The 2022 Ed-Vent Calendar, Day 25: Seinfeld, "The Postponement" (1995)

Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards, and an unknown extra on Seinfeld.

Some advent calendars last 24 days, others 25. Technically, the season of advent ends on Christmas Eve, so my obligation to this verkakte series ended yesterday. However, as it happens, the weather this Christmas weekend has stranded me in my apartment with little to do, so you're getting a 25th day of Ed-Vent. Lucky you.

On the third day of this series, I reviewed "The Chinese Restaurant," a 1991 episode of NBC's Seinfeld in which the characters attempt to attend a one-night-only showing of Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) but do not succeed. Unfolding in real time in one location, this highly unusual episode proved to be a turning point in the sitcom's history. It also gave Ed's most famous film some of its most mainstream exposure ever. That Seinfeld has been seen by millions of people for over 30 years. Surely, at least some of those viewers must have been curious enough to track down Plan 9.

Running gags and callbacks were the lifeblood of Seinfeld, so it's not surprising that the show eventually returned to Plan 9 in an episode called "The Postponement." It took four and a half years, though, and those were four and a half eventful years. When "The Chinese Restaurant" debuted, Seinfeld was struggling through its second season, barely avoiding cancellation. By the time "The Postponement" aired on September 28, 1995, Seinfeld was in its seventh season and one of the most popular shows on television, airing as part of NBC's powerhouse Thursday night lineup alongside other smash hits like Friends and E/R.

In some ways, "The Postponement" shows how Seinfeld had evolved from its primitive early days. The iconic wraparound segments with Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) performing standup comedy had mostly been jettisoned, for instance. Starting with the 1994 episode "The Big Salad," the show started filming more outdoor scenes on the famed New York Street set at CBS Studio Center in Los Angeles. Now, instead of showing Jerry doing standup, Seinfeld preferred to show its characters walking down that gloriously fake New York street, chatting about trivial matters. "The Postponement" has numerous little moments like that. In fact, it's one of those New York walk-and-talk scenes that leads to the Ed Wood/Plan 9 content in "The Postponement." 

Jerry and Kramer spot a Plan 9 flyer on a lamppost.

Throughout the episode, Jerry and his neighbor Kramer (Michael Richards) squabble over a couple of very silly issues. First, Jerry is shocked when Kramer says he'd turn Jerry in to the police if he committed a murder. ("Who's to say I wouldn't be next?" Kramer reasons.) Secondly, Jerry is annoyed that Kramer has been drinking so many café lattes recently. They're walking down the street one day, debating that second issue, when Jerry spies a flyer for another one-night-only showing of Plan 9. Kramer agrees to go with him, but when they get to the theater, Kramer tries to sneak in a café latte—a direct violation of the venue's strictly-enforced "no outside drinks" rule. When Kramer spills his latte and is caught by an usher, Jerry is only too happy to rat him out. In classic Seinfeld fashion, Jerry and Kramer's two seemingly unrelated problems have intersected.

I had a strong memory of the Plan 9 references in "The Chinese Restaurant," but I had no recollection of the Plan 9 material in "The Postponement." Revisiting the latter, I understand why. The Jerry/Kramer story, while quite funny, is a minor subplot. The main plot has a panicked George (Jason Alexander) using emotional manipulation to delay his upcoming marriage to his sensible girlfriend Susan (Heidi Swedberg). There's also a related story in which Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) confesses her romantic problems to the seemingly friendly Rabbi Glickman (Bruce Mahler), only to be mortified when he blabs Elaine's secrets to everyone he knows. (To make matters worse, Rabbi Glickman has a cable TV show where he embarrasses both Elaine and George.)

While screening "The Postponement," written by Larry David and directed by Andy Ackerman, I realized how serialized and insular Seinfeld had become by its seventh season, almost like a soap opera. Most obviously, George and Susan's rocky romantic relationship is a sprawling, tragicomic saga that spans several seasons. This "postponement" kerfuffle is just one of many, many problems they had over the years. Meanwhile, the café latte incident at the movie theater sets up a Kramer story in a future episode. And Elaine and Kramer discuss the events of a previous Seinfeld in which they team up to kill an annoying dog. While "The Postponement" pretty much works as a standalone story, it's more enjoyable to viewers who are very familiar with Seinfeld's characters and ongoing plotlines. It's like the middle movie in a trilogy.

Arguably, "The Postponement" features as much or even more Plan 9 content than "The Chinese Restaurant." First, there is the flyer that Jerry spies on a lamp post while talking about lattes with Kramer. It leads to this dialogue:

JERRY: Hey, look at this! Plan 9 from Outer Space is playing tomorrow night! One show only!

KRAMER: I've always wanted to see this.

JERRY: Y'know, I was supposed to see this five years ago. I was in a Chinese restaurant with George and Elaine, and we got all screwed up trying to get a table, and we missed it.

KRAMER: Yeah, well, let's do it, huh?

JERRY: All right.

The flyer itself is kind of neat. Plan 9 is said to be playing at the Paragon Theater for "one evening only" on September 22, 1995. (That would have been a Friday, which makes sense.) The title of the movie is printed in what appears to be Hobby Headline font in a pinkish-purplish hue with a picture of the planet Saturn in the background. We see at least three copies of the flyer in the episode, so presumably there must be more copies in the vast Seinfeld archives somewhere.

A few scenes later, Kramer and Jerry are waiting in line outside the Paragon Theater, still debating the café latte matter, and we get to see the iconic Plan 9 from Outer Space poster on the wall behind them. This particular Paragon must be a repertory house, since the other posters we can see are all for classic movies, including Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and The Long, Long Trailer (1953). I suppose the other extras waiting in line are all there to see Plan 9, which is nice. The movie has garnered a decent turnout, probably due to the interest stirred in Ed by the Oscar-winning biopic Ed Wood (1994), which had only been released on VHS a few months before this episode.

These newly-converted Ed Wood fans are a sedate-looking bunch. The only potential weirdo among them is an intense-looking guy who wears his shoulder-length blonde hair combed straight back and carries a paperback book in the pocket of his sport coat. I've definitely seen guys like this at Ed Wood marathons. Good thing the Paragon doesn't have a policy against bringing in outside literature.

An intense extra (far right) attends Plan 9 on Seinfeld.

The 2022 Ed-Vent Calendar, Day 3: Seinfeld, "The Chinese Restaurant" (1991)

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jerry Seinfeld, Norman Brenner (in back), and Jason Alexander on Seinfeld.

Something rather remarkable happened on May 23, 1991. One of Ed Wood's movies was integral to the plot of a prime time American network sitcom watched by millions of people. That was the fateful night when Seinfeld aired its famous episode, "The Chinese Restaurant," on NBC. Can that episode really be 31 years old already? How time flies.

James Hong on Seinfeld.

The plot has Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), George (Jason Alexander), and Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) stopping at Hunan 5th Avenue to get a quick dinner before going to see Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) at a "one night only" screening. Their plans are derailed when the restaurant's ever-smiling host, Bruce (screen legend James Hong), fails to give them a table, and they are forced to mill around in the lobby for what seems a small eternity. Bruce repeatedly assures Jerry and the gang that the wait will only be "five, ten minutes," but they eventually grow weary and leave, giving up on their now-ruined evening plans.

Apart from two brief wraparound segments showing Jerry Seinfeld performing stand-up comedy in a nightclub, "The Chinese Restaurant" unfolds in real time in one location. The script includes lots of dialogue and very little action, making it more like a stage play than a typical TV sitcom. NBC was baffled by it and was even reluctant to air it. Seinfeld was still a fledgling show back then—not yet the ratings powerhouse it would become—and network executive Warren Littlefield admits he "didn't get it" when Jerry and his writing partner, Larry David, submitted the script for approval. And yet, "The Chinese Restaurant" proved pivotal in Seinfeld's history. The unusual episode garnered a lot of audience attention and helped distinguish Seinfeld from the dozens of other live-action comedies on TV at the time. This was the kind of offbeat story other shows would never even think of doing.

For Ed Wood and Plan 9 from Outer Space, this attention was almost unprecedented. Not since It Came from Hollywood (1982) had Eddie received such mainstream exposure. And, since that movie had flopped pretty hard, it's likely that "The Chinese Restaurant" was the first time most viewers had even heard of Plan 9. Rudolph Grey's biography Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992) wasn't even out yet, and Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) was years away. It's possible that some viewers even sought out Plan 9 because of "The Chinese Restaurant," though I'm not sure what the movie's VHS availability would have been at the time. Jerry doesn't mention any specific plot points but does say that Plan 9 is the worst movie of all time and that he's going to the screening specifically to make snide comments. That's why he needs George and Elaine to come with him and serve as an audience.

The idea to include Plan 9 in "The Chinese Restaurant" came from Seinfeld executive story editor and proud Ed Wood fan Larry Charles. If Jerry were trying to make a movie on time, that would give the story a "ticking clock" and a sense of urgency. He has to get that table! He even dodged a dinner with his uncle (apparently not Uncle Leo) for this opportunity. As Jerry himself explains to Elaine: "I couldn't have dinner with him. Plan 9 from Outer Space! One night only! The big screen! My hands are tied!" I'm not sure if either Jerry Seinfeld or Larry David had ever heard of Plan 9, but the bearded, long-haired Larry Charles—imagine a hippie Gandalf—definitely looks like the kind of cult film freak I've seen at Ed Wood marathons over the years.

Revisiting Seinfeld's "Chinese Restaurant" episode for this article was a total delight. It still made me laugh out loud 31 years after I first saw it, mainly because I could relate to the characters' impatience and rising frustration throughout the running time. Jason Alexander, in particular, is a master of peevishness. The lobby of the restaurant becomes a gaily-decorated purgatory for the Seinfeld characters, the bright red color scheme offering an ironic counterpoint to the misery of Jerry, George, and Elaine. 

The long-running series notoriously ended with the characters in an actual jail cell, but this early episode (only the 16th to air!) shows how these jaded New Yorkers are already boxed in by the world around them. I was reminded of that Twilight Zone episode, "Five Characters in Search of an Exit," or the works of Franz Kafka. In particular, "The Chinese Restaurant" strongly resembles "Before the Law," a parable included in Kafka's novel The Trial (1925). In the parable, a man from the country tries to access "the law" but is kept from it by a sinister, aloof doorkeeper. The man from the country even tries to bribe the doorkeeper to no avail. The doorkeeper accepts the bribe but does not allow the man entry to the law. ("I'm only taking this so you won't feel you've left something untried," the doorkeeper tells him.) A very similar thing happens in this episode when Elaine clumsily bribes Bruce for a table but gets nothing in return.

Incidentally, at the height of Seinfeld mania in the early '90s, Entertainment Weekly put out an entire book called The Entertainment Weekly Seinfeld Companion (1993) by Bruce Fretts. You can read it here if you like. It's an A-to-Z glossary of the pop culture references and running jokes of Seinfeld. And, yes, Plan 9 from Outer Space makes the cut, right between "Ping" and "Polar Bear Club." It's even accompanied by a stock (uncredited) photo of Tor Johnson and Vampira.

Tor Johnson and Vampira in a Seinfeld companion book.

And here's a closer look at the relevant passage:

Let's give you a better look at Tor Johnson's pretty face.

P.S. Jerry finally gets to see Plan 9 from Outer Space in a later Seinfeld episode called "The Postponement." And, yes, I may have to revisit that one as well eventually.

This Seinfeld/Dennis the Menace crossover might be the only important thing I've ever done

A portly, balding man named George who is constantly ranting about everything in his life? A freeloading, wisecracking neighbor who is forever showing up, uninvited, at inconvenient times? A focus on the mundane, minute details of daily life in America? Yes, in all these ways (and probably no others), Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace is a precursor to Seinfeld. Ketcham's creation started as -- and still exists as -- a daily newspaper comic, but from 1959 to 1963, it was also a live-action sitcom, starring Jay North in the title role. The "Kramer is basically a grown-up Dennis" thing was my starting-off point for this crossover parody, which takes its dialogue directly from a real-life Dennis Sunday strip and its visuals directly from a real-life Seinfeld episode. As this mashup shows, Dennis Mitchell was the original "pop-in guy." By the way, when you read this, I'd like you to do so out loud in your best Jason Alexander impression. Really bite down on words like "computers" and "fence."