Seinfeld Product Placement

OK, what shampoo brand name is specifically mentioned in a Seinfeld episode? The answer occurred to me while I was using one of those little sample shampoo bottles while taking a shower at the Wilkes-Barre Fairfield Inn. This passage is taken from a scene which recaptures Cyrano de Bergerac, as Kramer is trying to woo Jerry's girlfriend Pam with assistance from the poetic musings of a concealed Newman.

Episode 136 - The Soul Mate

PAM: Oh, hi Kramer!
NEWMAN (whispers through the bookcase): Hi. How are you?
KRAMER: Hi. How are you?
PAM: I'm great.
NEWMAN: I too am well.
KRAMER: I too am well.
NEWMAN: Do I smell Pantene?
KRAMER: Do I smell?
NEWMAN: Pantene!
KRAMER: Uh, Pantene.
PAM: Oh, my shampoo. Yeah, it is Pantene, I got a free sample in with my junk mail.
KRAMER (talks rapidly in an attempt to keep up with Newman): Well, there really is no junk mail...well, everybody wants to get a check or a birthday card, but...
NEWMAN (frantic): ...it takes just as much man-power to deliver it as their precious little greeting cards...
KRAMER: Newman! (Elbows him through the books. Newman falls over.)
PAM: What?
KRAMER: Uh, human. It's...human to be moved by a fragrance.
PAM: That's so true.
KRAMER: Her bouquet cleaved his hardened...
NEWMAN: Shell.
KRAMER: ...shell. And fondled his muscled heart. He imbibed her glistening spell...just before the other shoe...fell.
PAM: Kramer, that is so lovely.
KRAMER: It's by an unknown 20th-century poet.
PAM: Oh, what's his name?
KRAMER: Newman. (On the other side of the bookcase, Newman preens proudly.)

They Should Sell Mangos at Sephora, Too

I have to go to Sephora about twice a year to get Clinique Clarifying Lotion (whatever that is) for my wife. I think I may start going more often because it's a source of some great blog material. The last time I was there they asked me if I wanted to join their rewards program, which they call "Beauty Insider". I politely declined the offer while explaining that I considered myself to be more of a Beauty Outsider.

Anyway, today's trip was fairly uneventful until I noticed, and I'm not making this up, that they have an Orgasm line of some type of beauty product. I think it was make-up, but I at that point I was laughing too hard and too embarrassed to really pursue the nature of this particular product any further.

Immediately I was reminded of Seinfeld (quotation to follow), but for those of you who are a little older and recall Woody Allen's seminal work "Bananas", here is a passage from that movie where the protagonist, the inveterate loser Fielding Mellish, is purchasing some magazines. He is really interested in the pornographic variety, but tries to hide this amongst some more highbrow periodicals. Unfortunately, the sales clerk is his undoing:

FIELDING: Get a copy of Time Magazine and l think l'll take Commentary and the Saturday Review. And... let's see, Newsweek. l'll just... grab one of these (picking up a copy of Orgasm magazine). Take 'em all.
SALES CLERK: Fifty, a dollar, dollar and a quarter... (loudly, so that everyone in the store can hear) Hey, Ralph, how much is a copy of Orgasm?
FIELDING: (in a panic that everyone will hear) Just put 'em in a bag, will you?
SALES CLERK: (even louder than before) What? Orgasm. This man wants to buy a copy. How much is it?
FIELDING: (grabbing his magazines) Doing a sociological study on perversion. l'm up to advanced child molesting.

And now for your Seinfeld reference:

Epsiode 65 - The Mango

GEORGE: It's all your fault! You and Elaine! All that orgasm talk. She did have an orgasm, she didn't have an orgasm. Orgasm this, orgasm that. I got so focused on it. I started to panic and boom, I lost it. I tried everything, I was talking to him: 'Please wake up, do something.'
JERRY: They're mysterious little fellows aren't they?
GEORGE: I hate 'em!
JERRY: You know it happens to everybody. It happened to Houdini. And he could get out of a trunk under water with his hands in chains! But he had a problem with that. The miracle is that it ever happens.
GEORGE: It's like a magic trick. Sometimes I think it would be easier to bend a spoon mentally than to make that transformation.

Million to One Shot, Doc

I have to give a shout out to this Dr. Grumpy blog that my daughter clued me into. It's not for the squeamish (particularly the following post which is the subject of today's Seinfeld reference) and may dissuade future generations from entering the medical profession, but it's hilarious.

http://drgrumpyinthehouse.blogspot.com/2009/04/just-shoot-me.html


Episode 107 - The Fusilli Jerry

This is Kramer after he mistakenly receives his "Assman" license plate:

Kramer: Have you ever *met* a proctologist? Well, they usually have a very good sense of humor. You meet a proctologist at a party, don't walk away. Plant yourself there, because you will hear the funniest stories you've ever heard. See, no one wants to admit to them that they "stuck" something up there. Never! It's always an accident. Every proctologist story ends in the same way: "It was a million to one shot, Doc. Million to one."

Hugging Epidemic

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/style/28hugs.html?pagewanted=1

Today's post features the article above from the NY Times about the plague of social hugging in today's secondary school system (including a mention of my junior high school). Of course, it made me realize that I would be an absolute social outcast in this setting, as Jerry found himself to be in the following episode:

Episode 103 - The Kiss Hello

[Jerry's Apartment]
Jerry has just arrived with his mail. The door opens and Kramer darts into the room.

KRAMER: Hey.
JERRY: Ah, well. Thank you very much!
KRAMER: For what?
JERRY: (agitated) For putting my picture up on that wall! I'm like Richard Dawson down there now. And every person I see engages me in this long, boring, tedious, conversation. I can't even get out of the building!
KRAMER: You should be thanking me for liberating you from your world of loneliness and isolation. Now, you're part of a family.
JERRY: Family?
KRAMER: Yeah.
JERRY: You think I want another family? My father's demanding my uncle pay interest on fifty dollars he was supposed to give my mother in nineteen-forty-one, and my uncle put my Nana in a home to try and shut her up! And I tell you another thing, Cosmo Kramer, whatever you wanna be called. The kissing thing is over. There's no more kissing, and I don't care what the consequences are.

As Jerry reaches the end of his emphatic declaration, Kramer takes Jerry's head in his hands, leans in and plants a big kiss right on Jerry's lips.

Hiding From the Watchtower

We have these nice, elderly Jehovah's Witnesses who come around on Saturday, distribute their literature, and then proceed to talk your ear off. So if I see them coming down the sidewalk before they spot me, I'll hide and pretend like I'm not home. This weekend we have the pleasure of Emily's company so we had to include her in on the drill. So you had me, Chris, and Emily all hiding behind the sofa to avoid the horror of having to talk to these lovely but loquacious ladies. You'd have thought we were trying to avoid detection by the Nazis! Anyway, it reminded me of the following exchange between Elaine and her girlfriend Tina, whose apartment she is subletting:

Episode 86 - The Opposite

Tina : Elaine, we have a problem.
Elaine : Well, what is it?
Tina : You're getting kicked out.
Elaine : Kicked out?! Why?!
Tina : Well, there's been a number of complaints.
Elaine : Yeah? Like what?
Tina : Well, like last Thanksgiving you buzzed up a jewel thief.
Elaine : I didn't know who he was!
Tina : That's why there's a buzzer.
Elaine : What else?
Tina : Well, apparently, the week after that, you buzzed up some Jehovah's Witnesses and they couldn't get them out of the building.

Morning Mist

Had a great weekend in North Carolina attending my nephew's graduation at Duke University. However, as I departed for the airport on Saturday morning, I had a terrifying moment when I actually idenitified with none other than George Costanza! I was toting my bags to the car, and it occurred to me that I had an awful lot of stuff to carry for one brief weekend away from home. It reminded me of the following exchange between George and Jerry before departing for LA:

Episode 41 - The Trip

Jerry's apartment. George walks in with several stuffed suitcases and backpacks.

Jerry: What is this?
George: What?
Jerry: We're going on a two day trip. What are you, Diana Ross?
George: I happen to dress based on mood.
Jerry: Oh. But you essentially wear the same thing all the time.
George: Seemingly. Seemingly. But within that basic framework there are many subtle variations, only discernable to an acute observer, that reflect the many moods, the many shades, the many sides of George Costanza.
Jerry: (referring to George's outfit) And what mood is this?
George: This is Morning Mist.

Seinfeld on Hospital Rounds

Wow! I have been extremely negligent in regard to my posting so I will try to make amends. Anyway, over the weekend I was making rounds in the Intensive Care Unit when I was presented a case of new onset kidney failure in the setting of profound dehydration. After the intern summarized the patient's history, I asked her to report his laboratory data, and for some reason I requested the information with a quote direct from Seinfeld. It went something like this:

"So what were the patient's labs, which I gather might have been a tad askew?"

Episode 83 - The Raincoats

ELAINE: I know they're your parents, Jerry, and they're very nice people. But don't you think it's odd, that a thirty-five year old man is going to these lengths to see that someone else's parents are enjoying themselves? I mean don't you find that abnormal?

JERRY: It is a tad askew.