The Big Picture
Jerry doesn’t hold back on his worst behavior in
Seinfeld
, even when it involves drugging a woman just to play with her toys.
While the characters are meant to be awful, Jerry’s actions in “The Merv Griffin Show” crossed a line into uncomfortable territory.
It’s unsettling to watch Jerry and his friends, George and Elaine, take advantage of a drugged woman’s toys, with no real consequences shown.
The characters on Seinfeld are undeniably the worst. Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), George (Jason Alexander), Kramer (Michael Richards), and Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) are over-the-top, self-centered jerks. That was the whole point, though, and why they went to jail in the Seinfeld series finale. While they’re awful, they’re hilarious in being so bad, and almost always get their comeuppance for it. That makes Seinfeld sidesplitting funny rather than cringe-worthy and offensive. One episode, however, crossed the line with Jerry doing something so criminal that, in the real world, it would have landed him in jail for a reason far worse than what he actually went behind bars for at the end of the series. And it involves… action figures?
Seinfeld
The continuing misadventures of neurotic New York City stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld and his equally neurotic New York City friends.
Release Date July 5, 1989
Creator Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld
Main Genre Comedy
Seasons 9
Network NBC
Streaming Service(s) Netflix
Jerry Has Done Very Bad Things on ‘Seinfeld’
Every episode of Seinfeld has Jerry doing something he shouldn’t do. Sometimes it’s relatively harmless, other times not so much. When he becomes an illegal movie bootlegger in “The Little Kicks,” (the episode with Elaine’s horrible dancing) it’s done out of fear and no one gets hurt. In, “The Limo,” a case of mistaken identity sees him and George pretending to be Nazi leaders so they can get a free limo ride to a Knicks game. For Jerry, it’s about getting a free ride, rather than supporting anything. In “The Strongbox,” he digs up a neighbor’s dead bird that he thinks ate his key and then cuts open its corpse to get it out. That’s gross, but at least the bird was already dead.
Some of Jerry’s antics on Seinfeld aren’t so harmless. The aforementioned bird might have been dead, but the one in “Little Jerry” isn’t when Jerry and Kramer get involved in cockfighting. In “The Finale,” he laughs at and mocks an obese man he witnesses being robbed. And then there’s that poor old lady in “The Rye.” When she gets the last marble rye that Jerry wants, he steals it, ripping it out of her hands, and yelling “Shut up, you old bag,” a line so mean that it’s hilarious. Then there was the episode titled “The Merv Griffin Show.” This time Jerry went too far, and while it was played for laughs, it was also uncomfortable for how close to home it hit for so many women.
Jerry Seinfeld Drugs His Girlfriend So He Can Play With Her Toys
It took until Episode 6 of Seinfeld’s last season for Jerry to commit his worst act. While “The Merv Griffin Show” deals partially with the innocence of Kramer digging the old set of The Merv GriffinShow out of the trash so he can live out his dream of having his own talk show, it also offers something darker. Jerry has a new girlfriend of the week named Celia (Julia Pennington). She’s another strong, independent woman who’s about to quickly find out she can do better than Jerry. The first time Celia takes Jerry back to her apartment he notices a huge toy collection on a shelf. Celia tells him that she got them from her dad, who was a collector. “I inherited them after he died from a long painful bout with –,” she begins to say, only for Jerry to interrupt because he has no interest in her story. There are so many toys from his youth there, priceless toys that have never been played with. Even when Celia kisses him, Jerry’s eyeing those toys.
Jerry complains to Kramer on his fake talk show. “It’s been three dates and she still won’t let me play with the toys!” Later, back at Celia’s place, he tries to touch the toys, only to get caught again. “Jerry, those hands, they never stop!” she complains. He then suggests they get drunk. She’s not up for that because he’s given her a headache. Jerry goes to her bathroom medicine cabinet to get something for it. He finds two kinds of medicines – one that causes drowsiness and one that doesn’t. The light bulb in his head goes off.
You can guess which medicine he gives her, because the next time we see the new couple, Celia is passed out on the couch while Jerry enthusiastically plays with all of her toys. The studio audience laughs, and while it is funny, if you examine it closer, it’s way more creepy. Jerry has intentionally drugged a woman. Making it more uncomfortable were all the earlier references comparing the toys to sex, with Jerry wanting to play with them after three dates, being handsy, and wanting to get Celia drunk when he gets rejected. There are some unfortunate similarities to date rape in there that are so on the nose that it can’t be an unfortunate coincidence. Seinfeld has turned date rape into a joke, even if they didn’t intend to. It might have been funny in the late ’90s, but now, a parody of date rape of all things is unsettling to watch.
George and Elaine Become Jerry’s Accomplices on ‘Seinfeld’
Jerry isn’t ashamed of what he’s done, either. The next time he’s on Kramer’s talk show, he easily opens up about what he did to Celia. “Actually, she doesn’t even know about the toys. I gave her the wrong kind of medicine and I guess she passed out.” He smiles, amused and proud of himself. George wants in on it, too. Only Kramer, who’s always been more weird than awful, is disgusted, saying, “Do you mean to say that you drugged a woman so you could take advantage of her toys?” That line of “taking advantage” has another strange wink to date rape. Later, George is with Jerry and Celia at her place for dinner. Turkey and a box of wine are on the menu, with George and Jerry offering her more. George also brought a four-hour tape of his boyhood trip to Michigan with him, which will easily bore someone to tears. The tryptophan, alcohol, and boredom knock Celia out.
Related The Most Annoying ‘Seinfeld’ Character Isn’t Who You Think You don’t want to take this one out for a meal.
Now both Jerry and George can play with her toys. Elaine later tells them how wrong what they’re doing is, especially when Jerry says it’s a victimless crime. “What about the woman who’s been drugged and taken advantage of?” Elaine’s tune changes, though, when she finds out that Celia has an Easy-Bake Oven. The next night she’s now with Jerry and George playing with the toys while Celia takes a forced snooze. It’s Kramer who puts a stop to it. On the next episode of Kramer’s fake show, he brings it up to Jerry, who’s still proud of himself. “It was great. I’ve done it a few more times since then.” Kramer then brings out a surprise guest, a justifiably angry Celia, who calls Jerry a “sick, twisted creep.” He puts the blame on her for drinking so much. The episode’s final scene shows Elaine without Jerry and George back at Celia’s, pretending to console her while she doles out the turkey and wine.
And that’s it. Celia breaks up with Jerry, but there are no repercussions. His life goes on while she’s heartbroken after being used. Perhaps Seinfeld had a message in there that was trying to look at how men wrongly treat women, but Seinfeld was never a show with a deep message, and with Jerry not getting in any trouble, and Celia still being taken advantage of as the episode cuts to black, what would it be trying to say? The episode is excused for simply being a product of its time, one that, while not intended to encourage physical abuse, is a reminder that Seinfeld has aged badly.
Seinfeld is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
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