The Contest

This is Week 10 of the spring semester, when my Seinfeld students and I screen the infamous episode “The Contest.”

It was this episode, Sony Pictures’s website points out, that won Seinfeld two Emmys: one for writer Larry David (Outstanding Writing for a Television Comedy Series), and one for director Tom Cherones (Outstanding Directing in a Television Series). Also noteworthy is this: because of the acclaim “The Contest” received after its premiere, the first repeat showing of the “self-denial” episode scored the highest rating in the show’s history.

Yesterday, before our screening, I filled my students’ heads with the above information and subsequently informed them that of all nine seasons of Seinfeld, it is this episode that most fans usually recall. Moreover, I mentioned, that even those who were not die-hard fans of the show still understood what it meant to be “master of one’s domain.” Needless to say, with this highfalutin introduction, “The Contest” had a lot to live up to.

I am happy to report that nearly sixteen years after it first aired on NBC (April 1992), the episode did not disappoint. Laughing loudly and unabashedly as the following lines were uttered, my students concluded afterward that “this is the funniest one we’ve seen so far” and that “this is the best and most creative episode yet.”

George [to Jerry]: Care to make it interesting?
Jerry [to Kramer]: You’ll be out before we get the check.
Kramer [slamming money on the counter]: I’m out!
Jerry [to George]: But are you still master of your domain?
Jerry [to a defeated Elaine]: Ohh-my-God. The Queen is dead.

I asked the students why they thought this particular episode outshone the fifteen others that we’ve watched this semester. “It’s a subject matter that is never dealt with in public, much less on TV,” they told me.

Absolutely. Being “lord of one’s manor” or “queen of one’s castle” is not a popular subject for everyday conversation or network television. However, as we eventually discussed, it is frequent fodder for several teen movies (e.g., American Pie, the Porky’s series, and the Revenge of the Nerds series). Therefore, it is not necessarily that the topic is off-limits in popular culture; it’s just normally relegated to 15-20 year olds.

We deduced, then, that at least one reason that “The Contest” is both unique and hysterical is that it takes a traditionally adolescent subject and transfers it to an adult setting.

(Other equally valid reasons for the episode’s success should trickle in via my students’ blogs by the end of this week: http://seinclass.blogspot.com/.)

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