The Four Most Hilarious Episodes of Seinfeld

Seinfeld was not exactly the great show that most people seem to think it was. The first season is barely watchable, and the second season is far more miss than hit and all that talk about going out before the show ran dry, well, that boat had sailed at least a year before. The characters essentially showed no evolution over the course of the sitcom’s run and more than a few episodes were outright clunkers. The worst all had to be the ones in which character continuity was sacrificed for a plot point: George Constanza all of a sudden taking off his shirt whenever he went to the bathroom when he had never done that before, or George suddenly having that huge wallet when his butt never had been pumped out before. So, even though Seinfeld is nowhere near in the same league as The Simpsons or Cheers or Frasier, it did offer some genuine masterpieces of comedy ins a scattershot manner.

4. The Bris: An episode made great by virtue of a terrific guest star, Charles Levin, in the part of the mohel. That guy that Jerry Seinfeld hires to whack off the baby’s foreskin is hysterical, in both senses of the word. Add to the hilarity surrounding the fact that the plot of a TV actually does revolve around a circumcision the subplot about Kramer discovering the Pigman and you’ve got a Seinfeld episode that anybody would have a hard time not laughing at.

3. The Limo: George Constanza and Jerry Seinfeld manage to get stuck in the back of a limo with members of the Young Republicans. Okay, so they are really members of a neo-Nazi, but it doesn’t take much to imagine that being stuck in the back of a limo with members of the Young Republicans could result in much the same dialogue that is spouted by these two morons. The Seinfeld episode Limo proves once again that you can make comedy from the sheer lunacy of Nazi beliefs. In fact, were it not for the fact that so much blood is on their hands, Nazis would be the go-to guys for comedy. Nazis are so incredibly stupid. Just look at George W. Bush. I love the fact that George (Constanza, not Bush) is such a loser that he is willing to overlook the fact that the girl in the back of the limo is a stupid, dumbass, backwards Nazi because she’s cute. At least in George’s eyes.

2. The Library. The main reason why The Library ranks as my choice for second favorite Seinfeld episode is due to the presence of Philip Baker Hall of Library Cop Lt. Bookman. Hall provides the perfect voice of authority who has been suppressed from living out his darkest fascistic dreams. The exchange between Lt. Bookman and Jerry Seinfeld that brings to mind Joe Friday’s many lectures to dissolute hippies on Dragnet is perhaps the finest moment of dialogue in the long run of the sitcom. I’m also partial to The Library for the glimpse into the high school lives of George and Jerry.

1. The Contest: The big one about the contest to see who can keep from masturbation. With The Contest, Seinfeld reached into the big time. From the very beginning when sad sack George Constanza relates the story about how his mother caught him masturbating to a fashion magazine to Elaine Benes’ obsession with JFK, Jr. to Kramer’s inability to put up with the chick doing housework naked. The highlight of this Seinfeld episode has to be George’s visit to his mother in the hospital. This is also the Seinfeld episode that gave us the catch phrase “master of your domain.”