Seinfeld / Tropes I to N

I-J

• I Banged Your Mom: Newman bangs Kramer's mom. He walks in on them and is suitably disgusted.
• I Call It "Vera": Jerry calls his favorite yellow shirt "Golden Boy."
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: With the exception of exactly one episode ("Male Unbonding," which was the first post-pilot episode produced - though not the first to be aired), every episode starts with "The".
• If I Had a Nickel...: In "The Rye", where George's parents, Frank and Estelle, have dinner with the parents of his fiancée, Susan Ross:
  Estelle: I couldn't help but notice that you have quite a library in there.
  Mrs. Ross: If I had a dime for every book he's actually read, I'd be broke.
• I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!:
  • Accidentally invoked by Elaine when she loses the top button on her shirt without realizing it.
  • George is also well aware that he must obey.
    "Every woman on the face of the Earth has complete control over my life... and yet, I want them all. Is that irony?"
• I Have This Friend: Played with in "The Andrea Doria" when Kramer, who refuses to go to the doctor for his cough, takes a guy's dog (Smuckers) to the vet and describes his symptoms, pretending they're also the dog's.
  Vet: (examining Smuckers) What are the symptoms?
  Kramer: Well, uh.. it hurts when he swallows. Especially when he drinks orange juice. (Vet looks at him oddly) I mean, uh.. dog food.. juice. What's worse, he has a nagging cough. (Smuckers coughs) Yeah, that's it. That's it.
  Vet: Yeah, well, uh, we've been seeing a lot of this lately. Been drinking from the toilet?
  Kramer: (offended) What? No. That's disgusting.
• I'll Be in My Bunk: Kramer's (wordless) elimination from "The Contest".
• The "I Love You" Stigma: Not explicitly said, but dealt with. "The Face Painter" has George whisper "I love you" into his girlfriend's ear, and he's dismayed when she not only doesn't reciprocate, but doesn't even respond (instead changing the subject.) He surmises that she must be deaf in the ear he whispered into, but it turns out she heard him the first time - she just doesn't feel the same way.
  George: You can’t have a relationship where someone says “I love you” and the other one says “I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat!”
• Imaginary Friend: Whitey Fisk was made up by George to be the "summer Jerry" (when Jerry went away to summer camp). When George finally reveals that Whitey Fisk was a fictitious person who he never snuck into R-rated movies with:
  Jerry: So you never saw Last Tango in Paris?
  George: No.
  Jerry: Too bad. It was erotic.
• Imagine Spot: Jerry and his girlfriend both have one in "The Apology": Jerry kept trying to picture his girlfriend naked, while the girlfriend kept trying to not picture Jerry naked.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Newman craves Kramer in "The Butter Shave".
  Kramer: Look at me! I'm all covered in parmesan and oregano, and it's stickin' to me be cause of the butter! Look at me!
  (Newman hands Kramer something)
  Newman: Hold this.
  Kramer: What is that, parsley?
  (Newman smiles wide and bites him off-screen)
• I'm a Man; I Can't Help It: George is so desperate for female companionship that in "The Fix-Up," he admits to Jerry that he started flirting with telemarketers. And in "The Subway," even when the woman he met up with steals all his stuff and leaves him chained him up to the hotel room bed in just his underwear, George shouts after her "Will I see you again?" That wouldn't be the last time George would show attraction to a criminal, as shown in "The Limo":
  George: (about the Aryan Union member Eva) Man, did you see the way she looked at me?
  Jerry: She's a Nazi, George. A Nazi!
  George: I know, I know. Kind of a cute Nazi, though.
• I Meant to Do That: In "The Glasses", George takes a bite of a raw onion instead of an apple and tries to play it off as a conscious decision.
• I'm Your Biggest Fan: Kramer is this for Bette Midler, and also displays some signs of Celeb Crush as well to the point that he offers to fetch her a pineapple-flavored Italian Ice, just so he can do something for her.
• Implausible Deniability: In "The Chicken Roaster", when George meets up with Heather to trade her clock, which he stole from her, for his hat, which he thinks she stole from him. He learns that she doesn't have his hat and just wanted to meet up with him. George tries to save face by claiming that his bag has his lunch in it, only for it to ring, which he says is the salami. When Heather opens the bag and confirms that he has her clock, George blames the deli for messing up his order.
• Important Haircut:
  • In "The Soul Mate", Elaine, inspired by her impulsive boyfriend, decides to cut her hair really short on a whim. The change only lasts a couple episodes.
  • Newman gets his head shaved clean in "The Barber"; that's never seen or mentioned again, and his hair is back the next time he shows up, although to be fair, that only happens a few episodes later. Jerry's bad haircut also disappears by the following episode.
• Impossibly Delicious Food: The Mackinaw peaches ("The Doodle"), "The Soup Nazi['s]" soups, and the non-fat yogurt (so good, it causes Jerry to curse!). Several other foodstuffs fall into this category, but only through Newman's, Kramer's or George's eyes. The Mackinaw peaches and the yogurt are fictional, but the soups' deliciousness is very nearly Truth in Television.
• Improbable Age: In "The Serenity Now", Elaine tries to pass herself off as being in her early twenties. Adam doesn't buy it for a second.
• Incompetence, Inc.:
  • Kruger Industrial Smoothing, where George works for the final season and where no one seems to do any work.
    George: Hey, I work for Kruger Industrial Smoothing: "We don't care, and it shows!"
  • And:
    George: Don't you even care? This is your company. It's your name on the outside of the building. Speaking of which, the R fell off and all it says now is K-UGER."
    Kruger: K-UGER. That sounds like one of those old time car horns, huh? K-UGER! K-UGER!
• Indentured Servitude:
  • This is a plot device that Jerry and George use for the pilot they write for NBC, in which, Jerry gets into a car accident with another man, and since said other man didn't have car insurance, the judge ordered the man to become Jerry's butler.
  • The above inspires Frank to do the same to George when his car is ruined while in George's possession (George had parked the car in a handicap spot, and a wheelchair-bound woman ended up having a serious accident because of it).
• Inelegant Blubbering: Jerry's girlfriend in "The Understudy" is prone to doing this over the most minor things.
  • Also George when he succeeds in getting his wedding postponed to the next Spring.
• I Need a Freaking Drink:
  • Jerry when Elaine asks him about the sweater in "The Red Dot".
  • Elaine pretends to need one as part of her ruse about a "gang of teenagers" who chased her and George while they were driving Jerry's car, to hide the fact that they messed up the shocks hitting a pothole.
  • Jerry calls back to the "The Red Dot" example in "The Boyfriend", when Elaine asks him if he's jealous of her boyfriend or of her.
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue:
  Jerry: Do you know how hard it is to find a dermatologist in this town?
  (Kramer enters in a doctor-esque buther's suit)
  Jerry: A real dermatologist?
• Informed Flaw:
  • The slowness of Jerry's elevator. For only taking thirty seconds for someone at the front door to reach Jerry's fifth floor apartment, it must be the fastest elevator in New York.
  • Despite apparently being such a major flaw that it decreases the value of the sweater by hundreds of dollars and causes everyone who sees it to reject the sweater, the viewers never actually see the red dot.
• Informed Judaism:
  • Jerry and his family, Jerry himself resembles the real life Seinfeld, who is a "non-practicing" Jewish man.
  • Also, Kramer's friend Lomez.
    Jerry: Lomez is Jewish?
    Kramer: Yeah, Orthodox. Old-school.
  • George's mother, Estelle, is a perfect Jewish Mother except for her name.
    Estelle: I'm not riding in a German car.
  • It has been speculated that Estelle is Jewish but is married to the Italian Frank. Her maiden name is never mentioned.
  • Ed from "The Fatigues" is either Jewish, or only interested in Jewish girls.
• Inherently Funny Words:
  • Moops.
  • Elaine was amused by the phrase "Stock swap".
    Elaine: "Stock swap." Let's swap some stock!
  • In "The Cafe," Jerry and Elaine have fun saying "casus belli" a lot, which George somehow took to mean that they were talking about him.
• Inner Monologue: Occurs occasionally. Notably, we never hear Kramer's.
  • Jerry has quite a few when he, George, and Kramer go to see Tor in "The Heart Attack":
    Tor: You see, you are in disharmony. The throat is the gateway to the lung. Tonsillitis, adenoiditis, is, in Chinese medical terms, an invasion of heat and wind.
    Jerry: (thinking) There's some hot air blowin' in here.
  • Elaine has a rather lengthy one in "The Subway" when the subway train grinds to a halt:
    Elaine: (thinking) Oh, this is great. This is what I need, just what I need. Okay, take it easy, I'm sure it's nothing. Probably rats on the track, we're stopping for rats. God, it's so crowded. How can there be so many people? This guy really smells. Doesn't anyone use deodorant in the city? What is so hard, you take the cap off, you roll it on. What's that? I feel something rubbing against me. Disgusting animals, these people should be in a cage. We are in a cage. What if I miss the wedding? I got the ring. What'll they do? You can't get married without the ring. Oh, I can't breathe, I feel faint! Take it easy, it'll start moving soon. Think about the people in the concentration camps, what they went through. And hostages, what would you do if you were a hostage? Think about that. This is nothing. No, it's not nothing, it's something. It's a nightmare! Help me! Move it! Com'on move this (bleeping) thing!! Why isn't it moving?! What can go wrong with a train?! It's on tracks, there's no traffic! How can a train get stuck. Step on the gas! What could it be? You'd think the conductor would explain it to us! "I'm sorry there's a delay we'll be moving in 5 minutes!" I wanna hear a voice. What's that on my leg?!
  • George also has an inner monologue in "The Subway" when George contemplates how much clothing he should take off when the woman he was with said to make himself comfortable. He ends up taking off just his shoes.
  • Jerry repeatedly has an inner monologue in "The Cafe", complimenting himself for helping out Babu's ailing restaurant.
  • George has an inner monologue in "The Smelly Car" when he spots two lesbians.
    George: They're so fascinating. Why is that? Because they don't want us. You gotta respect that.
  • In "The Wife", Elaine has an inner monologue when talking to Greg.
  • In "The Barber", Newman has an inner monologue when he searches Jerry's bathroom for a stray hair.
  • In "The Cartoon", George has an inner monologue about the woman he's dating:
    George: (thinking) My friends are idiots. She doesn't look like Jerry. She doesn't look like anybody. And so what if does look like Jerry, what does that mean? That I could have everything I have with Jerry, but because it's a woman, I could also have sex with her.... And that somehow that would be exactly what I always wanted...? She doesn't even look like Jerry!
    Janet: Y'know, I really do look like your friend Jerry.
    George: (aloud) I know.
  • In "The Sponge", Jerry opens his girlfriend's closet to find boxes of contraceptive sponges:
    Jerry: (thinking) Oh my God. She is depraved!
  • In "The Boyfriend", both Elaine and Keith Hernandez have inner monologues while on their date.
    Keith: (thinking) Go ahead. Kiss her. I'm a baseball player, dammit!
    Elaine: (thinking) What's he waiting for? I thought he was a cool guy.
    Keith: (thinking) Come on I won the MVP in '79. I can do whatever I want to.
    Elaine: (thinking) This is getting awkward.
    Keith: Well, goodnight.
    Elaine: Good night.
    (they kiss, and keep kissing)
    Elaine: (thinking) Who does this guy think he is??
    Keith: (thinking) I'm Keith Hernandez.
  • In "The Strongbox":
    George: I think that ginger ale at the coffee shop is just Coke and Sprite mixed together. How can I prove it? Ah, can't. Dammit!
  • George also gets one in "The Hamptons" while driving with his current girlfriend to a weekend in the Hamptons:
    George: It's amazing. If I reach out and touch her breast right now, she'd scream and throw me out of the car. But at this time tomorrow, I could touch it all I want. Sex is like joining a private club. I'll be the same me tomorrow, but suddenly, the no trespassing sign will be gone.
• Innocently Insensitive: Jean-Paul in "The Hot Tub", who is from Trinidad and doesn't know a lot of English slang. He learns some words he doesn't fully know from Seinfeld and the gang, which backfires when he sees a mother with a baby in the hallway of Elaine's apartment and says "Aw, look at the cute little bastard!" The woman is offended, since she had the baby out of marriage, and Jean-Paul gets in further trouble when he innocently calls the building manager a son of a bitch.
• Inherently Attractive Profession: "The Abstinence" has Elaine dating a man who is studying to become a doctor, saying it's basically the dream of every woman to date a doctor. When he passes the MCATs and becomes a doctor, he dumps her, saying that it's basically the dream of every man to dump the woman he's with for someone better once he becomes a doctor.
• An Insert: Used in the episode "The Bizarro Jerry", when Jerry's Girl of the Week has unattractive "man-hands". There are lots of close-ups on her beefy hands (actually the hands of male actor James Rekart) as she tears bread, pries the cap off a beer bottle, rips a lobster in half, and so on.
• Insignia Rip-Off Ritual: Parodied, as Newman does this to Jerry while he's wearing Newman's jacket.
• Insignificant Anniversary: Jerry actually remembers the exact date of the last time he threw up: June 29, 1980. After stopping at a bakery to pick up a bobka for a dinner party, Jerry eats a large black-and-white cookie that doesn't agree with him, thus breaking his fourteen-year streak of not throwing up.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Becomes a Running Gag in "The Reverse Peephole," where Jerry stops carrying a wallet, and Elaine eventually talks him into carrying European carry-all; the item is continually dismissed as a purse, prompting, "It's not a purse, it's European!"
  • In "The Chicken Roaster", it's not "fast food", it's "good food, quickly".
  • In "The Invitations", Kramer takes advantage of a bank's guarantee that if they didn't say "hello" to you when you walked in, they owed you $100 by claiming that the teller didn't say "hello" but merely "hey". After taking his issue to the bank owner, he received $20 as a compromise.
  • In "The Summer of George":
    Jerry: So, are you still decomposing?
    George: (annoyed) "Decompressing".
  • In "The Wizard," Morty insists that the eponymous electronic organizer Jerry got him for a birthday present is a tip calculator. The episode even ends with it.
    Jerry: Dad, I'm sorry.
    Morty: You should be sorry. How can you spend $200 on a tip calculator?
    Jerry: (frustrated) It does other things!
• Insists on Paying:
  • Jerry's parents refuse to believe that Jerry makes any money whatsoever as a comedian, so Morty insists on paying for everything when they are together, while Jerry also insists on paying for everything just to prove them wrong.
  • Jerry buys his parents a Cadillac, so they sell it to Jack Klompus and give Jerry the money. Jerry buys it back from Klompus for $14,000 (Klompus paid $6000 for it) and gives it back to his parents, who promptly sell their condo and move into a trailer park.
  • In "The Little Jerry", after word gets back to Helen and Morty that one of Jerry's checks bounced, they are determined to send him $50. Jerry adamantly refuses their offer, but they send him money later in the episode anyway.
  Jerry: (opening envelope) $50. I don't believe this!
• Inspector Javert: Mr. Bookman the library cop.
• Inspirational Insult: Invoked in "The Cartoon," in which washed-up actress Sally Weaver takes Jerry's criticism (actually said by Kramer) of her acting abilities (or lack thereof) and applies it to her new stand-up routine she calls Jerry Seinfeld is the Devil, in which she basically just mocks everything Jerry does or say to her to make him seem like a bigger Jerkass. Her new act launches her into celebrity status overnight.
• Instrumental Theme Tune
  • The in-universe pilot Jerry also uses an instrumental theme tune, and it's typical '80s sitcom cheese.
• Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier: In "The Understudy", Elaine feels that her Korean manicurists make jokes about her when they speak to each other in Korean (she's right). Eventually, she brings along Frank Costanza with her, who speaks Korean, and gets upset when they insult him too.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Kramer is good friends with seniors like Jerry's parents and Frank Costanza. If anything, he has a better relationship with the latter than Frank does for his own son.
• The Internet Is for Porn::
  • George's chief selling point for his father's computer business in "The Serenity Now".
    George: Well, I got just the thing to cheer you up. A computer! Huh? We can check porn, and stock quotes.
  • Later:
    Elaine: I am not buying a computer from you.
    George: There's porn!
    (beat)
    Elaine: Even so.
• In-Universe Factoid Failure: George's girlfriend's book club reads Breakfast at Tiffany's. George puts off reading it as long as he can and watches the movie instead. When pretending he read the book, he mentions a character's romantic interactions with a female character, only to be bluntly told the character is gay in the book, but not the movie.
• Invented Individual: Suzie, Whitey Fisk, Terrorist Bomber, Snoopy & Prickly Pete.
  • And of course, Art Vendelay.
• Inventor of the Mundane: Bob Sacamano thought of attaching a rubber band to a ball so it wouldn't fly off a paddle ("The Puerto Rican Day").
• Invisible Subtle Difference: In "The Little Jerry", after Elaine shows Jerry a picture of her boyfriend's hair:
  Jerry: ...It's brown.
  Elaine: It's chestnut with auburn highlights.
• In with the In Crowd: George, in "The Bizarro Jerry".
• Ironic Echo:
  • In "The Cafe", George is asked if he's wearing cologne by Elaine (this is after Jerry teased him about it, mind you). To which George protested: "Why is what I do so important? Why must I be always the focal point of attention? Let me just be, let me live." A few seconds later, George wants to know what "casus belli" means (a phrase Jerry and Elaine said when George walked in); he wants to know if it's about him. To which Jerry replied: "Why must you always be the focal point of attention? Why can't you just be? Why can't you live?"
    • Amazingly, there's another unrelated Ironic Echo a few moments later! Early in the episode, George tells Jerry, "You know, people think I'm smart, but I'm not smart." Later, when George reveals to Elaine that he's taking an IQ test, Elaine is confident he'll do well because he's smart. To which Jerry parrots George from earlier: "No see, he's not smart. People think he's smart, but he's not." Needless to say, George is quite annoyed by Jerry at this point.
  • In "The Nose Job", Elaine tells George to shut up after Audrey's nose job is botched. At the end of the episode, when Audrey fixes her nose and Elaine gushes about how good it looks, George tells Elaine to shut up.
  • In "The Parking Space", Jerry forces Kramer to beg for information. Later in the scene, Kramer does the exact same thing to Jerry.
  • In "The Susie", after Mike (now a bookie) tells Jerry that he can't pay him back for the bet he lost, Jerry calls Mike a phony, which is what Mike called Jerry back in season 3's "The Parking Space".
  • In "The Postponement", George and Jerry make a pact to both marry someone. When George gets engaged but Jerry doesn't (having just broken up with his latest girlfriend), George angrily reminds him: "We had a PACT!" Later, in the season finale, "The Invitations", Jerry gets engaged to Jeannie, so it looks like the pact is finally going to be held. But then Susan dies from licking toxic glue on the wedding invitations, and George is free. Upon hearing this, Jerry shouts, "We had a PACT!"
  • In "The Kiss Hello", George is informed that he has to pay for his physical therapy bill because he didn't cancel 24 hours before the appointment. Later in the episode, George returns to the therapist and is informed that the therapist had to cancel the appointment because she had some personal business. George gets back at her: "Oh, I'm sorry, I require 24 hours notice for a cancellation. Now, as I see it, you owe me seventy-five dollars."
  • In "The Pledge Drive", Elaine mentioned that Mr. Pitt ate a candy bar with a knife and fork. George explained: "He probably doesn't want to get chocolate on his fingers. That's the way these society types eat their candy bars." Moments later, the waitress pointed at George's check using her middle finger; when George was convinced she gave him the finger, Jerry explained: "That's how waitress types express derision; they don't want to get their mouths dirty."
  • In, "The Chicken Roaster," Kramer starts protesting the new Kenny Rogers' Chicken Roaster right across the street from his apartment window (the neon chicken sign keeps his apartment lit up all night), and we have this exchange between Jerry and his college buddy Seth (who was previously fired after missing a meeting at an investment firm):
    Seth: That's not gonna be good for business.
    Jerry: That's not gonna be good for anybody.
  • Later still, Jerry tries to help Kramer drive the place out of business by shaking off a wet hat made of nutria fur, causing rat hair to fly all over the restaurant.
    Jerry: That's not gonna be good for business.
    Seth: That's not gonna be good for anybody.
  • In "The Foundation", Kramer talks about karate, how it's "here (points to head), and here (points to chest), and here (makes circle with hands)." Later in the scene, Jerry leaves with these words: "All right, I'm outta here, and when I get back, I don't want to see you here (points to kitchen), here (points to living room), or here (makes similar circle with his hands)."
  • In "The Wizard", Kramer announces he's retiring, saying that thanks to cleaning up on his coffee table book being turned into a movie, he doesn't have to worry about working for a while... a looong while. Jerry's response:
    Jerry: That's funny, because I haven't seen you working for a while. A loooong while.
  • From the same episode, George mentions to Jerry early on that he thinks the Rosses dislike him and that they probably blame him for Susan's death. Sure enough, during The Tag, when George finally breaks and asks them why they continued to let him carry on with his house in the Hamptons charade, they tell him:
    Mrs. Ross: We don't like you, George.
    Mr. Ross: And we always blamed you for what happened to Susan.
  • In "The Scofflaw", Kramer starts wearing an eye patch, and Jerry says he looks like a pirate. Kramer replies, "I wanna be a pirate." A season earlier, Jerry was forced into wearing a puffy shirt on The Today Show, and Kramer proclaimed Jerry was going to be the first pirate. Jerry nervously said, "I don't wanna be a pirate!"
  • In "The Pilot," (the episode about Jerry and George's in-universe pilot, not the actual pilot episode), Elaine tells Russell that she doesn't respect his job of working in television, and mentions maybe if he worked for Greenpeace. During The Tag, Kramer suggests George work for Greenpeace when mentioning he'll have to get a real job now; Russell, by that point, had left NBC, and was now out on the open waters, hoping he'll earn Elaine's respect.
  • In "The Burning", one of the plots involves George cracking a joke during his meetings with Kruger and, when everybody laughs, he leaves while saying "That's it for me, you've been great! Good night, everybody!" Later in the episode, when it's revealed that Jerry's latest girlfriend got gonorrhea from a tractor when she was a kid, Jerry, squicked out at the notion, tells her, "All right, that's it for me. You've been great. Goodnight everybody!", and leaves.
  • In "The Fire", Kramer's latest girlfriend, Toby, defended her over-the-top laughter and booing during Jerry's stand-up act, saying, "How are you gonna make it in this business if you can't take it?" Later in the episode, Jerry got revenge by going to Toby's office and heckling her while she's trying to work. Toby said, "How would you like it if I called security?" Jerry responded, "Security? Oh, I don't know how you're gonna make it in this business if you can't it! Boo! Booooo!"
• Irony:
  • Demonstrated by Kramer's story in "The Van Buren Boys": Kramer ruined the very pants he was returning by slipping and falling in mud.
  • This teeters on the fence of Irony and Ironic Echo, but in, "The Outing", Jerry asks George how is he going to get himself out of his current relationship, to which George, defeatedly, says, "I don't know... I guess I'm gonna have to wait until she dies." Seasons later in, "The Invitations", after George has spent the entire season trying to weasel out of impending wedding to Susan, she ends up dead after sealing a bunch of envelopes that had toxic adhesives.
  • Also in the series finale. George and Kramer make a few references to how much they like society, but as it turns out, society doesn't like them.
  • All throughout the series, George was dying to get as far away from his parents as possible, though towards the end of the run in "The Junk Mail," his parents try to dump him, and when Jerry points out this is what he always wanted, George responds, dejectedly, "I know... I'm just not ready yet."
  • "The Secret Code": Jerry notes the irony that Leaping Larry walks with a limp. He's dismayed that despite this, Larry doesn't seem to have a sense of humor about it.
  • In "The Bris", George talked a big game to an attractive woman about how he's been to many a bris, but he's the only one in the room to faint when the mohel does his thing.
  • In "The Virgin", Jerry points out to George how ironic it is that he finally has a job he can use to impress girls, but he's in a relationship with a woman who has the power to cause him to lose this job if he breaks up with her. George gets it but is not amused.
  • In "The Implant," at the behest of Jerry and Kramer, George accompanies his then-girlfriend to the wake and funeral of her aunt, believing that his being there for her during her trying time will greatly upgrade their relationship. Instead, no thanks to some shenanigans at the wake (most notably George getting into a fight with his girlfriend's brother about double dipping a chip), their relationship crashes and burns.
• Irrevocable Message: "The Phone Message".
• Is There a Doctor in the House?: Shouted when someone passes out in the diner. In a subversion, Elaine's latest boyfriend, Ben, isn't technically a doctor yet because he hasn't passed his medical exam. So he's reluctant to go over and help him.
  Sue Ellen: Shouldn't he elevate his legs?
  Ben: Right! Elevate your legs!
• It Belongs in a Museum: From "The Merv Griffin Show":
  Kramer: (upon finding the set of the Merv Griffin Show) This stuff belongs in the Smithsonian!
  Jerry: Yeah, at least in the dumpster behind the Smithsonian.
• It Makes Sense in Context:
  • In-universe, this was certainly the case in "The Doodle" when a man that Elaine had a job interview with is aghast at the expensive hotel bill that Jerry's parents racked up:
    Mandel: Three hours of massage time , twelve in-room movies including several adult features, five shoe shines and four hundred dollars worth of snacks. Not to mention the damage to the room.
    Elaine: Mr Mandel, you don't understand... my-my friend had fleas. I ran into the gas, it could have killed me, and my, my other friend couldn't taste his peaches, they're only good for two weeks!
    Mandel: I think you've read one too many Billy Mumphrey stories.
  • In "The Burning": Mickey and Kramer barge in on Jerry and his latest girlfriend:
    Mickey: (to Kramer) You gave me gonorrhea, you didn't even tell me!
    Kramer: Well, I'm sorry. I gave you gonorrhea because I thought you'd have fun with it. ^Note(Kramer and Mickey had been pretending to have various diseases to help doctors-in-training diagnose people. Kramer got sick of being typecast as a gonorrhea victim and switched his symptom with Mickey's.)
• It's Cuban: Kramer gets a box of Cuban cigars from George's fiance's father, which he accidentally uses to burn down her father's cabin. Another time, Kramer hatches a scheme to bring in Cuban refugees to roll Cuban cigars for him in America, but they turn out to be Dominicans and thus inferior cigar rollers.
• It's Not You, It's Me:
  • George claims to be the grand master of this:
    George: You're giving me the "it's not you, it's me" routine? I invented 'It's not you, it's me!' Nobody tells me it's them not me! If it's anyone, it's me!
    Gwen: All right, George, it's you.
    George: You're damn right it's me.
  • In the same episode, Laura reads somebody's lips at a nearby table:
    Laura: That couple is breaking up. (...)
    George: What are they saying now?
    Laura: "It's not you, it's me."
• I Will Show You X!:
  • Upon an irate Frank seeing Kramer's license plate: ""ASSMAN"? I'll show him Assman!!!"
  • In "The Serenity Now": "You wanna sell computers? I will show youuuuuu, how to sell computers!"
• Japanese Tourist: Played straight in "The Checks".
• Jeopardy! Intelligence Test: George becomes a genius by abstaining from sex, and does great while watching Jeopardy. Jerry asks whether it's a rerun, but it's not.
• Jerkass: The four characters are downplayed examples-Jerry and Kramer are probably the nicest, but can be very petty-especially to each other.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Often. The piss-poor way these people have of handling things undermines the fact that they're occasionally right. Such as George wanting a hospital to compensate him for the damage done to his car by a suicidal patient, or Jerry not wanting to kiss people as a greeting, etc.
  • The Bubble Boy is an unbelievably rude brat, but both his trivia answer—"The Moors"—and his insistence that the "Moops" written on the answer card is a misprint are correct. (Though most viewers suggest that George is fully aware of this and is only arguing with him because he's fed up with his nastiness)
  • Despite being motivated for personal reasons, Newman has every right to investigate Jerry when he catches him committing mail fraud. And while he obviously wants Jerry to be guilty, he does suspend the case when it appears that he could be innocent, only resuming the investigation when he finds concrete evidence against him.
• Jingle: Kramer sings one for Hennigan's whiskey in "The Red Dot", before quickly being cut off by Jerry:
  Kramer: (singing) H, E, double N, I...
• Joisey: David Putty is from Jersey.
• Judgment of Solomon: In "The Seven", Newman's solution to Elaine and Kramer's argument over who gets a bike: To cut the bike in half. Kramer would rather give the whole bike to Elaine than see it destroyed. Newman gives Kramer the whole bike due to his selflessness, annoying Elaine.
• Just Between You and Me

K-L

• Kangaroo Court: The main characters are put on trial for violating a newly implemented "Good Samaritan" law by failing to intervene in a robbery. Firstly, the only way for the police officer to have known that they watched the whole thing and didn't intervene is if he himself had watched the whole thing and failed to intervene. Secondly, even putting aside the ridiculous terms on which they are brought to trial, the majority of the trial consists of characters from many previous episodes who hate and barely know the main characters testifying against their character by telling very one-sided accounts of events that had occurred. While some of the witnesses do testify to actual wrongdoings of the quartet, many of the accusations made against them are either misunderstandings or blatantly false, yet none of the four are ever seen being given the chance to defend themselves by giving their side of the story. When their lawyer rightfully objects to this, the judge flat out tells him to shut up. In the end they're all sentenced to a year in jail, essentially for the crime of "being dicks," despite for the most part never having broken any real laws.
• Karma Houdini:
  • George was harboring an escaped fugitive that the police knew about, and yet it was Elaine's then-boyfriend who went to jail, just because he was starting to look like George. The second part is justified because said boyfriend told Elaine he punched the cop who accused him of being George; he was in prison for assault, not for harboring a fugitive.
  • The doorman of Elaine's building harassed and guilt tripped Jerry into doing his job while he took a unapproved break and when Jerry leaves because he takes to long getting back, it results in the couch in the unattended lobby getting stolen. The building's owner blames Elaine and Jerry and demand they pay for a new couch while the doorman does not get in any trouble for taking off of work without permission and leaving a random stranger to do his job.
  • The office maid George had sex with on his work desk pettily reported their actions to his boss once it was clear he didn't want to pursue a relationship with her. However, while George got fired, the maid herself apparently got to keep her job despite being just as guilty.
  • During the Pilot Saga, George is responsible for NBC canceling Crazy Joe Davola's unproduced TV pilot by undercutting him when he came crawling back to do Jerry for less money after arrogantly rejecting their initial offer. Not only does Davola blame Jerry because his name is on the show and make multiple attempts on his life, he also tries to kill Kramer and Elaine for unrelated reasons, making George the only one of the main characters Davola didn't try to murder.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: After an entire series of being entitled jerks to just about everyone and getting away with it, the series finale has every single person the group has wronged over the years come back to testify how they've each been respectively screwed over. This eventually lands them a year in jail for not helping a man when he was being mugged, as it proved that they have a long history of causing problems for others and never attempting to fix them.
• Karmic Protection: Almost the entire series, but averted in the Finale.
• Kavorka Man:
  • Trope Namer. Used to describe Kramer, but applies equally to George. When asked how George kept dating gorgeous women, the best answer his actor could give was, "He's very...persistent...?"
  • Newman is also an example as he's been seen dating or having dated some very attractive women.
  • Jerry also does alright.
• Kicked Up Stairs: Elaine did this to a mail room worker in "The Fatigues"; instead of firing him for late mail delivery, she promoted him to writer when she saw he wore combat fatigues and had a gruff voice. Once he began writing for the catalog, she promoted him again after he freaked out the other workers with his dark poetry (she made him Director of Corporate Development, which got him out of the writer room). This didn't go over well with the other writers.
• Kissing Cousins: In "The Junk Mail", George's plan to flirt with his cousin (and thus, causing his parents to start giving him attention again) backfires when she decides to go along with it.
• Klatchian Coffee:
  • Kramer, after drinking too many cafe lattes in "The Maestro".
  • Jerry, after he drinks Morning Thunder. Played with, in that Jerry doesn't know it contains caffeine.
  Elaine: And you should see him, man, he gets all hyper, he doesn't even know why, he loves it! He walks around, going, "God, I feel great!"
• The Klutz: Kramer.
• Knuckle Tattoos: In "The Bookstore", during Jerry's nightmare, Uncle Leo has "JERRY" and "HELLO" tattooed onto his fingers.
• Lame Rhyme Dodge:
  • In "The Pool Guy", Jerry was coaxed by Susan, Elaine, and Kramer to join them for lunch, and having known about George's disdain about Susan mixing their engagement and friendship worlds, mumbled "This is gonna be ugly..." Susan asked what he said, and Jerry replied: "I said, "Boy, am I ugly!"
  • In "The Statue", George called Jerry a wuss from the other diner booth, and Jerry mumbled to him, "Did you call me a wuss?" Ray, sitting with Jerry, asked what he said, and Jerry replied, "I said "luss", I'm at a luss."
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • Done in season 8's "The Checks": Jerry and George discuss pitching their failed pilot "Jerry" to Japanese executives who would air the show in Japan. George argues that the reason it would do better in Japan than over here is because it has more novelty, whereas when you turn on the TV in America, "all you see is four morons sitting 'round an apartment, whining about their dates."
  • In season 9's "The Cartoon", Newman remarks to Sally Weaver that he loves her one-woman show and that it's refreshing to see a show that's actually about something and looks snidely at Jerry in the process. Obviously, this is a play on the whole "Show About Nothing" tagline when talking about the series. That, and her show consisted of nothing but insulting Jerry. Of course Newman would like it.
  • In season 4's "The Wallet", there is a standup bit from Jerry about cliffhanger episodes shortly before the episode ends in one.
  • In Season 9's "The Apology," Jerry's Girl of the Week fixes the bicycle he always has hanging up in his hallway; he remarks, "I don't really ride it, it's just for show."
  • In season 5's "The Lips Reader", George Is worried his Girl of the Week might have broken up with him over seeing him eat messily on television. This leads to the following exchange:
    Jerry: You really think she would be that superficial?
    George: Why not? I would be.
  • In "The Serenity Now", Jerry is upset over breaking up with his latest girlfriend. Elaine is surprised that he's reacting this way, and reminds him, "Jerry, you break up with a girl every week."
  • Elaine lampshades the entire series in "The Bizarro Jerry" (Season 8, Episode 3, original airdate October 3, 1996).
  "Well! I can't spend the rest of my life coming into this stinking apartment every ten minutes to pore over the, excruciating minutia, of every, single, daily event.."
• Large Ham: Quite a few: Kramer, George, Newman, Peterman, and Steinbrenner. Also the oneshot character Mr. Bookman in "The Library," an Inspector Javert...for library fines.
  • World of Ham, really.
  • Jerry Stiller as Frank Costanza lives by this trope. Contrast his appearance in the syndicated version of "The Handicap Spot" with John Randolph's in the original version of the same episode.
• Last Episode, New Character: J. Peterman made his debut in "The Understudy", the season 6 finale.
• Last Het Romance: When George sees his ex-girlfriend Susan dating another woman, he is worried that dating him was such an awful experience that it caused her to switch teams. When he asks Susan if it really was his fault, she tells him he's being ridiculous. Immediately after that, another one of George's ex-girlfriends shows up and starts flirting with Susan. The trope is also inverted in the same episode, when Susan's girlfriend, who has never been into men at all, falls in love with Kramer.
  George: Amazing. I drive 'em to lesbianism, he brings 'em back!
• Last-Second Word Swap: When Jerry's latest girlfriend, Heidi, is making pork chops for Jerry, Elaine walks in:
  Elaine: Boy, something stinks to high... (notices Heidi's in the kitchen) Heidi.
• Last Words: In "The Secret Code", George confided in J. Peterman's dying mother what his secret ATM code was, "bosco". After doing so, the nearly comatose mother began repeating "bosco" over and over, increasing in volume and intensity. Peterman managed to hear her squeak out her last "bosco" before she died, and sought to discover the meaning of the word. He later found out when George had to use his code to free a man trapped in an ATM machine:
  George: (reading the description for a wallet in the Peterman Catalogue) "The Rogue's Wallet. That's where he kept his card, his dirty little secret. Short, devious, balding. His name was Costanza. He killed my mother."
• Later-Installment Weirdness: The last two seasons are characterized by a change for the Denser and Wackier (with episodes such as "The Voice" and "The Pothole"). This is attributed to long-time Show Runner Larry David leaving the show.
  • Season 7 had Jerry's stand-up act shown only at the beginning, while seasons 8 and 9 completely abandoned its use, due to the storylines becoming denser, faster-paced and more referencial of past episodes, as well as Larry David leaving as showrunner beginning with season 8, leaving Jerry to pick up the slack and no longer having time or energy. (With the notable exception of "The Finale", which featured a regular stand-up act scene and a variation on the final one where he does the act in prison instead of at his usual club. That's because the finale had been written by Larry David years before the show ended — and before he quit.)
  • Related to the former, during seasons 7, 8 and 9, most of the credits ran simultaneously with the last regular plot scene, while before that began there was a still of the penultimate scene with the Theme Song, reduced to only a few seconds, and the first bit of the credits running.
• Lazy Bum: George does this quite often, followed closely by Newman. Which gets humorously mentioned in "The Parking Garage:"
  George: (arrogantly) Heh, fish. What do they do?
  Elaine: (shooting him a Disapproving Look) What do you do?
• Lazy Mexican: Invoked in "The Foundation," where Elaine invents the Urban Sombrero — two different men who received them as gifts got fired from their jobs because their bosses caught them sleeping on the job. Both men claim they've snuck a mid-day nap for years, but it wasn't until they wore their Urban Sombreros that they got caught in the act, and were fired as a result.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • The fourth season had an entire subplot in which Jerry and George make their own show. It basically amounts to how (real life) Jerry and Larry David created Seinfeld.
  • In one episode, when Jerry returns to his apartment after traveling, he goes to turn on his TV. He does so by looking directly into the camera and pointing the remote at the audience.
• Least Rhymable Word: In "The Junior Mint", Jerry forgot to ask his newest girlfriend her name. Since it's too late to ask her directly, he tries to trick her into saying it but all he manages to find out is that it rhymes with a female body part. George goes through the rounds:
  George: Now let's try "breast"... Celeste... Kest...
  Jerry: No.
  George: Rest... Sest... Hest...
  Jerry: "Hest"? That's not a name.
  George: Well you should've just asked her.
  Jerry: I know, I should've asked her.
  George: What're you gonna do now?
  Jerry: I dunno. I can't ask her now; I've already made out with her. Once you make out with a woman, you can't ask her her name.
  George: Aretha!
  Jerry: No...
  George: Bovary!
  Jerry: Alright, that's enough.
  • For the record, it's Dolores.
• Lethal Chef: Frank Constanza believes himself to be this because of a traumatic episode in the Korean War (he inadvertently made his entire platoon sick by serving spoiled meat).
• Let's See YOU Do Better!: In "The Understudy":
  George: I watched "Beaches" on cable last night. "You are the wind beneath my wings"? Give me a break.
  Bette Middler: Get some talent, then you can mouth off.
• Like Goes with Like: Not quite a straight example of the trope, but close. Kramer and Mickey are dating two women, but can't decide which one of them should date which woman. Kramer finds out that one of the girls' parents are little people, so he lets Mickey date her while he goes out with the other one. Later on Mickey gets married to his girl. However, the trope ends up somewhat inverted at the wedding. The bride admits that she really wanted Kramer, while Kramer's date is so in love with Mickey that she can't bear to see him marry someone else and runs out of the church in tears.
• Limited Wardrobe:
  • George has about three or four specific plaid shirts that he seems to wear over and over again.
  • Jerry once dated a girl who wore the same dress every time he saw her, which drove him nuts.
    Jerry: (inner monologue) What in God's name is going on here? Is she wearing the same thing over and over again? Or does she have a closet full of these like Superman?! I've got to unlock this mystery!
• Literal-Minded: Kramer's subplot from "The Invitations," involves a bank offering customers $100 if they're not greeted with a hello: Kramer walks in, is greeted by the teller, but the teller doesn't specifically say, "Hello," so Kramer makes a big deal out of it.
• Local Hangout: Monk's Café.
• Logo Joke: To go along with the "backwards" nature of "The Betrayal", the Castle Rock Entertainment logo plays at the beginning, backwards (although the audio still plays normally); some syndicated reruns extended this to include the Columbia TriStar Television Distribution logo, also played backwards (except for the audio) preceding the Castle Rock logo.
• Long List:
  • In "The Little Kicks", George remarks that a woman is attracted to him for being the "bad boy". He says he's never been the bad boy before, to which Jerry rattles off a long list of other "bad" roles he's played.
    Jerry: You've been the bad employee, the bad son, the bad friend...
    George: Yes, yes...
    Jerry: The bad fiancé, the bad dinner guest, the bad credit risk...
    George: OK, the point is made.
    Jerry: The bad date, the bad sport, the bad citizen... (George starts to leave the restaurant) The bad tipper!
  • In "The Seven", Jerry repeatedly teases George about his idea to name a child "Seven":
    Jerry: Seven? Yeah, I guess I could see it. Seven. Seven periods of school, seven beatings a day. Roughly seven stitches a beating, and eventually seven years to life. Yeah, you're doing that child quite a service.
    George: Yes I am. I defy you to come up with a better name than Seven.
    Jerry: All right, let's see. (picks up a mug on the counter) How about Mug? Mug Costanza, that's original. Or uh, Ketchup? Pretty name for a girl.
    George: All right, you having a good time there?
    Jerry: I got fifty right here in the cupboard. How about Bisquik? Pimento. Gherkin. Sauce. Maxwell House.
    George: ALL RIGHT ALREADY!!!
  • In "The Junk Mail", Kramer lists off what he can use instead of the U.S. Mail:
    Newman: What about your bills?
    Kramer: The bank can pay 'em.
    Newman: (laughs derisively) The bank. Wh-what about your cards and letters?
    Kramer: E-mail. Telephones, fax machines, FedEx, Tel-Ex, telegrams, holograms...
  • In "The Bubble Boy", George and Jerry team up to unleash a list of pies to confuse Kramer into not inviting himself along on a trip upstate to Susan's family cabin, where he is explicitly not welcome.
    Kramer: They got any golf courses up there?
    George: No, no, no, no. That’s pie country. They do a lot of baking up there.
    Jerry: They sell them by the side of the road. Blueberry, blackberry.
    George: Blackberry, boysenberry.
    Jerry: Boysenberry, huckleberry.
    George: Huckleberry, raspberry.
    Jerry: Raspberry, strawberry.
    George: Strawberry, cranberry.
    Jerry: Peach.
  • In "The Wink", George Steinbrenner lists off all the people he's fired over the years:
    George Steinbrenner: You know as painful as it is, I had to let a few people go over the years: Yogi Berra, Lou Pinella, Bucky Dent, Billy Martin, Dallas Green, Dick Houser, Bill Virdon, Billy Martin, Scott Marrow, Billy Martin, Bob Lemmon, Billy Martin, Gene Michael, Buck Showalter, uh, tut, George, you didn't hear that from me!
• Looking Busy: George is explaining to Jerry how he managed to get out of doing actual work at his job: if you look annoyed, people assume you are busy.
  George: If you look annoyed all the time, people think you're busy.
• Loony Fan:
  • Kramer is nicer to celebrities than he is to his own friends. His slavish devotion to Bette Middler in "The Understudy" stands out particularly.
  • Speaking of celebrities, in the episode "The Gum," Kramer's time working at the Alex Theater made him a little snooty, particularly towards Elaine. That is, Kramer starts thinking of Elaine as a promiscuous adult entertainer. Oddly, it's only in this episode that he has this idea.
  • Can you believe that someone, somewhere out there, likes cashmere to the point that they pester a rich man because of it?
• Loophole Abuse:
  • In "The Calzone", Newman refuses to deliver George's calzones to Mr. Steinbrenner on his mail route because it's raining outside.
    George: You were supposed to deliver my calzones! We had a deal!
    Newman: I believe the deal was that I would get the calzones on my route! Well today I won't be going on my route, will I?! Perhaps tomorrow.
    George: BUT I'M PAYING YOU!
    Newman: Yes, thank you. (grabs his cash and shuts the door)
    George: ...Newman!
  • Todd Gack's "dating loophole" where he intentionally makes bets with women that he knows he will lose, where the loser must buy dinner for the winner. This lets him go on as many dates with women as he wants, and because he never actually asks them out, he can't get rejected.
• The Lopsided Arm of the Law: The whole situation of the Grand Finale occurs because a policeman that noticed a mugging going on decided it was more important to arrest the group (that was snarkily jeering at the person being mugged, and thus violating a "Good Samaritan" Law that is somehow structured to force people to help instead of preventing prosecution if they help) instead of chasing after the thief.
• Lost Him in a Card Game: Sorta. Steinbrenner traded George to Tyler Chicken in exchange for a discount towards replacing all of Yankee Stadium's menu items with chicken-based alternatives (yes, including beer).
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers
  • Butt-Monkey George Costanza is consistently shown to be disappointing in bed. He even messes up at opening condoms.
    • In "The Smelly Car", After George sees his ex-girlfriend Susan with another woman, and confirms that she started dating women right after they broke up, he starts worrying that being with him was such an awful experience that it put her off men entirely. When he confronts Susan about it, she dismisses the idea as totally ridiculous... however, George's fear is all but confirmed at the end of the episode when the two of them run into another one of George's exes, who starts flirting with Susan almost immediately.
    • In "The Mango", George confesses to Jerry (via a Seinfeldian Conversation) that his oral sex skills are so bad, that his Girl of the Week told him to give it up by tapping him on the shoulder during sex. This sends him into a spiral of self-doubt, making him unable to perform and thinking her (and all the women he's ever been with) probably faked their orgasms. Jerry also finds out that Elaine faked all her orgasms when they were together, and is appalled. When she gives him another chance... he still fails to do it.
    • In "The Blood", George starts to become hungry during sex with his Girl of the Week, so he starts sneaking food in her bedroom so he gets a chance to eat and she clearly doesn't appreciate him caring more about eating than making love to her. Even Jerry can't sympathize.
    Jerry: So, she didn't appreciate the erotic qualities of the salted cured meats?
    George: She tolerated the strawberries and the chocolate sauce, but eh, it's not a meal, you know? Food and sex, those are my two passions. It's only natural to combine them.
    Jerry: Natural? Sex is about love between a man and a woman, not a man and a sandwich.
    George: Jerry, I'm not suggesting getting rid of the girl. She's integral.
    Jerry: Maybe instead of trying to satisfy two of your needs, how about satisfying one of somebody else's.
  • Spoofed in "The Sponge"; that episode is more like "Good Lovers Are Losers." Jerry tells George that he's of the belief that a woman being a genuinely good person is a mood-killing turnoff during sex.
  Jerry: [about his Girl of the Week] There's something very strange about this girl.
  George: What?
  Jerry: She's too good.
  George: Too good?
  Jerry: I mean, she's giving and caring and genuinely concerned about the welfare of others! I can't be with someone like that!
  George: I see what you mean.
  Jerry: I mean, I admire the hell out of her. You can't have sex with someone you admire.
  George: Where's the depravity?
  Jerry: No depravity! I mean, I look at her, I can't imagine she even has sex.
• Love Makes You Uncreative: In the ending of "The Rye," Elaine and her saxophone-playing boyfriend's being "hot and heavy" causes him to play laughably badly.
• Low-Speed Chase:
  • When George gets a scooter-chair in "The Butter Shave", the show's climax features him slowly driving down the street, being chased by a group of old folks who are also on scooter-chairs.
  • There's also a low speed chase in "The Big Salad", which parodied the then-recent O.J. Simpson highway chase.

M-N

• Madden Into Misanthropy: This is inverted in "The Opposite" George gets so upset with how his luck has been going that he decides to go ahead and do the opposite of what he would normally do-and as Jerry points out, since all his first instincts have been wrong, then the opposite would have to be right. George starts acting completely opposed to his normal self and it constantly works. The girl he was trying to woo became his despite him saying he still lives with his parents and was unemployed-when she invites him upstairs he refuses what seems like an opportunity for sex, surprising her and prompting him to say "I'm the opposite of every guy you've ever met." He also finds his own place and gets a job with the New York Yankees after telling off George Steinbrenner about how he's run the team into the ground in the past two decades. In a sense, he gains sudden lucidity and sanity, and becomes a much more pleasant person all around-for that episode, at least.
• Madness Mantra: Lloyd Braun tells George that Frank should stop saying "Serenity Now", because all it does is bottle up the anger until you explode. Indeed this is exactly what happens to Kramer later. Frank may have avoided this fate simply because he Comically Missed the Point of the exercise and would angrily shout "SERENITY NOW!" at the top of his lungs instead of quietly muttering it to himself like he was supposed to do.
  George: What do you know? You were in the nuthouse.
  Lloyd: What do you think put me there?
  George: I heard they found a family in your freezer.
  Lloyd: [warning] "Serenity Now". Insanity later.
• Make a Wish:
  • Jerry's girlfriend, whom he had dubbed "Man Hands" (due to having large hands for a woman), picked an eyelash from Jerry's face. She told him to make a wish, and after Jerry blew the eyelash off her finger, he looked at Man Hands's hands and said, "Didn't come true", obviously hinting that he wished her hands would've shrunk.
  • Thoroughly explored in the backwards episode "The Betrayal" - Kramer's plotline "begins" with FDR using his birthday wish to wish Kramer would drop dead, and is spent with the two of them counterwishing and re-wishing that using most of the methods on the trope page. At one point, Kramer finds a shooting star and shouts "I wish I don't drop dead!" only to have a different person tell Kramer to drop dead after complaining about all the racket he was making, thus continuing the chain.
• Malaproper:
  • Elaine could fall into this at times. In "The Checks":
    Elaine: Brett said you ran away from him, as if he were the boogityman?
    Jerry: "Boogeyman".
    Elaine: (annoyed, incredulous) Boogey?
    Jerry: I'm quite sure.
  • In another episode, Elaine describes her psychiatrist as a Sven-jolly, which Jerry points out is supposed to be Svengali.
• Manipulative Bastard: In "The Calzone," Elaine meets a man who makes bets with her where, if he loses, he has to buy her dinner. He then loses intentionally. By doing this, he gets to take Elaine out on dates without actually asking her out and giving her the chance to reject him. He later steals Jerry's girlfriend this way.
  Jerry: Because if he doesn't ask you out, he doesn't get rejected. He has found a dating loophole.
• Manly Tears: In "The Junior Mint", George cries at the ending to Home Alone.
  George: The old man got to me!
  Jerry: (disgusted) All right, just get yourself together... I don't know if I can be friends with you anymore after this display.
  George: (defensively) Aw shut up!
  • In "The Barber", Enzo apologizes to Gino by saying he finally watched Edward Scissorhands ^note Enzo had bashed the movie earlier in the episode, and admitted: "That Johnny Depp, he make me cry!"
• Mars and Venus Gender Contrast: Occasionally in Jerry's early-season standup bits-in the opener of "The Fire," he mentions how "men don't care what's on TV, men only care what else is on TV" while women stay on a channel. He performs this in an episode and Kramer's girlfriend proceeds to boo and hiss at him.
• May–December Romance: In "The Alternate Side," Elaine dates a man who is 66. Though she gets teased over it a bit, Elaine seems to be happy with this. However, he then has a stroke and nearly dies, convincing her to break up with him. The way she does this though is to suddenly spring it just as she's been feeding him.
• Meaningful Gift: Averted and played straight simultaneously in the episode where Elaine's birthday is coming up, and Jerry is stressing over what to get her. He can't make up his mind since he is obsessing over what hidden meaning she would look for in any gift, so he ends up giving her cash, which really pisses her off. Kramer, on the other hand, remembers that months ago she admired a small decorative bench, and gets her that along with a heartfelt card, which makes her both very happy and teary-eyed.
• Meat-O-Vision: Inverted when Newman starts seeing Kramer's head on a chicken breast after the latter inadvertently cooks himself by using butter in lieu of sun screen.
• Metaphorically True:
  • In "The Shower Head", when George's parents are all set to move to Florida, Estelle asks if George will come visit them. George replies, "Oh, every chance I get." Which, knowing George's relationship with his parents, probably means zero chances.
  • In "The Blood", when Jerry comes home to find Kramer and Newman had made a bunch of sausages in his apartment:
    Jerry: I thought you said you were gonna watch a video!
    Kramer: Yeah, a video on how to make your own sausages.
• Miles Gloriosus: In "The Fire," George puffs himself up and proudly states that he was a courageous leader in getting everybody away from (what he thought was) a terrible house fire. Everybody else sees right through it.
  Firefighter: How do you live with yourself?
  George: It's not easy.
• Milkman Conspiracy: The U.S. Postal Service is portrayed as a powerful and sinister organisation, one which Newman feels no guilt about exploiting to his benefit.
• Minor Flaw, Major Breakup. All the time. Listing every example would make this page rather bloated-the characters often point out how odd it is when the others do it, but seem insistent that they personally have legitimate reasons.
• Misery Builds Character: In "The Parking Garage," Jerry claims that the ability to refrain from urinating builds character.
• Misplaced Retribution: In "The Betrayal," George says his having sex with Elaine is a fitting punishment for Jerry having sex with his then-girlfriend Nina. Jerry says it's this trope instead:
  Jerry: That doesn't punish me; it punishes Elaine. And cruelly, I might add.
  George: (losing it) Funny guy!
• Mistaken Ethnicity: On an episode, Elaine dates a man she believes to be black. As it turns out, he isn't and in fact, he believes she is Hispanic. Once they realize they're "just a couple of white people", they are both visibly disappointed. It is implied they break up almost immediately.
• Mistaken for Destitute: In "The Gymnast", George spills coffee on a man's windshield and tries to wipe it off with a newspaper. His girlfriend's mother sees him doing this and thinks that he's a vagrant.
• Mistaken for Insane: As a result of a series of wacky Contrived Coincidences, George is mistaken for mentally ill by a childhood neighbor. In a later episode, his boss, who really is suffering from dementia, does George's work for him without either of them realizing it, resulting in George being forcibly institutionalized. When in the mental hospital, George sees the childhood neighbor who is glad he's getting the help he needs.
• Missed Him by That Much:
  • Frank's long-lost cousin, Carlo, in Tuscany.
  • Jerry and George miss Kramer as he comes out of a store in "The Trip".
• Mistaken for Cheating: Not wearing his glasses at the time, George insists that he saw Jerry's Girl of the Week making out with his cousin Jeffrey. Jerry is skeptical, but it still makes him paranoid enough that it ruins his relationship with the woman, who says she has never even met Jeffrey. Later, George sees the same scene again, but this time he has his glasses with him and puts them on, only to see a completely different woman petting and kissing her horse (which is a Brick Joke as Jeffery was earlier described as having a horse-like face).
• Mistaken for Gay:
  • "The Outing". Popularized the phrase "Not That There's Anything Wrong with That".
  • Elaine, when an older woman reacts with disgust to Elaine saying that she's the "best man" at a lesbian friend's wedding.
    Elaine: I'm not a lesbian! I hate men, but I'm not a lesbian!!
  • In "The Jacket":
    Elaine: Dad thinks George is gay.
    Jerry: (confused look; then realizes) Oh, because of all the singing?
    Elaine: No, he thinks pretty much everyone is gay.
• Mistaken for Murderer:
  • In "The Susie", Mike Moffitt is convinced that Jerry and Elaine murdered a woman named Susie, who in reality never even existed in the first place.
  • In "The Diplomat's Club", Elaine visits Mr. Pitt in the hospital, who asks her to get him another pillow from across the room. After she gets it, she notices he has fallen asleep, and so tiptoes back across the room to avoid waking him. A nurse walks in, sees her sneaking up on him with a pillow, and assumes the worst.
  • Kramer is also believed to be the "Smog Strangler" which prompts a funny bit in which Jerry says he knows Kramer didn't do it, and then backpedaling a bit, with him and George "pretty sure" he didn't do it.
• Mistaken for Pregnant: Kramer wrongfully guesses that a woman he bumps into on the street is pregnant in "The Parking Spot". In his defense, she did look like she was expecting:
  Kramer: Congratulations.
  Maryedith: On what?
  Kramer: Well, you're pregnant.
  Maryedith: What?!
  Kramer: You're not pregnant?
  Maryedith: (offended) NO, I'm not pregnant!
  Kramer: Are you sure you're not pregnant??
• Mistaken for Racist:
  • George notes his new boss's resemblance to boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, only for his boss to accuse him of thinking all black people look alike. Hilarity Ensues as George goes to absurd lengths to try and prove to his boss that he's not racist. At the end of the episode, George is vindicated when a black guy mistakes George's boss for Sugar Ray... but his boss had just left the room and didn't hear it.
  • Jerry when he gives Elaine a Cigar Store Indian in front of her Native American friend. After apologizing, he goes on a date with her and continually digs himself deeper by almost using terms like "scalper" and "Indian giver", stopping himself at the last second to swap them out for awkward Buffy Speak alternatives. Finally, he wants directions to a nearby Chinese restaurant and asks a mailman who is facing away from him, reasoning that a mailman would be familiar with the area. The mailman turns around and reveals himself to be a very offended Chinese man who assumed he was asked because of his race and not his job.
    Jerry: You know, I don't get it. Not allowed to ask a Chinese person where the Chinese restaurant is? I mean, aren't we all getting a little too sensitive? I mean, if someone asks me "which way is Israel?", I don't fly off the handle!
  • Kramer accidentally sets fire to a Puerto Rican flag during the Puerto Rican Day parade, and his first instinct is to try and stomp out the fire to stop it from spreading. Needless to say, violently stomping on a burning flag is not a good look.
  • Kramer again when he accidentally falls asleep in a tanning bed and stays in there for far longer than intended... right before going to meet his black girlfriend's family. When he shows up he looks like he's in blackface.
  • "The Limo" had Jerry and George pretend to be the people a limo driver at the airport is waiting for so they could scam a free ride in a limo. It backfires spectacularly on them when it turns out that the person George is impersonating is a prominent neo-Nazi, and he has to keep up the act out of fear that the two actual neo-Nazis in the limo with them would kill them if they found out. Keep in mind that Jerry is Jewish and George is half-Jewish.
    George: Uh, astroturf! You know who's responsible for that, don't you?! The Jews!
• Mistaken for Servant:
  • When Jerry wears a white polo shirt. "Nah, go ahead, take it all."
  • Happens another time to Jerry in a drugstore with Mr. Pitt.
• Mobstacle Course: The Frogger part.
• Mock Millionaire:
  • Kramer attempted multiple times to pull this off under the pseudonym H.E. Pennypacker. Jerry also tried it once using the name Kel Varnsen ("Advantage Varnsen!"), as did George as Art Vandelay.
  • Parodied in-universe in "The Race" when George, pretending to be a multi-millionaire, enters Monk's Diner and Jerry wonders why such a rich person would be there, why he doesn't have better shoes, etc.
• Moment Killer: Killed moments happen from time to time, and usually Kramer is the one responsible; sometimes, they're plot points.
  • Throughout the two-parter "The Raincoats," Jerry and Rachel haven't been alone together in weeks, and when they finally get together at one point, Jerry actually stops their love-making, because he knows his parents will be returning soon. Sure enough, at that moment, they return, but fear they interrupted something.
  • During The Tag of "The Outing," Jerry is interrupted while making out with the college reporter who was interviewing him, when George barges in to try and convince his Girl of the Week that the reports of him and Jerry being gay are true to get out of his relationship with her; instead, the reporter is convinced once more they really are gay, and walks out on Jerry.
  • In "The Serenity Now," an emotional Jerry decides his life is incomplete, and proposes to Elaine, just as George barges in with his plan on beating Lloyd Braun in the computer selling contest; not only does George decide to hide the computers in Kramer's apartment, but Elaine decides to seize the moment, and give Jerry the slip.
  • As noted above, Kramer is often a Moment Killer, and one such moment, from "The Implant," when Jerry is about to finally learn for himself whether or not Sidra's breasts are real, Kramer bangs on the door with an emergency: he needs to borrow Jerry's swim trunks before he leaves for vacation. The moment is further killed when Elaine shows up, causing Sidra to believe Jerry sent Elaine into the sauna on purpose to find out if her breasts are real, and she leaves.
  • Kramer kills another moment in "The Invitations," when Jerry and Jeannie are making out, and Kramer slides in to complain about not getting $100 at the bank for not being greeted with a hello.
  • Actually played straight in "The Burning," where Jerry tells Sophie that he doesn't care about the so-called tractor story, just as Kramer and Mickey walk in, while Mickey is outraged at Kramer for trading illness roles for medical students to diagnose; Jerry tells them he's in the middle of a moment.
  • In "The Money", George is all set to talk to his parents about how he doesn't want them to move to Florida, but is interrupted by Kramer loudly washing dishes.
• Monochrome Casting: is frequently mentioned for the rarity of minority characters who appear. However, the random "person on the street" bit parts are often some sort of minority. Showrunner Larry David would winkingly own up to it in his later series Curb Your Enthusiasm in the episode "Affirmative Action", in which a black woman brings up that there were no black people on Seinfeld. However, George had an Asian-American love interest in an episode, while Jerry had an American Indian one in another, and Kramer had a black girlfriend for an episode. There were also reoccurring minority characters such as Pakistani immigrant Babu Bhatt, the black manager at Monk's, George's black boss Mr. Morgan, and Kramer's black lawyer Jackie Chiles. Not to mention other characters who had an important role in an episode, such as "The Millennium" or "The Hot Tub."
• Montages: There have been a few:
  • "The Raincoats": Morty and Helen Seinfeld getting chummy with Elaine's latest boyfriend, Aaron. George sees one such instance from afar and is furious because it proves they were lying about having plans so they could get out of having dinner with his folks. Set to "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady.
  • "The Sponge": Elaine searches various shops for the "Today" birth control sponge, to no luck. Set to "Black Stompers" by Eric Swann (aka Roger Roger).
  • "The Bottle Deposit": Kramer and Newman collect cans and bottles for their money-making scheme. Set to "Scenes From the Twenties" by Sam Fonteyn.
  • "The Bizarro Jerry": Kramer pretending to work at a company. Set to Sheena Easton's "9 to 5 (Morning Train)".
  • "The Butter Shave": George faking a handicap and getting pampered around the office because of it. Also set to "9 to 5".
  • "The Wizard": Two of them: Kramer having fun in retired life (set to "My Baby's Foxtrot" by Roger-Roger), and Kramer running for condo board president (set to "Soldiers in the Park" by Lionel Monckton).
  • "The Clip Show": One highlighting various outfits the group has worn over the show, another set to the Superman theme.
  • "The Finale": Various characters from the entire series arrive in town for the trial.
• Mood-Swinger:
  • In "The Butter Shave":
    Jerry: (on the phone) Hello? (...) Yeah, this is Jerry Seinfeld. (...) What? No. NO NO NO NO!!!! (calmly, friendly) Thank you.
  • Similarly, in "The Serenity Now":
    Jerry: (on the phone) Yeah, this is Jerry Seinfeld. (...) No, no, no, I do not want to stop over in Cincinnati. (...) Well, then you upgrade me. (...) That's right, you should thank me. Goodbye. (hangs up; congenially to Elaine) Hey, I'm flyin' first class.
  • In "The Little Jerry", Jerry is on the phone with his folks, who is concerned he's having money problems:
    Helen: That's it. I'm going to send you fifty dollars.
    Jerry: You are NOT sending me fifty dollars!
    Helen: We're sending you fifty dollars! Morty, get me an envelope.
    Jerry: I swear to God, if you send me fifty dollars, you are gonna be so sorry!
    Morty: I don't see envelopes!
    Helen: They're right in front of you! Oh, for heaven's sakes... (puts the phone down)
    Jerry: Ma! Ma! MAAAAA! (hangs up)
    George: How're the folks?
    Jerry: (calmly) Good.
• Morton's Fork: Jerry mentions it in "The Barber" when George tells him about his abruptly finished and unanswered job interview:
  So if you call, you might have the job, but then you might lose the job. And if you don't call, you might have the job, but you'd never know it.
• Motive Decay: George hits this hard in the episode "The Dealership". He's hungry, so he tries to get a Twix bar out of a vending machine. Twix bar gets stuck, so George leaves for assistance, comes back with a manager, Twix bar is gone, and George sees that a mechanic has taken it. The mechanic insists he took a 5th Avenue bar, but George says he's lying and can tell the difference. George creates a "candy line-up", made up of candy bars that he paid for, and in the end were all Twix bars anyway! And the Twix bars get eaten by the dealership employees (including the mechanic again) before George can present the line-up! Keep in mind this all got started because George was simply hungry. He could have easily just eaten the other Twix bars he bought for the line-up! Epic. Fail.
• Motive Rant: In "The Stand-In", when Mickey is revealed to have been wearing lifts in his shoes:
  Mickey: Wait a second, wait a second, you got me all wrong. It was all because of the kid. The kid was growing. He shot up two and a half inches in a month. I would've lost my job! Any one of you would have done the same! You got no right! I'm Mickey Abbott! I stood in for Punky Brewster when all of you was nothing!
• Motor Mouth:
  • Kramer's lawyer Jackie Chiles.
  • Kramer himself when he drinks one too many caffè lattes.
  • Sally Weaver. She annoyed Kramer so much that he broke his vow of silence to tell her to shut up.
  • Jerry at the end of his subplot in "The Seven":
    Jerry: Whydoyouwearthesamedressallthetime? Hello?
• Multi-Part Episode: "The Boyfriend", "The Raincoats", "The Cadillac", "The Bottle Deposit", and "The Finale", though they were each presented as one longer-length episode on the DVD sets.
• Ms. Fanservice: Subverted with Elaine. While she certainly was not unattractive and was never written to be so, she dressed in heavy, conservative clothing and usually donned unflattering, dated hairstyles. Real-life Jerry stated that there were a couple reasons for this. Number one, it had to be believable that in-universe Jerry was able to move on from their relationship and be able to remain friends with her afterwards. Number two, he thought that Elaine being too attractive might have stolen the comedic thunder of the show, with fans only tuning in to watch her scenes and growing bored with the other characters. While Julia Louis-Dreyfus is actually quite gorgeous in real life, these features were severely toned down for the show. Amusingly, according to the other characters, Elaine is a Ms. Fanservice. Despite the aforementioned professional and conservative appearances Elaine usually put on, a lot of the men she dated would refer to her and treat her like she's one of the gorgeous ladies from Classical Mythology, and "The Gum" has Elaine losing the top button on her shirt without realizing it, and I Have Boobs, You Must Obey! is thoroughly applied to every male who encounters her.
• Must Make Her Laugh:
  • In "The Switch", Jerry is dating Sandy, a woman who never laughs, only says "That's funny." while barely smiling. Jerry tries multiple jokes on her before deciding he likes Sandy's roommate better and wants to attempt the switch.
  • Inverted in another episode where Jerry tries to be as mopey and depressing as possible so he won't upstage George on a date. Turns out she finds him more interesting that way.
• My Girl Is a Slut: In "The Cartoon", after Elaine's comic (about a pig at a complaint window saying "I wish I was taller") fails to get any laughs, Kramer offers an alternative:
  Elaine: (reading his caption) The pig says, "My wife is a slut"??
  Jerry: Now that's a complaint.
• Mythology Gag: In "The Betrayal", we see Jerry and Kramer meet for the first time. Jerry thinks his name is "Kessler" because the mailbox is labelled wrong. Actually, it's a reference to the "Seinfeld" pilot - the only episode where Kramer went by the original name for the character.
• Narcissist: Probably the best way to describe the four main characters. They aren't totally incapable of empathy. They just deliberately choose not to show any, instead choosing to put themselves and their personal interests front and center. The show never really explains why this is, but one could assume that the general wackiness of their parents and environment probably has a lot to do with it. After all, they did grow up in New York during the 70s and 80s.
• Narm: In-universe, Elaine couldn't take the "Ponce de Leon" film seriously.
• Nausea Fuel: In-universe, Elaine and Jerry's reaction to Kramer's bunion story that he bought from Newman.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Elaine runs into one in "The Busboy." No thanks to the five-car pileup on Rockaway Boulevard, her record-making drive to the airport gets interrupted.
• Negative Continuity: Although this show was generally really good at continuity, there are a few rare examples of where continuity had been broken, such as:
  • Susan hates Kramer. The main reason being he once vomited all over her, but she also hold contempt for him because he can't even remember her name, and she finds him "Too weird". However, "The Pool Guy," she appears pleasantly surprised to have run into him at the coffee shop, and even has milkshakes with him (of course, this could possibly be explained because this was when George's worlds were colliding).
  • Larry was always the owner of Monk's Coffee Shop and always had the same waiting staff, however, for one episode only, Monk's being under new management was a plot point, with the new owner seemingly only hiring large-breasted women as waitresses, though it turns out the reason they all have similar builds is because they're all his daughters.
  • Kramer's take on baths is inconsistent as well. In "The Wife", when asked if Kramer pees in the shower, he says he takes baths. But later, in "The Shower Head", Kramer complains how icky he feels after taking a bath instead of a shower. And in "The Apology", Kramer is shown taking really long showers. It's possible he started taking showers somewhere along the way and found them so much better that he was unable to go back.
• Nerd Hoard:
  • Jerry dates a woman who he discovered had a collection of vintage toys and board games. So he "drugs" her at dinner time (with turkey and boxed wine to make her sleepy) and spends the night playing with them. She is, naturally, disturbed when she found out what he did.
  • In "The Cigar Store Indian", George's father Frank has a TV Guide collection. Elaine borrows one to read on the train, loses it, and then a man tracks her down and shows her an art piece he made from it. Frank is very upset.
• Never Heard That One Before:
  • In "The Voice", George is told "Go to hell" by two co-workers in the hallway when it's revealed that he's not handicapped and was faking it.
    George: (to second person who said "Go to hell") Heard that one already.
  • Wayne Knight has stated in interviews that he's tired of people greeting him with the line "Hello, Newman".
• Never Trust a Hair Tonic: George Costanza's Chinese baldness cure.
• Newscaster Cameo: Keith Morrison, who would later cover true crime stories on Dateline, reports on the LA manhunt for Kramer in season four.
• Nice Character, Mean Actor: Zigzagged with Raquel Welch in "The Summer of George." Raquel's counterpart in the show is described as being a diva with a dangerously short fuse. The real Raquel Welch, on the other hand, was very glad to be on the show and the cast and crew said she was cool to work with.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "The Yada Yada," Elaine costs her friends the adoption they were hoping to get by giving the agent the impression that the husband has an anger problem. She told the agent about the time the husband yelled at her in the movie theater, which she, for some reason, described in a cheerful and fond tone.
  • In "The Hot Tub", Jerry's well-meaning obsession with making sure that marathon runner Jean-Paul doesn't oversleep and miss the marathon as he did before. . . results in him oversleeping again, though he's able to get him to the starting point (he took him from Elaine's apartment, believing her to be unreliable, then took him from the hotel he'd checked him into, afraid that he wouldn't get his wake-up call, then took him home, where the power went out, shutting off his alarm).
• No Bisexuals:
  • Susan briefly becomes a lesbian, seeing at least two women. One of these women leaves Susan for Kramer until being turned off from men by a coat, and the other was an ex of George's who remained infatuated right up until meeting Susan. Susan herself eventually returns to George. Despite the fact that the orientations of these three change at the drop of a hat (or coat), each of them is identified by her immediate status at all times, never as bisexual.
    • Same goes for Susan's father following the events of "The Cheever Letters" (which revealed an intimate relationship between Mr Ross and the author, who was bisexual in real life). In running down the effects Kramer had had on Susan's life, Elaine mentions this revelation, while using the overly clinical term "homosexual," and the fact that he married a woman and had three children with her seems to be forgotten.
  • After he gets a massage from a male masseuse which makes George think he might be attracted to men, everyone takes this as him possibly being gay, even though he only showed attraction for women before. The concept of bisexuality is never raised.
  • Briefly pops up in season 9's "The Cartoon" when George dates a woman who has a remarkable resemblance with Jerry. When the resemblance becomes clear to both men, the quickly mutter "I'm not gay" even though they've each dated dozens of women over the course of the series.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: In "The Phone Message", George calls Jerry a "wuss", prompting Jerry to reply, "Did you call me a wuss??" and agree to his plan.
• Nobody Ever Complained Before: Elaine's dancing is truly horrible, but no one can ever bring themselves to tell her ... until Kramer sees her dance, that is.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Once again, Jackie Chiles, parodying Johnnie Cochran.
  • Averted with the back of the late George Steinbrenner, the torso and donut of Joe DiMaggio, and JFK Jr.
• No Ending: A number of episodes just sort of stop without a true conclusion to the plot, on the grounds that it would be funnier in these cases to leave the ending up to the viewer's imagination.
• No Full Name Given:
  • Kramer's first name for several seasons.
  • Newman. We even see his business card at one point and all it says is Newman, suggesting he has Only One Name. In "The Bottle Deposit", the farmer's daughter calls him "Norman", although the out-of-universe explanation for this is that the actress slipped up and said the wrong name during filming and that the crew thought it was funnier that way, leaving it unclear if his first name actually is Norman or if the character also got his name wrong.
• No Indoor Voice: Glenda from "The Revenge".
  • Morty Seinfeld in "The Wallet": "MY WALLET'S GONE! MY WALLET'S GONE!!!"
  • Subverted with Leslie the low talker. She's normally so quiet that people can't hear her, but after Jerry badmouths her puffy shirt on The Today Show, she screams "YOU BASTARD!" from off-stage.
    Bryant Gumbel: Did you hear that?
    Jerry: That, I heard.
• Noiseless Walker: "The Merv Griffin Show" contains a subplot about Elaine's new coworker constantly sidling up to her and sidling up behind her taking credit for work she does, among other things, to which she and the others label him "The Sidler". She eventually fixes the problem by giving him a pack of Tic-Tacs to carry around with him, causing him to make a rattling sound when he walks through the office.
• No Kill like Overkill: When Jerry imagines himself being arrested by the FBI for stealing cable, he tries to flee in the dream and gets shot multiple times (although oddly, there is no blood).
• No More Lies: Subverting this is a specialty of George's. Ofttimes it will be plain that continuing whatever lie he started with will harm him more than help him (most famously with Susan's parents) but he will, on principle, perpetuate the falsehood.
• No Name Given: Larry David introduced himself as "Frank Constanza's lawyer" in "The Chinese Woman".
• Noodle Incident:
  • Just about everything Kramer's friends Bob Sacamano or Lomez do.
  • We never did learn why Jerry and Newman hate each other so much, other then something happened before we started seeing their lives.
  • In "The Subway," Kramer's traffic tickets got increasingly bizarre:
    George: (confused) "No doors"?
    Kramer: Yeah, I'm going to fight that one.
  • Whoever the hell Bobo is.
    Dr. Reston: (on the phone) Yes. (…) Oh yes, Bobo. (…) No it's just east of Madison. (…) Around 4:00 will be fine. (…) All right Bobo. (hangs up) I'm sorry, where were we?
• No Sense of Personal Space:
  • Elaine's boyfriend in "The Raincoats".
  • Kramer in "The Wig Master" when he wants to sleep in Jerry's bed when he's locked out of his apartment.
  • And in "The Muffin Tops", Kramer interrupts Jerry's shower to tell him something trivial.
    Kramer: Hey Jerry, I'm going to Waldenbooks.
    Jerry: GET OUT! GET OUT! I don't want to live like this!!!
• Not a Date: Todd Gack is adamant that his evenings with Elaine weren't dates, but two single people enjoying each other's company. His case isn't helped when, on the second instance of this, he invites his parents to meet Elaine, who tell him, "She's PERFECT."
  Jerry: He made a bet he knew he was going to lose, just to take you to dinner!
  Elaine: If he wanted to ask me out, why didn't he just ask me?
  Jerry: Because if he doesn't ask you out, he doesn't get rejected. He has found a dating loophole.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy:
  • Jerry to his nudist girlfriend in "The Apology"; she's nude so much that he's become desensitized to it and actually is repulsed by some of the things she does while naked, such as crouching and opening pickle jars.
  • Russell Dalrymple to Elaine in "The Shoes", though she eventually gets his attention by leaning over in a low-cut dress.
• Not Helping Your Case:
  • In "The Outing", as George and Jerry desperately try to convince an NYU reporter that they're not gay, Kramer slides in and asks if the two are ready to hit the sauna. George and Jerry vehemently protest: "No steam." Kramer pleads, "But I don't want to sit there naked all by myself!"
  • In "The Little Kicks", Elaine warns Anna to stay away from George:
    Elaine: He's a bad seed. He's a horrible seed. He's one of the worst seeds I've ever seen.
    Anna: (confused) And you two are friends?
    Elaine: Yup, we're good friends.
  • In "The Voice", Kramer protesting how Darin can't keep being an intern for Kramerica Industries:
    Kramer: Well I have to say, this seems capricious and arbitrary.
    Dean: Your fly's open.
  • In "The Soup Nazi" (though Elaine caves in soon afterwards that Jerry was right to do it):
    Elaine: So, essentially, you chose soup over a woman?
    Jerry: It was a bisque.
  • In "The Cigar Store Indian", after Jerry's repeated attempts to assure Winona that he's not racist, Kramer rides by in a taxi with the Native American statue that Elaine gave him:
    Kramer: Hey Jerry! Look what I got! (puts hand to mouth and does stereotypical "war whoops")
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?:
  • Seen in "The Contest"; Jerry and George are looking at the naked woman across the street, and Elaine tests them by saying she's been selected to go to Mars. "Uh-huh" and "Have a good time." are the responses she gets.
  • Seinfeld, a Jewish man, tests this with a friend who won't listen by saying Hezbollah invited him for a gig.
• Not So Great Escape: George builds an elaborate sleeping space under his desk. Later, Steinbrenner (his boss) comes looking for him and, not seeing him sleeping under the desk, spends the afternoon waiting for George to "come back." George eventually gets out of it by calling in a bomb threat. Later in the episode (after George is out), Steinbrenner hears George's ticking alarm clock in the desk and calls the bomb squad.
• Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: The Trope Namer is the episode "The Outing", where Jerry and George are Mistaken for Gay, and every time either one of them denies this accusation, they hastily add "Not that there's anything wrong with that!" afterwards. The origin of the quote came about because during the writing of the episode, the writers were afraid the script was coming across as homophobic, which was entirely the wrong impression that they wanted to give. Then in a completely unrelated conversation, somebody used the phrase "Not that there's anything wrong with that," and Larry David realized that was what the episode needed to work.
• No Theme Tune: The show doesn't really have an opening sequence to speak of, just the title superimposed over the action already in progress. However, in the early seasons, they at least played the theme underneath Jerry's stand-up act. But as the seasons progressed and the stand-up was excised, the show didn't even play the theme song, just a couple random transition notes over the superimposed title.
• Not The Illness That Killed Them: Played for dark humor. Gary Fogel was a friend of Jerry's who was misdiagnosed with cancer but pretended he still had it because he liked how people treated him. Later in the series, Jerry goes to his funeral with Kramer thinking he did have cancer. He actually died from a car accident when he tried fixing his toupee and lost control of his car.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: "The Contest" avoids ever using the word "masturbation," which is likely the only reason the censors didn't kill it the second they caught word of it.
• No, You: In "The Dealership", Elaine calls high-fiving stupid, leading Puddy to make this retort. When she sarcastically calls him mature, he nonsensically replies "so are you," and while she's reeling from that, he says that she's the "grease monkey", an insult she had used at the start of conversation.
• Not Wanting Kids Is Weird: In "The Soul Mate," Elaine is looked down on by her female friends, all of whom are mothers, who feel she needs to "move to Long Island and have a baby already."
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • In "The Maid", Jerry giving his girlfriend some money he owed her, which made it look like he was hiring a prostitute to a police officer.
  • In "The Shower Head", Kramer is desperately pleading to take a shower at Elaine's apartment because his building installed low-flow shower heads. Of course, J. Peterman only hears part of the conversation and mistakes him for a drug addict. The fact that he already thought Elaine was a drug addict didn't help (the poppy seed muffins she had been eating showed up as opium on her urine test).
    Kramer: Jerry's got nothing. Newman's got nothing. You're the only one I know who's got the good stuff, and I need it bad, baby, cause I feel like I got bugs crawling up my skin! Now you gotta help me out!
    Peterman: NOT ON MY WATCH!!! (grabs Kramer) I won't have you turning my office into a den of iniquity! Get your fix somewhere else! (throws Kramer out)
  • Kramer watches the first half of a movie about a comatose woman and asks Elaine to pull his plug if he is ever in a coma. When he watches the second half and learns that it's possible to wake up from a coma, he searches for Elaine to tell her he doesn't want his plug pulled after all, but he gets hit in the head and knocked out before he can find her. Elaine brings him a VCR and a movie to cheer him up while he's in the hospital, but finds him asleep. She unplugs a device from the wall so that she can plug in the VCR, and Kramer wakes up just in time to see her standing over him with a plug in her hand.
  • Elaine visits her boss Mr. Pitt in the hospital, and he asks her to fetch him another pillow from the other side of the room. By the time she gets the pillow, he has fallen asleep, so she tiptoes quietly back over to him. A nurse walks in, sees Elaine tiptoeing toward a sleeping man while holding a pillow, and assumes the worst.
• N-Word Privileges: Jerry's dentist converted to Judaism and immediately started using Jewish phrases and making Jewish jokes. This leads Jerry to talk to a Catholic priest in a confessional and explain the situation:
  Jerry: "I have a suspicion that he's converted to Judaism purely for the jokes."
  Priest: "And this offends you as a Jewish person?"
  Jerry: "No, it offends me as a comedian!"