Four For Four
Writing about "Morning Train" yesterday reminded me of "The Bizarro Jerry" episode of Seinfeld. It's highly-regarded and holds the honor, in my opinion, of being the only episode where all four stories are well done.
The title is Elaine's plot. She meets a new friend, Kevin, who's the opposite of Jerry--a nice guy who can be counted on: Bizarro Jerry. His friends are the opposites of George and Kramer. She decides to hang out with them in their bizarro world, though, being from Jerry's world, she can't fit in.
Jerry's plot may even be more famous, even though it doesn't really go anywhere. He meets a new, beautiful girl (as he does most weeks) but can't deal with her "man hands."
Kramer needs to go to the bathroom. He finds one in an office building and on his way out goes to a meeting and starts unofficially working there.
George's plot is my favorite. He sees a beautiful receptionist, and explains he can't ask her out because beautiful women are from a separate kingdom and he doesn't have the key. He borrows the photo of Jerry's new girlfriend that Elaine supplied (all the stories dovetail, of course) and pretends it's his dead fiance. The receptionist sees it and, as George predicted, figures this guy has already been to the kingdom, so there must be something okay with him. She and George go out to a secret club populated with beautiful women. They all accept George when they see the photo. George dumps the first girl, since he figured he can do what he wants. But he loses the photo and is banished from the kingdom.
Why did "Morning Train" remind me of this?
In fact, I'd guess the song, released 15 years earlier than the episode, is better known for its appearance on Seinfeld than its appearance on the charts.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:16 AM
4 Comments:
Seinfeld used the song again for George Costanza when he worked at the place where he pretended to be handicapped.
Not only unlikely on the merits, but demonstrably wrong - Seinfeld and David used the song because of its recognizability. Had it been an original composition, it wouldn't have had the humor and it isn't likely it would have become a cultural marker. It was already a cultural marker, and thus suitable for the task.
No soup for you.
(On the other hand, four for four is a lot better than New England Guy's baseball teams seem to be doing.)
hey they won last night with the scrub pitcher they previously wrote off but pressed into service out of necessity. Chalk up another one for the scouting department.
I remember both the referenced Seinfeld episodes in great detail but did not recall the "Morning Train" link- probably had successfully blotted it out by that point.
"Not only unlikely on the merits, but demonstrably wrong - Seinfeld and David used the song because of its recognizability. Had it been an original composition, it wouldn't have had the humor and it isn't likely it would have become a cultural marker. It was already a cultural marker, and thus suitable for the task."
I assume this is a reference to my claim the song is better remembered today for its appearance on Seinfeld than anything else.
If I'm demonstrably wrong, please demonstrate. The song was a major hit 30 years ago, but that means, at the very least, a generation and a half has grown up since that may not be too familiar. Meanwhile, Seinfeld was a #1 hit in the 90s and has been playing everywhere in syndication since. I'd bet you can show, number-wise, that the odds of hearing the song (and remembering it) in the past 15 years from Seinfeld is greater than from any other source.
This sort of phenomenon happens all the time. "Unchained Melody" was a hit for many artists, including the Righteous Brothers, but if you ask people today where they heard of it, they'll say it's from the movie Ghost.
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