Ladies and gentlemen, I submit the finest supporting performance, and perhaps one of the finest scenes, in the history of Seinfeld: Bookman interrogates Jerry. Each episode has a favourite worth talking about.
You Know Who I Ran Into Today?Īside from its hall of fame main cast, Seinfeld had an amazing gallery of side characters. But what about that kid sitting down, opening a book right now in a branch of the local library and finding drawings of peepees and weewees in the Cat in the Hat and the Five Chinese Brothers? Doesn’t he deserve better?” Still, this line reading from Bookman: “Maybe we can live without libraries, people like you and me. An underrated gem: Jerry summarizing Columbus as “Eurotrash”. It still elicits a chuckle to hear Kramer’s diagnosis of Marian, the quiet librarian, that “she needs a little Kramer”. There’s Elaine’s exclamation, “It hurts your teeth!” that I still use all the time (yo, cold things hurt my teeth). His every line is a solid brick of gold, but he really deserves his own space (so enjoy the next section).įear not, there are other highlights to the episode. The obvious choice here is anything said by Bookman. It’s Really Just Something You SayĮndlessly repeatable and immediately recognizable, here is were we discuss the episode quotes to remember. Could you tie together this plot that included high school antics, librarians (and library cops), vengeful gym teachers, office anxiety and civic responsibility so completely? In 22 minutes? Good luck. While it is fair to say that Seinfeld would eventually get perhaps too contrived or cute with its ‘everything connects’ plotting, watching an episode like The Library, I can only marvel at how the show is able to take a mundane idea (overdue book) and spin an entire ridiculous universe of characters and situations out of it. And in a final reveal, Tropic of Cancer never gets returned. George gets his wedgie, Jerry pays the fine. So now we have Elaine’s story (her office anxiety never does quite get resolved though) sidling up to Kramer’s, Marian getting in trouble with Bookman (“She didn’t have a private life), leading back to Jerry. But then, we move into act three.Įventually, Elaine borrows the book of poetry from Kramer’s paramour Marian to give to Lippman. Jerry eventually tracks down the former babe Sherry and can’t wait to get away from her while Bookman appears to be lost in a world where the early 1960s never ended. There is a nugget of wisdom in here somewhere about the errors of memory and the danger of nostalgia. I’m racking my brains, but I don’t think the show ever did this again (or was even filmed roughly in that style again). And then, of course, we get the extended sequence of George and Jerry (complete with goofy wigs) acting out scenes in their high school locker room. We get glimpses of Sherry Becker, Jerry’s alleged memory burn and reading partner, with her orange (purple?) dress. This episode actually does a fairly rare thing for the show – it incorporates a couple of old flashback sequences to reinforce its story. And Jerry gets to face-off with the library cop, Bookman, who, by the way, takes his job very seriously (obviously, more on this later).
George is caught up in his own horror story as he runs into (curiously, all off-screen) disgraced former gym teacher Mr. Kramer is drawn into his own overwrought melodrama with the nebbish librarian Marian (“Why don’t you leave?” pause, dramatic look “I can’t”). Here is where the marvelous Seinfeld economy comes in. So, despite Kramer’s irrational hatred of the library and George’s general indifference, the three make the trip down. Apparently, Jerry has had Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer ( the romantic book for high school students) checked out since 1971. Meanwhile, three (three!) subplots are twined together, hung tightly on the same hook via a call from the New York Public Library. As a D plot, it’s not much, but it connects later with the main story and adds a little background tension. Lippman (played, notably, by a different actor than the usual Lippman) seems very cool towards her. She’s getting left off the lunch list, and her boss, Mr. To start with the D plot, Elaine is finding herself on the outside of the social circle at her office. So now, think on the Seinfeld episode ‘The Library’. It’s a sad life, being the 3rd or 4th wheel on a show and never getting the chance to really roll. Characters get trivialized or forgotten, cast off in C or D plots that barely draw a chuckle. Here is the episode recap of their exploits.Ī common complaint with modern day sitcoms is that they struggle sometimes to find interesting and funny things to do with all of their main characters. What’s the Deal with this Episode?Įach week our gang of New Yorkers were put into and then got out of (well, sometimes) uncomfortable situations.
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