Stopping Short: 10 ‘Seinfeld’ Episodes You Forgot You Loved

Aired: Oct 3, 1996
Season: 8
Elaine decides that she and Kevin (her boyfriend from the previous episode, “The Soul Mate,” who got a vasectomy and then had it reversed) should just be friends. Jerry suggests that Kevin is the “Bizarro Jerry.” She later meets Kevin’s friends Gene and Feldman (the Bizarro George and Kramer) and, eventually, a Bizarro Newman. George takes Kramer to an office that has “the best bathroom in midtown,” and Kramer starts going in every day, despite not having a job there. Elaine sets Jerry up with her attractive friend Gillian, but Jerry can’t see past her “man hands.” George briefly gains access to “the forbidden city” of beautiful women — a private club in the meatpacking district — by pretending a photo of Gillian is a picture of his dead fiancee.

Aired: Nov 7, 1996
Season: 8
Elaine dates the pretentious Brett, who is excessively proud of working for furniture designer Karl Farbman and who gets lost in apparent reverie whenever “Desperado” plays. (She suggests “Witchy Woman” should be their song, but he refuses.) Brett gives Kramer an oversized chest of drawers designed by Farbman, and he uses it as a capsule hotel for three Japanese tourists he’s taken in as guests. Jerry gets carpal tunnel syndrome from signing hundreds of 12-cent checks he’s receiving as royalty payments for a one-second clip of him in the opening credits of Japanese comedy show “Super Terrific Happy Hour.”  George is offended that a religious cult masquerading as carpet cleaners decided to brainwash his boss, Mr. Wilhelm, instead of him.

Aired: Apr 23, 1997
Season: 8
Hearing that it’s about to go out of business, George and Jerry visit their teenage haunt, Mario’s Pizza, and discover that George (“GLC,” for George Lewis Costanza) still holds the high score on the restaurant’s Frogger game. He buys the game, to preserve his accomplishment, but Jerry reminds him that once the machine is unplugged, the score will be erased. With Kramer’s help, George recruits a “rogue electrician” named Slippery Pete (played by Peter Stormare) and Shlomo the truck driver to move the game without losing power. Elaine denounces her coworkers for having so many “cake parties,” but her four o’clock sugar craving prompts her to sneak bites of a $29,000 slice of cake she finds in Mr. Peterman’s “college boy mini-fridge.” Jerry wants to break up with Lisi, who finishes his sentences. A serial killer called The Lopper has been running around Riverside Park chopping off people’s heads. Kramer suggests changing the killer’s moniker to “Son of Dad.”

Aired: Nov 6, 1997
Season: 9
Kramer finds the old set from The Merv Griffin Show in a dumpster and sets it up in his apartment. Jerry dates a woman with an incredible collection of vintage toys that she won’t let him touch. He plies her with wine and turkey to make her drowsy, so he can play with them while she sleeps. Elaine contends with a “sidler” at work: a new Peterman employee named Lou Filerman who keeps sneaking up on her. She tells him his breath stinks and gives him Tic Tacs to make him a “human maraca,” but panics when Peterman complains that the sound reminds him of “the Haitian voodoo rattle torture.” George hits a squirrel with his car and, to appease the woman he’s with, spends a fortune on medical treatment to save its life.

See Also:

• Master of Their Domain: 10 Great ‘Seinfeld’ Episodes
• Not That There’s Anything Wrong With These: 5 ‘Sein-Fail’ Episodes