XPost: rec.arts.tv
From: weberm@polaris.net

Twenty-five years ago, on November 18, 1992, the quintessential
episode of the quintessential New York sitcom, Seinfeld, aired on
NBC for the first time. That episode was called “The Contest,” and
pitted its four principal characters, Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), George
(Jason Alexander), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Kramer (Michael
Richards), against each other in a battle of wills to see who could
abstain from masturbating for the longest period of time. Famously,
the bet and its ramifications were discussed extensively throughout
the half hour, without the word masturbation ever being uttered.

It is a significant episode in the show’s history for numerous
reasons, including the fact that it won an Emmy Award for its
writing, by Larry David; a Directors Guild of America award for its
directing, by Tom Cherones; and was the buzziest episode in the only
season of Seinfeld that ever received an Emmy for outstanding comedy
series. It’s also the first episode to feature Estelle Harris as
Estelle Costanza, George’s mother, a role that would become more
prominent in subsequent episodes and prompt Jerry Stiller to join
the cast as George’s father, Frank.





More importantly, it was the episode that got people really talking
about Seinfeld. Suddenly, this was becoming a show you had to see if
you wanted to get the jokes your co-workers were repeating in the
break room the next morning. The first time “The Contest” aired, it
was viewed by 18.5 million people, according to Nielsen. When it was
rerun on April 29, 1993, with the series having moved to its new
post-Cheers Thursday night time slot, 28.8 million people tuned in,
making it the third-most-watched program in America that week.



And it all started with George Costanza’s ill-advised decision to
pick up a Glamour magazine while he was at his parents’ house.
Actually, no: Technically it all started when Larry David made a bet
while living in New York in the 1980s and proved he was master of
his domain.

Larry David, writer of “The Contest”: I can’t believe I have to
discuss this at my ripe age. I would say there was only one other
person involved [in the actual contest]. Should I mention his name?
I don’t even know — my friend Frank Piazza. I don’t remember what
the bet was. There must have been some money involved. I think it
was a small amount. [The contest lasted] two days. Maybe three. I
just remember it didn’t last very long. I was surprised at how
quickly it ended. I won handily, yes.

Kenny Kramer, friend of Larry David, a.k.a. the real Kramer: I
wasn’t in [the contest] because I knew I would never win it.

David: By the way, [the idea] was in my notebook for some time and I
never even mentioned it to Jerry [Seinfeld] because I didn’t think
there was any way that he would want to do it, and I didn’t think
there was any way the show actually could get done on the network.
So it took me a couple years, you know, to even mention it to Jerry
because it didn’t even occur to me that it was a possibility. But he
was all for it.

Warren Littlefield, former president of NBC: The series always was
completely unpredictable, and Jerry and Larry never followed rules,
right? They made up their own rules.

When it came time to do the table read for “The Contest,” no one
knew about the subject matter ahead of time. Rick Ludwin, the
program executive on the show, he didn’t know what was coming.





David: I remember being nervous because the NBC executives were
there. I really had this thing going on in my head where, well, if
they don’t like it, I’m just going to quit the show. I really had
this built up in my head where, there’s no way they’re going to do
it and I’m just going to quit if they don’t do it.

Michael Richards (Kramer): Larry was going to put his whole job on
the line. I’ve known Larry since we did Fridays together, and that’s
Larry David. If he believes in something, he’s just going to fight
for it.

David: As soon as the read-through started, the laughs were huge.
Big, satisfying laughs. I would glance at [the executives’] faces
and they seemed to be enjoying it. You could sense it was a very
special show. Then we all walked back to our office afterwards and I
think one or two NBC executives were there and they had nothing.
They just said, “Very funny.” And I was shocked.

Littlefield: They read it and it was hilarious. And Rick, as an
executive for NBC, knew, “Uh-oh, shit’s going to hit the fan.” The
broadcast standards executive who was there, was like, “What the
fuck?” And Rick was like, “I didn’t know!”

Then, of course, it came to my desk, where I was like, “Okay, just
show me the script.” I read it quickly, I laughed out loud and said,
“This is kind of brilliant.” I got on the phone with the head of
broadcast standards, Dr. Roz Weinman, who worked in New York. And
broadcast standards doesn’t report to programming, so I’m dealing
with another arm of the corporation who doesn’t answer to me. First
of all, she was like, “What are you guys doing? Who’s flying the
plane? How come we didn’t know?” And I just said, “Roz, don’t take
it personally. It’s Seinfeld. We never know, it’s just wildly
unpredictable. It’s part of what it is, it’s their culture. Do we
think they may have been hiding this story line? It’s possible, but
it’s also their own brilliant chaos.”



Kramer: I’d been out there [to L.A.] several times and saw the
whiteboard. Although “The Contest” was never on the whiteboard. Did
he tell you that?

David: We had this dry-erase board in the office where we would
always put upcoming shows on the board. When the executives would
come into our office, they’d go, “Oh, what’s that one about? What’s
that one about?” For “The Contest,” I didn’t even put it up on the
board because I didn’t want them to ask me about it.

Littlefield: [Weinman] said, “Look, we’re a little crazed about how
this all went down, but I just read it and I have to say there’s
kind of a pact that Seinfeld has made with their audience, and they
do outrageous and unpredictable things. Their characters, their
stories, it’s who they are.” And the script, as I remember it, never
had the word masturbation in it. It had “master of my domain.” It
had all these euphemisms that were brilliant, but it never said
masturbation.

David: That was Jerry’s idea from the get-go. He said let’s not
mention the word. It turned out to be a great idea. I had it in the
first draft and he took it out.

Tom Cherones, director of “The Contest”: In the first draft, George
had a line about “there was some tugging,” but that was eventually
dropped. It was obvious it wasn’t needed.

David: There may have been a couple of things [I had to cut out].
But nothing I couldn’t live with.

Littlefield: [Weinman] said, “Look, we’re going to watch this
episode and the rewrites, and we’re going to watch this very
carefully. But fundamentally, we think this is not a violation of
the pact that this show has established with its audience, as a 9
p.m. comedy.” Once she said those words, I knew we were making the
episode.



Richards: “The Contest,” when we were at the table, we knew that was
a winner. None of us were like, “Gee, I hope this hits,” or “I hope
this was as good as our last show.” No way. We knew that show was
swinging. It’s not a matter of conceit that I say that I knew when I
put the money down on the table and go, “I’m out,” that that was
going to get a laugh, particularly because it’s so quick. And who’s
the first [one out]? Kramer, you know? It made me laugh!

David: That got a roar. That was a huge moment when Kramer came in.
That was one of the biggest laughs we ever got, I think.

Cherones: We did not enhance laughs as a comedy usually does in the
editing room or the finished mix of the show. We ended up, over the
years, taking out more laughs that covered lines, than we did adding
laughs. So it was all real. It just happened.

Pete Holmes, producer, writer, and star of HBO’s Crashing: Nothing
like that had been done on TV before and, honestly, I think at the
time I questioned the legality of the episode. When I watched it, I
remember feeling strange that grown men still masturbate.

Jessi Klein, comedian and writer for Inside Amy Schumer: I don’t
remember the first time I saw that specific episode. But I also feel
like it’s possible I missed it [the first time] because I was
masturbating.

Holmes: I also remember the episode feeling strangely familiar. As a
serious Christian teenager, I was constantly trying to not
masturbate. In fact, that was the major issue of my life. So much so
that I would place bets with friends to see how long you could go
without doing it. Not for money. For holiness. So it was weird to
see George doing it. Oh, and Elaine! I had NO IDEA WOMEN DID THAT.

Andrew Goldberg, co-creator of Big Mouth and co-executive producer
and writer for Family Guy: When Elaine was out and they were like,
“I thought you’d go into the spring,” that was maybe an early “girls
are horny, too” moment for me. Like: Oh. Elaine. Okay.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of the book Seinfeldia: One of
the breakthrough moments for [Elaine] is “The Contest” because she’s
in the contest, and she honestly has the best story line of the
four. The John F. Kennedy Jr. thing is hilarious. There’s something
about it to me where I think, that would actually happen in New York
City. It’s entirely possible that John F. Kennedy Jr. would be in
your aerobics class.

Seinfeld ended in 1998, and Sex and the City started that year, also
in New York. I still have this weird fantasy where I want Elaine to
meet the Sex and the City girls. I think she’d have a better time.
I’m not saying they’re perfect, but I think it would be a better
life choice for her than hanging out with these guys.

David: It was so taboo for network television to do a premise like
that. When you hear something for the first time that hasn’t been
done before, it strikes a chord, I guess.

Littlefield: Sales was like, “What are you guys smoking? This is
going to be a sales disaster!” And I was like, “Are you kidding me?”
They said, “Well, we’re going to have pull-outs from the show.” I
said, “Look, if there is a couple of spots that become available for
Seinfeld because of this content, I want to raise the price by 30
percent and go out to the people. The advertisers who have supported
the show are desperate to have spots in Seinfeld. You go, guess
what? I have a couple avails for this week in Seinfeld. Come on,
we’re not taking a bath on this. It’s just not going to happen. You
will find someone who’s desperate to be in Seinfeld and they don’t
give a shit about this content. They’ll love it.” And yeah, in fact,
that happened. Sales was not beaten down and ultimately it went on
the air as a brilliant, outrageous, wonderful, classic episode of
that show.


From a Washington Post TV column by John Carmody, dated November 23,
1992: “A spokesman for NBC said Friday the network switchboard in
New York had recorded only 62 viewer complaints following a Seinfeld
episode Wednesday about masturbation. Another 32 callers said the
episode was ‘great,’ according to NBC vice president Curt Block, who
pointed out the program had been okayed by the network’s standards
and practices unit.”

David: [The show] was always popular, but I think it hit another
level after that. There were some other episodes that we did that
year — “The Outing” was one of them. Those two, they ran fairly
close together and they created a bit of a stir, I think.

Holmes: What makes this episode so special is its restraint and even
its elegance in dealing with something so … carnal? It’s about
jerking off, but it’s so much more fun in the confines of network
television because it forced the writers to play a very interesting
game of censorship versus a real story — and the episode is better
for it.

Littlefield: It starts with George’s embarrassing moment with his
family. An adult male has been caught by his mom, right? By
introducing parents into the series and expanding that and doing
this kind of an episode, we went outside of a niche base.

Now you’re into a much larger playing field for audiences. Yes, we
were an addiction for adults ages 18 to 49, but we were [now] going
younger and far older. We were inviting everyone into the tent. So
on every level, on every demographic, it became a mainstream hit,
because there was something for everyone. Ironic, because early on,
it was thought to be too Jewish, too New York.

Klein: I think there is something New York-ish [about the episode].
There’s like a competitive spirit to who’s having the worst time.

There is this kind of upside-down pride in how incredibly difficult
getting from A to B physically and metaphorically is in that city.
Like if you were on the subway and you stepped in barf on a day,
like for sure all my friends are going to know about it. Because I
had the worst day. And by the way I did step in barf on the subway
and I need you guys to know that, and please publish it.

Goldberg: It is that kind of East Coast competitiveness as opposed
to that West Coast kind of passive-aggressive competition.

David: I’m grateful to NBC for airing the show when I never thought
they would. That was the most surprising thing about it.

Keishin Armstrong: This is like peak Seinfeld to me. That’s what I
always say. If you’re going to watch one episode and understand
everything that it does, this is it.


--
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