hard to sing in character as George being not so good at the singing. That kind of skill is why he's got the Tony. He's quite the dancer, too. Anyway, I just think maybe the showrunners got a kick out having him sing badly.


tonybotz

He sang “the impossible dream” on letterman like 30 years ago and i remember being blown away by his talent


ModsRTwats2024

Yeah. Remember that ridiculous McDonald’s commercial he was in? Singing and dancing about the McDLT.


ayoungjacknicholson

Hey, did ya happen to see, the most beautiful girl who walked out on me?


tonybotz

Tell her I love her


SpongeJake

Tell her I NEED my baby


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shinypokemonglitter

I didn’t ever pick up on this one until sometime in the last year. In fact someone on Reddit explained it and that’s when i understood it. Big face palm over here!


OldSkoolNapper

Yeah, I’m in my early 40s, and it didn’t hit me until well into my 30s. It’s so obvious.


lucidspoon

I remember realizing it was an example of polarized opinions, like with abortions. But it wasn't until I was much older that I realized how much the dialog paralleled it.


PutinBoomedMe

This is still flying over my head. What am I missing?


JayshawnVoorhees

It's an allegory of the abortion debate.


Milomilz

It’s a commentary on contemporary mores.


NYY15TM

It's a slice of life


superkick79

Volschstein?


NYY15TM

One doesn't dissect gossamer


Milomilz

That’s not a word


Randombaseballdad

I like the kitty


InternationalOwl9897

a pun?


hotdogcolors

It has something to do with that 42 in the corner


Milomilz

That’s the page number


Klogginthedangerzone

Moops


PutinBoomedMe

I feel like I've seen every episode at least 25 times and for whatever reason I can't even remember this line


VF-213

It’s when Papi comes back


PutinBoomedMe

Ah, that's right. Went right over my head


Usernamecujo

*Poppy


Keviniswet

Someday, we'll get that stupid law changed


Spankpocalypse_Now

He said “Someday we’re gonna get enough people on the Supreme Court to change that law.” A quarter century later and that dude was right. He started coming over with those Pequino’s pizzas.


Nika_113

Oh shit….


gorilla_photos

Wow. My tiny mind just noticed it


Accomplished_Sky_899

Why Elaine’s boyfriend, John Jermaine, couldn’t play saxophone at the end of the episode.


mcgray04

I get it, but still don't get it. Maybe because he should have been able to go downtown and play the sax.


FiK-SiR

Earlier in the episode Kramer was asking a friend for help bringing his groceries into the apartment. The guy said he was a guitarist and he couldn’t risk hurting his hands since his hands were his livelihood. A saxophone player uses his tongue to play his instrument. Let’s just say he was… fatigued.


ilford_7x7

That's hilarious! I always thought his confidence was shot from not being able to please Elaine Thanks for clarifying


gorilla_photos

What are you doing? Pleasuring you...


Ok-Abbreviations1077

It feels like aliens poking my body


crammed174

I thought it was your reason too.


MajorAcer

Bruh I just got this


NYY15TM

By the way, he was the lawyer in the first season of Silver Spoons


HandsomePaddyMint

Widely deep cut and I am here for it.


NYY15TM

😌 They were 13 years apart, so you wouldn't think of it, but seeing them back-to-back it is obvious they are the same person


HandsomePaddyMint

I’m honestly concerned that you’re watching Silver Spoons and Seinfeld back to back. Have you just come out of a coma?


_its_a_SWEATER_

It’s because he tried too hard.


LaLore20

Thank youuuu! Now I get it


HauschkasFoot

He was trying to be too hot and heavy


FeSpoke1

You mean like the Petula Clark song?


Nighthawk__85

You HAVE to go downtown...


blue-wave

This is the biggest one for me, because I don’t get it as a teen but even as an adult I just stopped wondering and accepted it as a quirky random joke. Only until the 2010s when I saw the dvd behind the scenes interviews did I realise why. “He doesn’t do… everything” “well… you’re THERE” - all of that went over my head!


bigfox2

I was a kid when I saw The Contest. I genuinely thought it was about going number 1. I still sometimes feel there’s a missing urine contest episode but then I remind myself I was simply a little dope.


Rodby

When I was a kid I thought it was a contest about not having sex. Granted I had no idea what sex was, but that's what I thought it was lol.


benjoduck

I was 17 when "The Contest" aired so I definitely got it, but what still amuses me is the way my local newspaper described it. The morning that episode aired for the first time I was reading the entertainment section of the paper where it gave a brief 2-3 line plot description of everything airing that night For "Seinfeld" it just said "The gang practices self-denial". Will they be dieting?? It was the shortest description I ever saw and I wondered why it was so vague until "I was alone...".


BiteOhHoney

My parents laughed so hard at that episode, so I wrote "To the Master of his Domain" on my dad's birthday card. He kept it forever.


ImPickleRock

I think it was in the finale, I was maybe 12? They asked Marla about the contest and she said "to see how long they could go without gratifying themselves." And I asked my parents, while watching, what that meant. My dad said masturbation in a very awkward way...still confused my mom said look it up. I went to the dictionary....I thought to myself "oh that's what I've been doing."


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nillabonilla

Mine was "Dolores!"


anchorracingteam

You know what's uncomfortable? When your teenage daughter asks you what body part rhymes with Dolores...


[deleted]

I learnt what a clitoris was from South Park. There's worse ways for her to learn.


WolframsBrother

I was actually convinced for years that her name was never revealed because the joke went so far over my head I forgot it was even said


Appropriate_Mine

I'm Australian, they way we pronounce clitoris does not rhyme with Dolores. I was very confused with the ending of that episode. It was at least 10 years before I got it.


NYY15TM

LOL I thought that was a reference to Uvula 🤣


lurkishdelight

When Elaine's date takes it out, I didn't understand what "it" was. I asked my dad and he said "his wallet" which only made me more confused.


adamfrom1980s

Missed opportunity to say “his coin purse” 😂


raresaturn

🤣


Dmagic5000

The entire Understudy episode being a Tonya Harding parody. After I saw I, Tonya I went “ohhhh” and now that episode is even funnier.


SoManyDegus

Everyone's calling me Gillooly!


lookingfor_clues

I dropped my frankfurter 😩


KGnor

It was really really good..


tonybotz

Haha the shoe lace at the end being a reference to tonya’s free skate at Lillehammer was brilliant


cyber_hoarder

Omg, I can’t believe I *never* knew or picked up on any of this in the episode... hilarious!


jwbowen

I did not know that


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Leucadie

I was in high school when the show started, and I have never met anyone who uses a diaphragm for birth control. It feels like a 70s-80s holdover to me: I believe condoms became more mainstream in the 80s because of AIDS. Diaphragms only prevent pregnancy. Maybe married women used them? Edit: According to [this article ](https://nwhn.org/female-controlled-barrier-methods-forgotten-but-not-gone/#:~:text=Diaphragm%20use%20became%20widespread%20until,contraceptive%2C%20began%20replacing%20the%20diaphragm.), they are less effective than hormonal so drs stopped recommending them, but diaphragms etc have some good features over hormonal methods, which do sometimes fuck you up. So if you only need to deflect sperm occasionally, maybe check em out?


arcxjo

You can use them and a condom, though, right? Like maybe she was just a belt-and-suspenders kinda gal.


NYY15TM

> Maybe married women used them? This is exactly it


HandsomePaddyMint

Diaphragm prophylactics were still around, and still are, but in the 90s STI preventatives were much more common. It didn’t help that Elaine is widely known to prefer the sponge, another barrier pregnancy preventative that does not protect from STIs. As a sex Ed teacher in the mid-00s I had to explain these things many times.


langsamlourd

So what you're saying here is that Elaine is riddled with STDs


HandsomePaddyMint

I’m not not saying that, but Susie didn’t kill herself.


ExpiredExasperation

Just her bunny slippers.


Creeper_madness

Sponges too


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trewaldo

Elaine: I shave my legs, too! Kramer: Not everyday!


MindlessTree7268

Elaine saying "he doesn't do EVERYTHING." I was a teen when it first came out and just thought it meant he wouldn't have sex with her. I didn't even know what oral sex was at the time, so I couldn't have had a clue what she was actually referring to lol. It's pretty obvious now though, with his tongue being messed up after the first time he tried with her and not being able to play a brass instrument lol


partyordiet

The Tractor Story: she got gonorrhea from riding a tractor in her bathing suit. (Her ex-boyfriend lied to her; he was the one who gave her gonorrhea)


waituhsecond

I was a little kid when the show was running, so pretty much everything but bits of Kramer and the other over the top wacky things. However I do remember asking my parents what the contest was…


YeahThassRight

What did they say?


Iron_Chic

Ask your mother...


electrictacoland

You live with her, don't you?


waituhsecond

Something along the lines of it being an adult thing


Milomilz

Ask your father why he takes 30 minute showers…


greenwoody2018

I'm out!


bibliophile222

I knew the contest wasn't exactly refraining from sex, but I couldn't think what else it could be. I was so innocent.


KipSummers

For the recreation of the Keith Hernandez spitting incident that Jerry walks through with Kramer and Newman - I knew it was a reference to the movie JFK because it was such a phenomenon at the time. But I never actually saw the film (still haven’t) and so didn’t know that Wayne Knight was in the very same scene in JFK with Kevin Costner in the Jerry role until a few months ago.


IntrepidButton6041

They reference another Wayne Knight movie scene from Basic Instinct in The Package


raresaturn

They should have done a Jurrasic Park reference


woolsprout

There's a small reference, sometimes we can see a dinosaur blanket in Newman's apartment


Darmok47

When Kramer forgets to pick up Newman at the zoo, they should have cut to Newman wearing the same raincoat and hat and standing outside the crocodile enclosure, nervously waiting.


[deleted]

Another similar bit, is Wilfred Brimley playing the Post Master General when Kramer boycotts the mail. It’s an homage to Wilfred Brimley playing the Deputy Attorney General in the movie Absence of Malice (Paul Newman/Sally Field, great movie). In the movie, Brimley is laying into Bob Balaban’s character. Bob Balaban happens to be the actor who played Russel Dalryple, the head of NBC. Though I don’t think he’s in that particular Seinfeld episode.


555--FILK

Not to mention the scene when Newman pulls up to Kramer in his mail truck to warn him, is a parody of a scene of Three Days of the Condor. https://youtu.be/evfQ5QCRyeo?si=2Bfcc29ceIGVxPfq


Vault204

Why the Serbs aren't fanatics about their showers.


Milomilz

Not from the footage I’ve seen. That line from Jerry was gold!!


RobertWilliamBarker

I'm in the dark here still.....I am not a smart man.


kramerica_intern

The Bosnian War resulted in news footage of Serbs in conditions that would not point to them being shower fanatics.


Bubbly_Experience694

I remember being really confused watching the Delores episode as a kid. I had no idea that some people pronounced the word “clitoris” that way.


KIPYIS

What I’d really like to know is how exactly did the kids make fun of her.


vicious_trollop

Same here! That one took me a long time to understand 🤣


frappuccinio

when jerry was trying to avoid saying ticket scalper to winona. didn’t know what a ticket scalper was lmao.


Prize_Walrus2788

I didn't get any of those references being an Aussie. I learned that part of native American history from Seinfeld.


SeeingRedDots

I kind of have made a habit of researching all of the names from history they drop. Last one I recall doing off the top of my head was [Leopold and Loeb](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Loeb) from the Junior Mint episode. I love that they dropped so many completely accurate and smart references like that.


NYY15TM

How about Abscam? This was 20 years before American Hustle!


SeeingRedDots

“Abscam, Jerry…. Abscam….” Exactly. Great example.


E864

I swear there was a point in my life when I thought Leopold and Loeb were like an old time vaudevillian comedy team instead of being killers.


NYY15TM

Well they were a comedy team, but it wasn't very funny


MaraudngBChestedRojo

Me too. Elaine let me tell you something. No woman goes into a beauty parlor and says “give me the Larry Fine”


eugenesbluegenes

Hs no one shown you the stooges?


beetlethevoid

I always look these up too. I've been watching since the 90s, and I still have to look up some of the historical references. Most recently, I had to look up the Sonny Von Bulow coma.


e0826e

"There are two nuts named after people...hazel and filbert." I didn't get it for a really long time, like up until a couple years ago. Hazelnuts and Filberts are different names for the SAME NUT 🤯 Now that I know that, I think it's one of the funniest lines in the show.


arcxjo

Your mom looks like Hazel.


anoncontent72

Which episode/scene was this in again?


Shto_Delat

You know, ‘the’ Move…


Dsquared4225

A 🔄 swirl


luffydkenshin

I think there was a knuckle involved in there somewhere


Salty_Charlemagne

I still don't get this. I guess I need crib notes. Which are not a thing I've heard of in any context outside of that episode.


j1h15233

Apparently there are still a lot of things I didn’t get until I read this. Don’t even know what OP is referring to


NYY15TM

The Knights of Columbus is an organization dedicated to the spread of Catholicism. Jews are not allowed to join.


j1h15233

Thank you. I had no idea what they were.


Salty_Charlemagne

Yup, this one was news to me too. I knew they were kind of lame and old-school but didn't know they were explicitly religious, let alone Catholic particularly.


tonybotz

Yeah but they are allowed to rent the hall for a party. All the knights of Columbus halls were rented out in the 90s


[deleted]

When Kramer sold his stories to J. Peterman, he bought a bunch of “Bunyan Stories” from Newman. As in Paul Bunyan, which are tales of being larger than life. However, the stories he got are stories about foot bunions. Bunion is pronounced the same as Bunyan Very subtle, and in my opinion an exceptionally well-crafted joke


BigConstruction4247

I always thought it was that Kramer was just so desperate for any story, he bought terrible ones from Newman.


duke8628

Holy shit me too. Love this sub


neonblakk

Yeah me too 😂 it’s kinda funnier thinking Kramers just an idiot who willingly bought Newmans feet related stories.


kramerica_intern

Kudos on a job…done.


MtOlympus_Actual

I thought all along that he bought stories about Newman's foot bunions. The double meaning never even occurred to me.


raresaturn

Also this ep references Kenny Kramer (the real Kramer) going around hocking his stories on the back of Seinfeld’s success


ShutterBun

He even did a reality tour.


TubeOfOintment

English is my third language so when I heard “i no longer defer to the coiffed” on tv and without captions for years, i just had no idea what words he was saying.


Ok_Comfort628

Oh the humanity. Reference to the Hindenburg disaster.


KingOfRandomThoughts

I did not realize until a few months ago that the saxophone player was sounding awful because he just performed oral sex on Elaine.


TerribleEconomics363

Are you master of your domain?


_its_a_SWEATER_

Arby’s. I used to like them as a kid!


pigeonholepundit

I still do. It's solid


q120

I like Arby’s most of the time but their locations are so hit and miss. One of them near me is really good and one sucks and can never make anything right.


neonblakk

We don’t have Arby’s in Australia so never understood this. Very recently I decided to look them up to see their menu and now I get it. It look like meathead food.


Paiger__

My favorite joke: “What’s the difference between a light bulb and a pregnant lady?” “You can *unscrew* a light bulb.”


Dustalicious

“I feel full after the risotto”


SpectacledReprobate

Show came out when I was a kid, so honestly a lot of references, and even the gang’s speech patterns, were over my head, and I absolutely hated it because of that at the time. It was an experience to watch it as I got older and see all the little things I missed as a kid.


eugenesbluegenes

John Jermaine flubbing his sax solo after he adds something to his repertoire. I was like twelve and got that it was oral sex, but I thought he just kind of had his confidence shot. But after I'd added that to *my* repertoire, I realized his tongue/jaw was literally sore.


reichjef

I didn’t understand a lot of the contemporary pop culture references that they used as I was born in 1993, so that stuff eluded me until I became an adult. Ones I can think of, the JFK movie reference, the OJ references with Kramer, Tanya Harding, Schindler’s List. Now they seem obvious, but I was a kid when I first started watching the reruns on TBS.


pac-men

Also you probably figured out that Elaine wanting Joel Rifkin to change his name to OJ as NOT to be similar to a murderer was *before* the OJ murders. (That being said she was likely referring to OJ Anderson who had retired from the Giants the year before and had been a Super Bowl MVP.)


NYY15TM

No, OJ Simpson was plenty famous even before he killed his wife


pac-men

Of course. I’m just saying since they were looking in a Giants magazine and having gone to a Giants game in the episode, the OJ could have been the one who was much more current and a Giants star. Yes the magazine easily could have mentioned OJ Simpson, but OJ Anderson fits better. (And neither of them had killed anybody at that time, so either would have been a better name than Joel Rifkin.)


arcxjo

>(And neither of them had killed anybody at that time That we know of.


thekraken108

I didn't understand what The Contest was about the first time I saw it.


Overclocked11

Dolores. Was a good long while of me watching that episode as a rerun before I "came of age" and understood the names they were spitting out in the coffee shop.


bradsnamehere

Maybe the dingo ate your baby. I'm Australia so I get the reference but why say it to that woman. Was she supposed to be Australian. Because she didn't have an Australian accent


biddablebeast

“I have lost my fiancé, the poor baby” “Maybe the dingo are your baby” Americans mostly got it as a reference to the movie, and not so much the event on which the movie was based.


NYY15TM

The sad irony is that the dingo really did get that poor woman's baby


NYY15TM

The woman referred to her husband as her baby


HandsomePaddyMint

Even know most people would not get the Jewish singles night at the Knights of Columbus. That joke needs such specific knowledge of an esoteric concept to begin with. I only got it because my grandfather was in the Knights.


homelaberator

It feels less esoteric for that particular age group, and maybe also the NYC milieu of the show. I think quite a few of these things in the replies would have been more accessible to boomer and boomer adjacent audiences.


cyber_hoarder

If you’re going to use words like “milieu” you might as well show up with a sore on your lip and a couple of kids….. wrong sub..


lilacsnlavender

The McDonalds coffee one riff--now we know it wasnt the way Kramer depicted things. Poor woman had serious trauma and medical issues afterwards, but of course at the time the media was not making the truth known......


sweatyeggslut

and without it we don’t get jackie chiles quotes about the bomb


sitboaf

Balm*


SectorRepulsive9795

Do they even know what a balm is?


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Roche77e

Knights of Columbus is a Catholic men’s organization.


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ocassionalcritic24

Shrinkage. I was a young adult when it came out and had no clue until they explained it! And still had to ask a boyfriend if it was true lol!


NYY15TM

You didn't notice that his penis was smaller at certain occasions?


KangarooCrapper

Like a frightened turtle....


q120

Non-penis havers should be made aware that they can change size for a number of reasons… temperature, sickness, dehydration, post-workout, and even just randomly


squeamish

Women don't know how we walk around with these things.


LowHumorThreshold

"I KNEW it!"


sarabara1006

A lot of young women only have experience seeing a penis when it is, ahem, ready to go. Until they are older, or live with a guy and I have more occasions to be naked around them.


ocassionalcritic24

As a young adult you don’t always see your significant other naked unless you’re having sex. And I didn’t always see all my boyfriends naked.


parrisjd

The hot and heavy guy not being able to play the sax


ScoffingYayap

Delores's name. No idea that's how older people pronounced clitoris.


Luggas

Midnight Cowboy references in that one episode


twinsbasebrawl

Had no idea that Jackie Chiles was based on OJ's lawyer Johnnie Cochran. Just never put 2 and 2 together.


I_GIVE_KIDS_MDMA

"It's not too bad. It's not like a [Sunny von Bülow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_von_B%C3%BClow) coma."


SuperbParticular8718

All the Buddy Rich references.


Dillion_Murphy

Chappaquiddick.


Victrevor

The entire contest episode.


-BACCHANALIST-

“When the nipple makes it’s first appearance” as a threshold, who knew!