The Best Seinfeld Episodes

This page belongs to a multi-page series about the funniest things you can watch on a screen. If you haven't already done so, I suggest you also visit the page about the funniest movies ever and consult the list of links in the left column.

This page focuses on Seinfeld.

In the Winter of 2008-2009, I watched all nine seasons of the show Seinfeld. Why? The zen master with whom I had spent a month in India (her name is Dolano) had said that the best thing to do on the spiritual path next to attending her month-long process was to watch Seinfeld. In Seinfeld, she said, you see people reacting completely naturally and you can learn much about real life. Before that, I had only watched two Seinfeld episodes with my room mate way back in 1995, at a time when I wouldn't have been caught dead watching television. In fact, when people wanted to talk about Seinfeld with me, I enjoyed saying I'd only seen two of them, much as Seinfeld enjoys saying that he's never seen an episode of Melrose Place (ditto on that one). To see myself in Seinfeld confirmed the zen master's remark that in the show you can observe how people react naturally and learn about real life. When I realized that Seinfeld called itself "a show about nothing", the connection with the zen teacher really came home for me. Is watching Seinfeld the ultimate spiritual practice?

Watching All Seinfeld Episodes

Since I'd only seen two episodes, I had a treasure waiting for me. I bought the DVD box set of 180 episodes. It was a treat to sink into this material as though it were fresh, years after everyone else had already enjoyed it. If you haven't yet watched Seinfeld, you're lucky: you've got that to look forward to!

The Pace of Seinfeld

Watching so many episodes in such a short time, you notice how the series changes over the years. One such change was the pace. The first episodes has slow conversation with lots of space between the lines. The last series has lines delivered in rapid fire, which makes me envious of these people who can all think so fast on their feet! But the repartee strains my brain, which often lags one line behind, trying to "get it" while the canned audience is already laughing at the next line.

The Best Seinfeld Writers

For me, the biggest difference from episode to episode lies in who wrote the script. As I started to watch I noticed that some episodes were just off the mark. After a while you start to feel you know the characters, and on some episodes you find yourself saying "Elaine wouldn't say that! George wouldn't react that way! Kramer wouldn't do that!" I started to pay attention to the "Written By" line on the credits and saw that it changed with nearly every episode. It makes sense that you wouldn't demand of the same guy or gal to crank out 23 episodes in one season. Just to come up with one good would take comic genius and a lot of hard work. So the show used many writers.

The downside of this is that some episodes were just awful. You got the impression that the writer had never watched a Seinfeld episode. They just didn't "get Seinfeld". You felt for the actors who had to work with that material, so out of character.

On the other side of the coin, this outsourcing delivered a few writers who far surpassed what Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld (the original writers) could turn out on an average day. Don't get me wrong, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld wrote some of the show's best episodes, but you can't be expected to stay at the top with the kind of output they had. (Larry David wrote or co-wrote 13 episodes in each of seasons three and four.) So I'm grateful to the others who wrote some little jewels, particularly to Peter Mehlman, who wrote some of my favorite episodes.

The Top Seinfeld Episodes

Everyone who watched the show has their favorite episodes, so this list is completely subjective. I've crawled the internet for top ten lists of best Seinfeld episodes, and it has reminded me how different tastes can be. For instance some reviewers picked all the episodes I had found a little vulgar.

I made two passes of the episodes I'd like to keep. As I watched the second time, I wrote a few lines about the plot of each episode and marked the favorites among my favorites with a

The Best of Seinfeld Season One

I love the slow pace in these first episodes. By season nine, it's so fast you barely have time to laugh at the lines. Here they give you pauses to chew in between, and they're yummy.

2. Male Unbonding (written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld).
Jerry tries to break up with a childhood friend. Not the best of the best, but some solid laughs.

3. The Stakeout (written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld).
A beautiful episode that captures the heart of Seinfeld. Jerry waits with George in front of the elevator in an office building and pretends to bump into a woman he wants to meet.

The Best of Seinfeld Season Two

4. The Phone Message (written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld).
George leaves angry messages on his date's machine, he and Jerry switch out the tape. A bit of cringe on this plot and a few lines that sound like script rather than characters, but still many solid laughs in there.

The Best of Seinfeld Season Three

7. The Cafe (written by Tom Leopold).
George takes an IQ test, Jerry helps the Pakistani cafe owner improve his business, Kramer doesn't want to return a jacket.

8. The Tape (written by Larry David, Bob Shaw and Don McEnery).
Elaine leaves an erotic message on Jerry's voice recorder while he's on stage. You expect the worst with this one but you can't help laughing.

9. The Nose Job (written by Peter Mehlman).
The most elaborate episode to that point in the series, with three story lines interweaving and resolving at the end. George dates a woman who has a large nose, Jerry dates a woman whose shapes he loves but whose conversation he loathes, Kramer schemes to recover a jacket that exerts special powers over the other sex. Peter Mehlman makes it look so easy, and it's a joy to watch.

14. The Pez Dispenser (written by Larry David).
Elaine laughs during a piano recital by George's girlfriend, Kramer comes up with two ideas, a perfume that smells like the beach and a pre-emptive break-up. A spectacular episode, Larry David at his best.

The Best of Seinfeld Season Four

3 & 4. The Pitch and The Ticket(written by Larry David).
Double episode. George and Jerry pitch NBC to do a show about nothing.

The Best of Seinfeld Season Five

8. The Barber (written by Andy Robin).
Jerry's relationship with his longtime barber Enzo gets compromised when Jerry tries to get his hair cut by Enzo's nephew Gino behind Enzo's back. George is offered a job, but of course... An amazingly intricate episode, with Swiss-precision timing, razor-sharp editing and an operatic soundtrack to boot. A jewel for the archives.

14. The Marine Biologist (written by Ron Hauge and Charlie Rubin).
Jerry meets his old classmate Diane and tells her that George has become a marine biologist. When Jerry tells George to expect a call from Diane, George replies with one of my favorite lines from the whole series: "You know I always wanted to pretend I was an architect!"

22. The Opposite (written by Andy Cowan, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld).
George's life changes for the better when decides to do the opposite of what his instincts tell him to do.

The Best of Seinfeld Season Six

1. The Chaperone (written by Larry David, Bill Masters and Bob Shaw).
Jerry dates Ms. Rhode Island during the lead-up to the Miss America contest. Kramer coaches her. Wholesome clean fun.

11. The Switch (written by Bruce Kirschbaum and Sam Kass).
Jerry dates a woman who never laughs---but her roommate does. George helps him plot a "switch". Elaine gets in trouble for a tennis racket. And Kramer's first name is revealed. A solid episode.

17. The Kiss Hello (written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld).
Kramer installs a board with everyone's picture in the lobby of the building. Eilaine and Jerry want to tell a therapist acquaintance about her terrible hairdo. Between that and a dozen other little plots, you feel you've watched a movie. The show in top shape.

18. The Doorman (written by Tom Gammill and Max Pross).
Elaine is house-sitting Mr Pitt's apartment. Jerry has trouble relating with the building's doorman.

The Best of Seinfeld Season Seven

6. The Soup Nazi (written by Spike Feresten).
Jerry and his girlfriend call each other Shmoopie. George and Elaine find them too affectionate. Everyone worries about the protocol to order the best soup in town. Shame that the writer makes Elaine acts so stupidly at the end: that spoils an otherwise wonderful episode.

7. The Secret Code (written by Alec Berg and Jeff Schaffer).
George doesn't want to give his fiancée the code to his debit card. A crazy, crazy episode at 100 miles per hour.

23. The Invitations (written by Larry David).
Jerry meets a woman who's just like him; they get engaged. George's fiancée leaves the show, at last.

The Best of Seinfeld Season Eight

3. The Bizzarro Jerry (written by David Mandel).
Elaine gets involved with three guys who are just like Jerry, George and Kramer, except they're the opposite. Kramer gets volunteers as a corporate soldier.

9. The Abstinence (written by Steve Koren).
George cannot have carnal relations because his girlfriend has mono. He turns into a genius.

19. The Yada Yada (written by Peter Mehlman and Jill Franklyn).
"Yada yada yada" may seem like last century, but it's a small part of this mad episode, which cannot be missed. Kramer & Mickie have double-dating trouble, Jerry is revealed to be an anti-dentite.

The Best of Seinfeld Season Nine

2. The Voice (written by Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer and David Mandel).
Kramer has an intern at Kramerica industries. Elaine and Putty can't stop breaking up. George is under siege at Playnow.

6. The Merf Griffin Show (written by Bruce Eric Kaplan).
Kramer's apartment turns into a set for a TV show. The host? Kramer.

7. The Slicer (written by Darin Henry, Gregg Kavet and Andy Robin).
Kramer holds a skin cancer screening at George's new office, Kruger Industries. Not a howler, but this episode has so much going for it that it might be a keeper.

16. The Burning (written by Jennifer Crittenden).
Putty's back; he thinks Elaine might be going to hell, and that's all we're going to say about this brilliant episode. Good night, everybody!

The Best of Seinfeld Tier 2

(Temporary list, needs to be edited)
6.10 The Race
8.14 The Van Buren Boys
8.15 The Susie
8.16 The Pothole

Seinfeld Links

Seinfeld on Wikipedia

Smiles,

Andy