fifth season in first place: Lee Winfrey, “ ‘Roseanne’ Tops Season’s Ratings,” Inquirer, April 18, 1990.
reminded him of when: Dolan, Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Book, 108.
“I’m going to get a Lexus”: Ibid., 50.
January 16, 1991: “Notes About Nothing.”
Chapter 4: The Cult Hit
“Some of the writers”: Glenn Collins, “How Does Seinfeld Define Comedy? Reluctantly,” New York Times, Sept. 29, 1991.
Littlefield loved the Elaine-Jerry dynamic: “Notes About Nothing.”
As the grad students later recalled: Blake Bailey, A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates (New York: Picador, 2004), iTunes e-book, 675.
a butcher knife from Jerry’s apartment: “Inside Looks: ‘The Jacket,’ ” Seinfeld, seasons 1 & 2.
“please help me”: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
James Hong expressed his confusion: “Unforgettable Characters,” People, May 14, 1998.
“Like real life”: Kit Boss, “Simply Seinfeld,” Seattle Times, June 28, 1991.
“Seinfeld doesn’t feel like sitcom television”: Smith, “City Slicker.”
“No hugging, no learning”: Kaplan, “Angry Middle-Aged Man.”
“All hits are flukes”: Betsy Frank, “Cable Hits: Myth or Reality,” Multichannel News, Feb. 26, 2001.
run up a deficit: Chris Heath, “The End of ‘Seinfeld,’ ” Rolling Stone, May 28, 1998.
speed off in his Porsche: Smith, “City Slicker.”
finished the 1990–91 season: Jonathan Storm, “Crunching TV’s Numbers,” Inquirer, April 17, 1991.
Jason Alexander’s sense of indignation: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
Louis-Dreyfus was routinely voicing: “Queen of the Castle: The Elaine Benes Story.”
Chapter 5: The Production
script is supposed to end: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
knew nothing about sports: “Jason + Larry = George.”
“How are you getting all these girls?”: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
“this little twinkle”: “Jason + Larry = George.”
army draftee: Tom O’Neill, “Michael Richards,” US Weekly, May 1997.
in on the joke: Jeff Labrecque, “What Really Happened the Night Andy Kaufman Melted Down on Live TV,” Entertainment Weekly, Aug. 5, 2013.
compared to Jacques Tati: O’Neill, “Michael Richards.”
“His act is”: David Bellos, Jacques Tati (New York: Random House, 2012), 63.
requested a preshow announcement: “Kramer vs. Kramer: Kenny to Cosmo.”
“subtle, powerful reinvention”: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
doorjamb: “Kramer vs. Kramer: Kenny to Cosmo.”
“to be grotesque about it”: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
didn’t feel like they knew him: “Kramer vs. Kramer: Kenny to Cosmo.”
ambushed by paparazzi: O’Neill, “Michael Richards.”
“thousands of American girls”: Edward Marshall, “The Gibson Girl Analyzed by Her Originator,” New York Times, Nov. 20, 1910.
model and inspiration: Stacy Schiff, “Otherwise Engaged,” New York Times, March 19, 2000.
East Seventy-Third Street: Karen Adams, “Irene Langhorne Gibson: From Hollins Girl to Gibson Girl,” Hollins Magazine (Hollins University, Roanoke, VA), Spring 2013.
“sexy modified Gibson girl coif”: Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly Seinfeld Companion (New York: Warner Books, 1993), 11.
“Oh my God”: Kolbert, “A Visit with: Julia Louis-Dreyfus.”
“I have an idea”: “Scenes from the Roundtable,” Seinfeld, season 9 (Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2007), DVD.
“Sometimes it’s like”: David Wharton, “Humor on the Hot Seat,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 30, 1995.
“TV’s funniest”: Smith, “City Slicker.”
“Seinfeld shows why”: Francis Davis, “Recognition Humor,” Atlantic, December 1992.
“the most intriguing showdown”: Tom Jicha, “Networks Force a Series Showdown,” Sun Sentinel, June 4, 1992.
“They tell us”: Scott D. Pierce, “ ‘Home Improvement’ vs. ‘Seinfeld,’ ” Deseret News, Aug. 19, 1992.
1988 Toyota: Bill Zehme, “Jerry & George & Kramer & Elaine,” Rolling Stone, July 8–22, 1993, Issue #660/61.
Lexus: Nancy Mills, “Seinfeld’s Kramer,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 6, 1993.
sprinkling a few fall leaves: Smith, “City Slicker.”
men yelling: Zehme, “Jerry & George & Kramer & Elaine.”
“blow off”: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
“Seinfeld wasn’t showing signs”: Daniel Cerone, “Seinfeld Is Suddenly Something,” Los Angeles Times, March 4, 1993.
“Thanks for quitting Cheers”: Shapiro, interview by Bill Dana and Jenni Matz.
“I don’t want to be”: “How It Began.”
57 percent: Cerone, “Seinfeld Is Suddenly Something.”
Chapter 6: The Writers
6.4 million fans: Jennifer Block, “What?,” Ms., August/September 2000.
Chapter 7: The Bizarros
Balaban later said: Bob Balaban, Reddit AMA, Oct. 21, 2014: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2jw6ps/bob_balaban_here_im_doing_the_best_i_can_ama/.
made an appearance at the NBC up-front: Littlefield, Top of the Rock, 220.
O’Hurley often hung out: Meghan Keneally, “ ‘Seinfeld’ Star John O’Hurley Shares 5 Surprises That Came with Being Elaine’s Boss,” ABC News online, July 1, 2014.
filed for bankruptcy: Leslie Kaufman, “Company Killer or Retail Guru?,” New York Times, April 2, 1999.
more than thirty years: Deniz Rosenberger, “A Chat with Michael Zoulis, Owner of Tom’s Restaurant,” Spectrum, March 26, 2014.
“I am struck by how seriously”: John Updike, Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism (New York: Random House, 1991), 60.
“panhandlers” and “squeegee men”: Alison Mitchell, “Giuliani Zeroing In on Crime Issue,” New York Times, Sept. 20, 1993.
“I’m impressed with the detail”: Ira Berkow, “On the Set with: The ‘Seinfeld’ Steinbrenner,” New York Times, March 28, 1996.
“All sarcasm”: John Leonard, “The New York Canon: TV,” New York, April 7, 2008.
Penny Arcade: “On Saving the Soul of New York City and Yourself,” Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation blog, April 30, 2014, http://gvshp.org/blog/2014/04/30/on-saving-the-soul-of-new-york-city-and-yourself/.
Chapter 8: The Seinfeld Nation
only competition was Seinfeld: Jesse Kornbluth, “Who Needs America Online?,” New York Times Magazine, Dec. 24, 1995.
450,000: Frank Rose, “Keyword: Context,” Wired, December 1996.
more loyal to shows: Grant Tinker, Tinker in Television (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 180.
“Kmart”: Jerry Useem, “Another Boss, Another Revolution,” Fortune, April 5, 2004.
Friends had ripped off their show: Roger Friedman, “Did Friends Rip Off Seinfeld? Creators Say Yes,” Fox News, May 19, 2003: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2003/05/19/did-friends-rip-off-seinfeld-creators-say-yes.html.
“I just did a Seinfeld”: Littlefield, Top of the Rock, 169.
This is a Shakespearean soap opera: Ibid., 176.
“Seinfeld had different rules”: Ibid., 189.
“Paul Reiser, like Jerry Seinfeld”: Ibid., 121.
In 1996: Elizabeth Lesly, “Seinfeld,” Businessweek, June 2, 1997.
$200 million: Janet Lowe, Jack Welch Speaks (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008), 14.
11.4 percent: Ken Auletta, Three Blind Mice (New York: Vintage, 1992), 81.
more than $1 million: Lesly, “Seinfeld.”
bought himself a Porsche: John DeBellis, “My Trip to San Diego with Larry David,” 920spot.com, Feb. 25, 2013, http://920spot.com/2013/02/25/my-trip-to-san-diego-with-larry-david/.
Stan
ley Kubrick: Michael Herr, “The Real Stanley Kubrick,” Vanity Fair, August 1999.
Ann Landers . . . Phyllis Diller . . . Dave Barry: Tom Gilatto, “Much Ado About Nothing,” People, Jan. 12, 1998.
Louis-Dreyfus served alongside: Army Archerd, “Hillary Packs ’Em In at Bev Hills Appearances,” Variety, Oct. 30, 1994.
Alexander became friends: Jason Alexander, interview by Val Zavala, L!ve Talks Los Angeles, Jan. 25, 2012.
“I’m going to really bite him”: Andy Ackerman, interview by Jenni Matz, Archive of American Television, Nov. 13, 2007.
“the best years of my life”: Jerry Stiller, interview by Gary J. Rutkowski, Archive of American Television, Dec. 12, 2005.
“sweetest man”: Ackerman, interview by Jenni Matz.
“I can’t do that”: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
“Don’t forget to drag it”: Stiller, interview by Gary J. Rutkowski.
“stand in the middle”: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
“can’t be anything but Jewish”: Naomi Pfefferman, “After George,” Jewish Journal, Oct. 19, 2000.
“Jewish family”: Stiller, interview by Gary J. Rutkowski.
former New York Police Department detective: “Barney Martin, TV Father of Seinfeld, Dead at 82,” Associated Press, March 24, 2005.
youthful affair with James Dean: Michael A. Lipton, “An Affair to Remember,” People, June 24, 1996.
$1.6 million: Mark Morrison, “Seinfeld Peaks,” Salina Journal (Kansas), Sept. 19, 1993.
possible Oscar host: Lacey Rose, “Jerry Seinfeld on Why He May Never Go Back to TV,” Hollywood Reporter, Aug. 21, 2013.
showed up on set: “The Breakthrough Season,” Seinfeld, season 4 (Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005), DVD.
Seinfeld met seventeen-year-old: Karen S. Schneider, “The Game of Love,” People, March 28, 1994.
her very own public spat: Tom Gilatto, “Two Against the World,” People, March 29, 1993.
Louis-Dreyfus later said: Zehme, “Jerry & George & Kramer & Elaine.”
“Call me a hopeless Puritan”: David Lavery and Sara Lewis Dunne, Seinfeld, Master of Its Domain (New York and London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008), 2.
“Seinfeld is the worst”: Maureen Dowd, “Yada Yada Yuppies,” New York Times, May 14, 1997.
When Florida high school student: “Touched by a Seinfeld,” People, May 14, 1998.
Seinfeld loved filming: Seinfeld, Reddit AMA.
HoneyBaked hams: Ackerman, interview by Jenni Matz.
“Oh, you’re the Marble Rye Lady”: “Unforgettable Characters.”
Chapter 9: The Show About Something
Nine advertisers: Ashley Fetters, “Masturbation on TV,” Atlantic, Nov. 19, 2012.
a script in 1990: Mike Ryan, “The Lost Episode of Seinfeld That No One Has Ever Seen,” Screencrush, July 9, 2014, http://screencrush.com/seinfeld-the-bet/.
“We’ve got a great arc”: Littlefield, Top of the Rock, 100.
threatening to join the circus: Dan Jewel, “George’s Girl,” People, March 25, 1996.
“it’s hard to figure out where to go”: Littlefield, Top of the Rock, 100.
“It would have been dishonest”: Windolf, “Master of the Domain.”
“too self-hatingly Jewish”: Tom Shales, “So Long, Seinfeld,” Washington Post, April 16, 1998.
Stanford University Jewish Studies symposium: Natalie Weinstein, “Is Seinfeld Jewish?,” j. (San Francisco), May 24, 1996.
Rabbi Jonathan Pearl: Rebecca Seagall and Peter Ephross, “Critics Call Show ‘Self-Hating,’ ” j. (San Francisco), May 8, 1998.
didn’t disagree: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
“the enemy”: Peter Bogdanovich, “Seinfeld Battles Actor Danny Hoch,” New York Observer, March 9, 1998.
“Jerry Seinfeld is sending you something”: Kathy Griffin, Official Book Club Selection (New York: Ballantine, 2009), 118.
“If you ever need any help”: Ackerman, interview by Jenni Matz.
“Either it’s going to be wonderful”: Jay Rayner, “Wing and a Prayer,” Guardian, July 10, 2005.
Chapter 10: The Larry David–Shaped Hole
Bizarro first appeared: “Bizarro,” DC Comics website, accessed Oct. 1, 2015, http://www.dccomics.com/characters/bizarro.
“I was certainly inspired”: Mike Conroy, 500 Comic Book Villains (London: Collins & Brown, 2004), 244.
“It felt like it shifted”: Littlefield, Top of the Rock, 292.
he obsessed over: Ackerman, interview by Jenni Matz.
$550,000 per thirty-second ad spot: Degen Pener and Jessica Shaw, “Seined and Sealed,” Entertainment Weekly, May 23, 1997.
$40 million: Michael Fleming, “ ‘Blackout’ Awakens at Miramax; Hammer Hit,” Variety, Dec. 4, 1996.
$500,000 per episode: Marcus Errico, “Seinfeld’s Co-Stars Want Equal Pay,” E!, Jan. 14, 1997.
“I want to leave”: Jason Alexander, interviewed by Charlie Rose, Charlie Rose, April 27, 1998; posted on CharlieRose.com as part of Seinfeld archive compilation, Aug. 27, 2014, available at http://charlierose.com/watch/60438669.
“Having raised the bar”: Phil Gallo, “Review: ‘Seinfeld,’ ” Variety, Nov. 5, 1997.
At the show Christmas party: Seinfeld et al., Sein Off, 51.
Chapter 11: The End
$1 billion in profits: Lesly, “Seinfeld.”
$200 million of that from Seinfeld: “Forever Seinfeld,” People, May 14, 1998.
“People only want to know”: Littlefield, Top of the Rock, 295.
“For me, this is all about timing”: Bill Carter, “Seinfeld Says It’s All Over, and It’s No Joke for NBC,” New York Times, Dec. 26, 1997.
“It seemed artistically right”: “Scenes from the Roundtable.”
Warner Brothers could ask: Hal Boedeker, “CBS Chief: ‘ER’ can fetch more than $10 million,” Orlando Sentinel, Jan. 13, 1998.
$2 million: Bill Carter, “The Thursday Night Massacre,” New York Times Magazine, Sept. 20, 1998.
“an idiot clown”: David B. Caruso, “Immortalized by ‘Seinfeld,’ the Soup Nazi Returns to NYC,” Associated Press, July 20, 2010.
WABC-AM’s Babita Hariani: Scott Williams, “ ‘Soup Nazi’ Seins Off with On-Air Tantrum,” Daily News (New York), Dec. 30, 1997.
“Five million bucks a week?”: David Bauder, “Is He Crazy?,” Associated Press, Jan. 16, 1998.
largest single deal: Joe Schlosser, “WNYW Pays $300,000 for ‘Nothing,’ ” Broadcasting & Cable, Mar. 23, 1998, 10.
$2 million: Stuart Elliott, “Commercial-Time Rates for Last ‘Seinfeld’ Should Break Records,” New York Times, Feb. 11, 1998.
“We think it’s all a trick”: Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, Kevin McCoy, and Douglas Feiden, “Fans in Sitcom Shock,” Daily News (New York), Dec. 27, 1997.
Manuel Mirabal wrote to NBC: “NBC Apologizes for ‘Seinfeld’ Episode on the Puerto Rican Day Parade,” New York Times, May 9, 1998.
spent a month: Seinfeld et al., Sein Off, 47.
“Where could I send them”: Ibid.,103.
“A Tough Nut to Crack”: Jen Carlson, “Seinfeld Finale Aired 15 Years Ago,” Gothamist, May 14, 2014.
confidentiality agreement: Chris Heath, “The End of ‘Seinfeld,’ ” Rolling Stone, May 28, 1998.
ink that could not be copied: “The Last Lap,” Seinfeld, season 9.
“You’re going to hear me”: Heath, “The End of ‘Seinfeld.’ ”
For the first time since the first episode: Seinfeld et al., Sein Off, 47.
As David and Seinfeld stood on the sidelines: Heath, “The End of ‘Seinfeld.’ ”
a logistical nightmare: Ackerman, interview by Jenni Matz.
“How does Kramer function”: Seinfeld et al., Sein Off, 107.
“For the rest of our lives”: Alexander, interview by Amy Harrington.
“Because you don’t hear that enough”: Seinfeld et al., Sein Off, 163.
Ackerman had a hard time leaving: Ackerman, interview by Jenni Matz.
“racist”: Carlos Rovira and Leslie Feinberg, “Protesters Tell NBC, ‘Seinfeld’: Racism Is No Laughing Matter,” Workers World, May 28, 1998.
“unconscionable insult”: “NBC Apologizes for ‘Seinfeld’ Episode on the Puerto Rican Day Parade.”
Maxim magazine had rented: George Rush, Virginia Breen, and Michelle Caruso, “Party’s Not Over,” Daily News (New York), April 9, 1998.
“Talk about sour grapes”: Ken Tucker, “Seinfeld,” Entertainment Weekly, May 29, 1998.
“The ludicrously humorless”: Ron Rosenbaum, “The Final Seinfeld: I Told You So!,” New York Observer, May 25, 1998.
“The hilarious final episode”: Caryn James, “ ‘Seinfeld’ Goes Out in Self-Referential Style,” New York Times, May 15, 1998.
able to rush him to the hospital faster: Michelle Caruso, “Wail of Sirens Heralds Crooner’s Last Hours,” Daily News (New York), May 16, 1998.
proffered a Tiffany diamond ring: Tom Gilatto, “Jerry Engaged? Get Out,” People, Nov. 22, 1999.
“I was manipulated, misled”: Neal Travis, “His Latest Engagement,” New York Post, Nov. 9, 1999.
vacationing together: “Jerry Engaged? Get Out.”
picketers once again gathered: Tom Shales, “Jerry Seinfeld, Warmed Over on Broadway,” Washington Post, Aug. 11, 1998.
Chapter 12: Seinfeldia Emerges
Bank of America sold KLBK: Lavery and Dunne, Seinfeld, Master of Its Domain, 195.
$500 million minority stake: Bill Carter, “Fox Will Sign Up 12 New Stations,” New York Times, May 24, 1994.
Seinfeld started beating: Windolf, “Master of the Domain.”
For the second-season episode “The Revenge”: David Sims, “Seinfeld: ‘The Revenge,’ ” A.V. Club, July 8, 2010, http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/seinfeld-the-statuethe-heart-attackthe-revenge-42851.
the crew reshot Randolph’s scenes: David Sims, “Seinfeld: ‘The Handicap Spot,’ ” A.V. Club, Jan. 20, 2011, http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/seinfeld-the-handicap-spotthe-junior-mintthe-smell-50267.
most successful show ever in syndication: Sony Pictures Television, “Sony Pictures Television’s Seinfeld Earns an Unprecedented Fifth Cycle in Syndication,” press release, Nov. 18, 2013, available at http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-pictures-televisions-seinfeld-earns-an-unprecedented-fifth-cycle-in-syndication-232391521.html.
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