SEINFELD "The Best Sitcom Ever" Series - "The Pothole"

Seinfeld

The Pothole

Season 8, Episode 16, Aired 2/20/97

EPISODE SUMMARY

Elaine wants to have some Chinese food delivered, but lives just outside the delivery zone. In order to fool the delivery man, she pretends that the janitor closet in the building across the street is her apartment. The trouble is the landlady mistakes her for the janitor. Kramer joins the "adopt a highway" program, but his methods are a little unorthodox. Jerry's new girlfriend uses a toothbrush that had fallen into the toilet, which causes him more trouble than he could have imagined. George loses his keys, and by the time he finds them, they're buried at the bottom of recently filled pothole.

The Pothole

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Pothole" is the 150th episode of the sitcom Seinfeld. This was the 16th episode for the eighth season. It aired on February 20, 1997. This episode earned Andy Ackerman anEmmy Award for Outstanding Direction. Jerry Seinfeld, in an appearance on The Tonight Show the night before the episode aired, declared "The Pothole" to be one of the best episodes of the series.

Plot

Jerry accidentally knocks his girlfriend Jenna's toothbrush into the toilet, and she uses it before he can tell her. 

  

George shows off the new key ring that George Steinbrenner has given everyone in the Yankee organization, celebrating Phil Rizzuto's induction into theBaseball Hall of Fame. Kramer complains about the failing highway infrastructure after running over an abandoned sewing machine, so he adopts a one-mile piece of the Arthur Burkhardt Expressway through the Adopt a Highway program. Elaine tries to order a new Chinese dish, Supreme Flounder, but she lives across the street from the boundary of the Chinese restaurant's delivery area. George loses his new key chain. Jerry plans to secretly sterilize his girlfriend's mouth, but despite his attempts, he just can't get past the vision of the toothbrush in the toilet. 

George theorizes that he may have lost his keys when he did a broad jump over a pothole that has now been paved over. Kramer works diligently to keep his part of the road clean, not trusting the work to the city's maintenance crew. Elaine schemes to get her Chinese food by moving into a janitor's closet, located in the building across the street. The building's superintendent believes her to actually be the janitor and pesters her about the maintenance that needs to be done. Jenna finds out about the toothbrush and sticks something of Jerry's in his toilet, refusing to tell him what it is.

Kramer repaints the four-lane highway to two extra-wide lanes, intending to make it more luxurious (a "two lane comfort cruise", as he puts it), but his efforts only result in mass confusion and congestion on behalf of the drivers. 

George, unwilling to pay the city maintenance crew, dons construction gear and takes a jackhammer to the pothole in order to reclaim his key chain. 

Elaine has the gang over for dinner in the janitor closet. Jerry throws out nearly everything he owns, suspecting that anything could have gone in the toilet; he finally learns that the mystery item was nothing more than his toilet brush. George accidentally strikes a water main while digging up the road, causing an eruption that sends water bursting out of Jenna's toilet, soaking her. Elaine, still acting as the janitor in order to allay any suspicion, brings the building's garbage to the dump in Jerry's car, swerving all over Kramer's luxurious two-lane highway and unknowingly dropping an old Singer sewing machine on the road. Kramer attempts to return the highway to its original state, but spills paint thinner all over the pavement. Newman drives by in his mail truck, delivering crates of fish for the Chinese restaurant's Supreme Flounder orders. His truck catches Elaine's sewing machine and drags it along the highway, sending up sparks that ignite Kramer's paint thinner and causing his truck to go up in flames as a panicking Newman shouts, "Oh, the humanity!" 

Kramer having witnessed the accident is desperate to evade the law, attempts to give a now torched and stranded Newman a ride, but he is stuck wandering off in a daze, so Kramer is forced to flee without him.

Production

Jerry's girlfriend (Jenna) is played by Kristin Davis of HBO's Sex and the City. She briefly reappears in the episode The Butter Shavedating Kenny Bania, another comedian whom Jerry has little respect for.

• Quotes

  
  
  • George: I just have to do all the jack-hammering myself. Jerry: Oh that's nice, kind of a hard-labor fantasy camp. 
  • Jerry: You're pretending to live in a janitor's closet just to get this flounder? Elaine: It's better than eating it alone in the restaurant, like some loser. Kramer: That stuff is unbelievable. I'd eat it out of a dumpster. 
  • Kramer: You could've introduced me. Jerry: I wouldn't know where to start.
  • George: So the plan is to secretly sterilize her mouth? Jerry: By the time I'm through with her mouth, she'll be able to eat off it. 
  • Kramer: This parenting isn't about delegating responsibility, it's about being there.Jerry: At the side of the road, with a pile of garbage. Kramer: Quality time. 
  • Jerry: Jenna's like me. She's very... George: Finicky? Prissy? Fastidious? Jerry: I'll take fastidious. 
  • (Trying to dig up his Phil Rizzuto keychain with a jackhammer, George accidentally hits a water pipe, causing it to be violently launched into the air by a geyser of water)Keychain: Holy Cow! 
  • Elaine: Hi. Jerry, can I borrow your car? Jerry: For what? Elaine: I have to haul some dirty garbage to the dump. Jerry: Dirt? That's alright, because there's nothing wrong with dirt. Elaine: Well, actually it's pretty grimy. Jerry: Grime, grease, filth, funk, ooze. Whatever it is, you take that stuff and put it right on my leather upholstery. Elaine: Well, I don't know who you are, but thanks for the car. 
  • Elaine: Jerry, you have tendencies. They're always annoying, but they were just tendencies. But now, if you can't kiss this girl, I'm afraid we're talking disorder. Jerry: Disorder? Elaine: And from disorder, you're a quirk or two away from full-on dementia. 
  • Elaine: (to Jerry) So now you're finding fault on a sub-atomic level. 
  • Elaine:(to the delivery boy) This isn't fair. This is address discrimination! 
  • Jerry: (to George) You lost Phil Rizzuto's head?! 
  • Kramer: As of today I am a proud parent of a one-mile stretch of the Arthur Berkhardt Expressway. 
  • Jerry: (After George squeezes the Phil Rizzuto keychain head to get it to say 'Holy Cow!') Do they have to squeeze the real Phil Rizzuto to get him to say that? George: Just in the last few innings of a double header.
  • Jerry: I'm never going to let a 'hygienic mishap' ruin what could be a long and meaningful relationship.
  • Newman: Cause you're once, twice, three times a lady. 
  • Jerry: (in the car) She has a taint. I can't see it, but I know it's there. 
  • Jerry: (referring to George's keychain stuck in the pothole) Poor son of a bitch.
  • Newman: (crying hysterically as the paint thinner ignites) Oh the humanity! 
  • Elaine: I'm plum out. (in reference to Kramer asking for a gallon of paint thinner)

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  Allusions

  
  
  • The scene where the gang all crowds into Elaine's janitor's closet is an homage to the 1935 Marx Brothers movie, A Night at the Opera, in which fifteen people crowd into a passenger ship's tiny stateroom. 
  • Newman is singing "Three Times A Lady" in the mailtruck which was a hit single by The Commodores in 1978. 
  • Newman: "Oh, the humanity!"
    This was exclaimed by Herb Morrison, WLS radio reporter, upon witnessing the Hindenburg disaster.