Monthly Archives: December 2021

Dec 20 2021
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BQB Watches Seinfeld

BQB Watches Seinfeld – Season 5, Episode 2 – The Puffy Shirt

What’s the deal with puffy shirts, 3.5 readers? Why are they so puffy and why would anyone wear them as a shirt?

Kramer dates “a low talker” i.e. a woman who speaks so quietly that people can barely hear her. At dinner, Jerry politely nodes and says yes, yes to whatever she says, only to find out later that he has agreed to wear a puffy, pirate style shirt on the Today show (the low talker is a fashion designer and apparently, a bad one.)

This is one of the iconic episodes that everyone remembers and it portrays the great lengths we’ll go to in order to not appear rude and/or to fulfill an obligation, even if it is one we signed up for by accident.

Sideplote: George becomes a hand model and like Icarus, walks a bit too close to the sun.

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Dec 19 2021
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BQB Watches Seinfeld

BQB Watches Seinfeld – Season 8 – Episode 13 – The Comeback

Hey 3.5 readers.

Don’t you hate it when you think of the perfect comeback response to some idiot’s rude comment, only you think of it hours, days, weeks, even years later? I’ll tell you, to this day, I’ll have an epiphany of what I should said to some moron…twenty years ago.

Alas, we never think of what we should have said until it’s too late. Even then, our mind is a controlled environment. We think a response might be biting, but in reality, we might flub the execution, or the rude person might even bounce off your comeback with an even better comeback. As the old saying goes, sometimes it is best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Not George. Here, Costanza is feasting on shrimp at a Yankees executive meeting when a nemesis says, “Hey George, the ocean called. They’re running out of shrimp.”

On the car road, the G-Man thinks of…well, what he thinks is a witty retort. “Oh yeah? Well, the jerk store called. They’re running out of you.”

George then makes it his mission in life to deliver this comeback, going so far as to fly to Ohio to bate his nemesis into insulting him again so that he can use his jerk store line. Is it going to go as well as George thinks it will? Watch and find out.

Sideplots: Elaine becomes enamored with a video store clerk’s pick wall. Kramer wants to find someone who will pull his plug when the time comes. Jerry squares off against a tennis pro who isn’t a pro at all.

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Dec 18 2021
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BQB Watches Seinfeld

BQB Watches Seinfeld – The Invitations – Season 7, Episode 22

Seinfeld often poked fun at the futility of life, how we all try so hard only to eventually end up in the pine box sooner or later anyway.

Here, George’s fiance Susan dies. The cause? Toxic glue on cheap wedding invitations. George is to blame because he skimped on the invites, though isn’t the company to blame to? I mean, who sells invites with poisonous glue?

The perverse and creepily understated joke is that Susan’s death is a horrible tragedy, yet George is cool with it. For an entire season, George felt trapped. He didn’t want to marry Susan. He suffered from the delusion that if he just gave it more time, he might do better. (Briefly, he almost does as he meets a friend and mutual acquaintance of actress Marisa Tomei, who as we learn according to the show, has the hots for short, stocky, bald men.)

Susan is beautiful, charming and has a great head on his shoulders. George is a self-admitted loser. Not very bright, ambitious or successful and he knows in his heart he should be happy to have her but can’t help but feel stuck. Her death releases him from an unwanted marriage yet as the show goes on, he never does better. He’s doomed to be alone and unhappy.

There’s a secondary lesson here about how death is awful yet life has a strange way of going on. I’ve experienced it myself. I’ve lost people near and dear to me, losing them was like losing a limb and after the cries and sadness, you still keep living and it’s like, “Um, this is weird that I’m eating this sandwich while my loved one is dead. It’s weird that I’m watching a movie while my loved one is dead. It’s weird that…”

At any rate, George surely should have appreciated Susan more, though humor of the show came from George being an impression of Seinfeld writer Larry David, who has stated publicly often that his brand of comedy comes from the fact that he is aware he is a physically unattractive dum-dum and yet he longs for perfection in everyone else. He knows he can never provide it himself, but he suffers from the delusion that he can do better.

Bottomline – cherish your loved ones. If you meet a special someone, and you two love one another, do your best to make a go of it and stop worrying about what could be if you wait a little longer. Losers give up something good to wait for something that may or may not come. Winners realize they have someone great right in front of them and hold on.

A bird in the hand, 3.5 readers. A bird in the hand.

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Dec 18 2021
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BQB Watches Seinfeld – The Sponge – Season 7, Episode 9

It’s funny how shows that were controversial years ago seem tame by today’s standards. Does that mean it’s good to break taboos or is it bad in that we, as a society, just keep sliding further and further into the abyss?

I don’t know.

At any rate, this episode is all about a contraceptive device called “The Today Sponge.” It’s Elaine’s favorite method for preventing an unwanted pregnancy, but it went off the market. After scouring New York, she finds a pharmacy with one case left and scoops it up.

This leads to her being very discriminating in her choice of men. Apparently before, when sponges were plentiful, she went wild, but today, she really has to be picky. She now interrogates potential boyfriends in the manner of a boss trying to weed out the riff raff in a job interview. A judgmental person might say Elaine should have been this picky all along because let’s face it, sex has consequences and before you invite a person into your bedroom, you might ask yourself is this really the kind of person you want to invite in your life. You never know what might happen that would cause an unwanted individual to stay.

Sideplots: Kramer volunteers to walk in an AIDS walk. He does so diligently, but he doesn’t want to wear the ribbon, which causes turmoil amongst his fellow walkers. The underlying message is that it’s not enough to say you support something, be it a cause or a movement or in this case, finding the cure to a deadly virus. Society literally requires you to wear your support on your sleeve. How sad we don’t trust each other to the point where we demand that people jump through hoops to prove their loyalty.

Meanwhile, George tells Susan a secret about Jerry, bringing up the old conundrum of how, when your BFF finds love, you have to be careful about what you say, because you have to realize if you tell one half of a couple, you are telling both halves.

I recall this episode being somewhat controversial at the time – a woman just flagrantly flouting society’s mores, so concerned about her ability to bang baby free that she hoards contraception and refuses to waste her sponges by banging “not spongeworthy” dudes, which if you take the sponges out of the equation, Elaine should be setting better standards for herself and not banging dudes that she doesn’t see a happy future with anyway. (Men shouldn’t be doing this with men either.) I hate to sound old fashioned, like I’m denouncing people who bang willy nilly, it’s just that I think TV tends to show us the fun side of indiscriminate banging while not showing the negative consequences.

I think my main complaint with the show (everyone’s complaint really) is you do have to suspend disbelief when it comes to the quartet’s dating numbers. They each have a new love interest every week when even the most beautiful and successful among us never rack up those numbers. Meanwhile, few ever rack up those numbers without catching an STD or having an unwanted pregnancy. Few also get out of such a robust dating life without making, well, for lack of a better word, enemies. To the show’s credit, the characters’ lack of concern for the people they are dating often comes back to bite them.

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Dec 15 2021
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Christmas

Mary Did You Know? (Special Mansplaining Edition)

:::sung to the tune of the original Mary Did You Know?:::

Mary did you know, that your baby, would one day walk on water?

You probably didn’t know, until I mansplained it to you, because you’re not a son, you are a daughter.

Women do not understand things, until men tell them how to do it.

So, come along Mary, and I’ll be glad to talk you through it.

Mary, did you know, your baby boy is the Lord of All Creation?

Mary did you know, your baby boy, is the King of All the Nations?

No, you did not know, until a man like me, exercised his powers of persuasion.

So, sit back Mary and be educated by my man-spla-nation.

Mary did you know, your baby boy, absolved mankind of all its sins?

Mary did you know? Of course, you didn’t. I’ve got the Y chromosome so I already win.

Mary did you know? The obvious fact, that you’re pregnant with the Son of God?

OK Mary please, just smile and nod. Placate me so I don’t feel like a fraud.

Mary did you know? Of course, you didn’t. Without men, women don’t know a thing.

So, gather around and together we will sing…Mary did you know?

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Dec 15 2021
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BQB Watches Seinfeld

BQB Watches Seinfeld – The Voice – Season 9 – Episode 2

HELLLLLLLLO! LA LA LA!

BQB here with yet another review of a Seinfeld episode.

I’ve been binge watching the crap out of this and it’s amazing how it transports me back to the 1990s, a happier, simpler time when I was full of hope and being the proprietor of a blog with 3.5 readers wasn’t my greatest achievement.

It’s also funny how I forgot all these pop culturisms and things my friends and I used to say all the time. “HELLLO! LA LA LA!” was a way we’d great each other, thanks to this show.

Anyway, according to Jerry, his latest girlfriend’s belly button looks like a mouth, so much so that he imagines it as the mouth of a jovial, baritoned man, shouting, “HELLLLLO! LA LA LA!” and so forth.

Jerry and friends love the voice so much but like most jokes, it gets tired and overplayed. The J-Man faces a moral conundrum having to choose between a woman and a joke. SPOILER ALERT: He picks the girl, but only because the joke isn’t funny anymore, but alas, when he has to use the voice to save her from the certain doom of Kramer’s oil filled ball drop test (trying to see if rubber can hold oil under high impact to prevent oil tanker crashes), the voice is too played out to make a difference.

Is there a lesson here? Maybe it’s that sometimes, all you need to bring people together is a good joke, but sometimes that same joke can also tear people apart.

In conclusion…HELLO! LA LA LA!

SIDENOTE: It’s funny how Season 9, the last season, has so many iconic, long memorable episodes. So many shows become stupid and forgettable in their final seasons, having burnt out so much steam. Seinfeld really did go out on top, which I suppose is what Jerry always wanted.

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Dec 14 2021
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BQB Watches Seinfeld

BQB Watches Seinfeld – The Betrayal – Season 9 – Episode 8

What’s the deal with episodes you forget? Even when you forget the whole thing, you remember a part or two of it.

BQB here with yet another Seinfeld review.

Quentin Tarantino started off the 1990s by writing all his movies backwards, starting at the ending and leading us to the beginning. Soon enough, every other movie and tv show was doing this, and this episode was Seinfeld’s experiment in starting at the end.

Here, the episode starts in India. The gang has traveled overseas to attend a friend’s wedding and somehow it starts out ruined. We then go backwards, to find out how did it and how and why with a sideplot back in New York where Kramer squares off against his frenemy Franklin Delano Romanowski. FDR(ski) is the only part of this episode I remember.

I’m not sure there’s a lesson here other than the gang acts like their usual d-bag selves, d-bagging on an international level this go around.

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Dec 13 2021
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BQB Watches Seinfeld

BQB Watches Seinfeld – Season 5, Episode 17 – The Wife

Would you ever marry someone for a discount, 3.5 readers?

That happens here…sort of.

Jerry’s good deed inspires so much joy in a drycleaner’s heart that he grants our favorite 1990s stand-up 25-percent off all dry cleaning for life. Jerry’s girlfriend du jour this episode, Meryl (a young Courtney Cox) jumps at the chance to save money by falsely introducing herself to said drycleaner as Jerry’s wife.

And thus, the fake marriage begins. Jerry and Meryl experience all the joys of phony married life – the stability, the lack of loneliness, being there for each other, putting all the yucky years of dates that never go anywhere behind them. Alas, the also experience the pitfalls of fake married life, i.e. they take each other for granted, become cold and aloof and eventually Jerry has a fake affair with another woman, taking her clothes to the drycleaners’ behind Meryl’s back just to spread the savings.

My main criticism and…perhaps’ everyone’s criticism of the show is that Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer were not attractive or awesome enough to be able to court, catch and throw away so many love interests because, frankly, even the most attractive, successful and rich people in the world don’t rack up numbers like this. Thus, this episode is nice in that it shows a Jerry feeling happy in the throws of commitment, elated that he found someone to share his life with, even albeit on a fake basis.

Ironically, Jerry sends the majority of his babes packing over trivial, nearly non existent grievances but here, he really has no complaints about Meryl other than his desire to help other women save money on their dry cleaning causes him to stray from his fake wife.

Lesson? When you find the one, keep the one. Don’t get bogged down in thoughts of “Oh, the uber hot super hot hottie” is just around the corner. If only Jerry had turned this fake marriage into a real one.

Side plot: Elaine falls for an ass-face at her gym who acts like he can take or leave her, which counts for 100 percent of the attraction. This leads to a stand off when jerk squares off against George. George peed in a gym shower. Jerk sweated all over a machine and didn’t wipe it off. If Elaine doesn’t report one of them, they’ll report each other, so it’s up to her to choose who goes down first. Will she choose love or friendship?

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Dec 12 2021
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BQB Watches Seinfeld

BQB Watches Seinfeld – The Soup Nazi – Season 7, Episode 6

No soup for you, 3.5 readers.

Most shows get worse the longer they go on, but Seinfeld was one of those rare shows that got better with age. Many of its most iconic episodes come toward the end, such as this one from season 7 where Jerry and friends subjugate themselves to the whims of the infamous Soup Nazi.

What can we learn from this episode?

When you’re at the top of your game, you can be a prick. When you’ve got something people want, you can be outrageous with your demands. The Soup Nazi makes the best soup in all of New York, nay maybe the world and with a constant line around the corner outside his shop, he can afford to send any customer who offends him in the slightest way packing. Meanwhile, customers who love his food that much are willing to endure the abuse just to get a taste of his magnificent creations.

Another Seinfeldian metaphor for life? Think about what you want, all the hoops you had to jump through to get it, how the slightest mistake took you off track. In a way, we’re all just customers in the Soup Nazi’s line, hoping we’ll figure out the right combo of moves to make to get ourselves through the soup line successfully and get home with a nice cup of piping hot soup in hand.

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Dec 11 2021
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BQB Watches Seinfeld – Season 3, Episode 6 – The Parking Garage

What’s the deal with blogs that are only read by 3.5 readers? You’d think a blog would have 3 readers or 4 readers but how do you get .5 of a reader? It makes no sense!

BQB here with yet another Seinfeld review. I’m down the rabbit hole now and I’m going to watch them all, sadly.

I’d say this one is up there with The Chinese Restaurant episode as one of the series’ funniest/most memorable. While other sitcoms gave you special episodes and heartwarming lessons, one Mr. Jerome Seinfeld and his BFF Larry David dared to give us a comedy about nothing and yet, in the way it lampooned the ridiculous little absurdities of life, it gave us anything.

Sidenote – if you youngsters ever want to know what the world was like before everyone started carrying cellphones, this episode is your window.

The premise? Jerry and Friends take a Saturday afternoon drive to a mall in Jersey to help Kramer buy an air conditioner. Whilst there, Elaine picks out two goldfish to bring home in a plastic, watery bag. Alas, the crew can’t remember where they parked their car and go on an endless quest in search of it. Time is of the essence as Kramer can’t carry this big appliance forever, George is due to go out to dinner with his parents and if he’s a second late they’ll make his life a living hell, Elaine’s fish are going to be goners if they don’t get into a fresh water bowl STAT and damn it, Jerry has to pee!

Hard to believe we once lived in a world without instant communication. The group makes the mistake of splitting up in the hope of covering more ground. Today, you can do that and just keep in touch with your phones. Back then? Bad idea. Someone finds the car but now where the heck is everyone else? Do I leave and search for them? What if I can’t find the car again? Today you can just call everyone else and tell them where to go. Back then, not so much. Honestly, if you got separated from your group back then, the best thing you can do after searching for a while is just go home and hope they go home too and call you later.

I have also suffered the pain of getting lost in a parking garage, unable to remember where I parked. Today, I always take a photo of the level number, the space number, whatever identifying clues will help me get back there.

Another purgatory type episode that Seinfeld loved to do. Is it a metaphor for life? How long must we endure this misery before we can get where we need to be?

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