Seinfeld is meant to be offensive. Even as it was airing on NBC in the 1990s, when audiences tolerated certain taboo subjects more, we knew that some of the plotlines we laughed at would be very serious and not at all funny if they happened in real life. For example, remember the episode where Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) drugged his girlfriend so he could play with her retro toy collection? The comedy was in the absurdity of it all, but in the real world, that’s hardly a laughing matter.
Still, some episodes of Seinfeld made light of serious topics that they never should have broached. Comedy might be a way of working through some of life’s harshest realities, but it doesn’t mean that everything can be reduced to a joke. Such was the case for the episode called “The Jimmy”. Not only does it have one of the most annoying supporting characters, but one plot, centered around sexual assault, is dismissed as if it’s not that important. I love you Seinfeld, but what’s the deal with that?
The Namesake of “The Jimmy” Is Not at All Funny
Seinfeld has a long list of memorable supporting characters who were only around for an episode. Some of them were Jerry’s girlfriend of the week, but others would be some poor soul who entered Jerry, Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George (Jason Alexander), and Kramer’s (Michael Richards) orbit. Either they would do something awful to our outrageous protagonists, or one of the gang’s selfish urges would ruin this person’s life. Judge Reinhold showed up as Aaron, the close talker, in “The Raincoats,” Jon Lovitz faked cancer as Gary Fogel in “The Scofflaw,” and Larry Thomas became a face known all over the world after he played the titular role in “The Nazi.”
We wouldn’t want to know any of these people in reality, but in an over-the-top sitcom like Seinfeld, their exaggerated awfulness was welcome. The same can’t be said for Jimmy (Anthony Stake) in Season 6’s “The Jimmy”. We meet him after a pickup basketball game at the gym, where George is in awe of his ability to dunk a basketball (thanks to his bizarre calf-building shoes), but Jerry is annoyed because Jimmy never stops talking about himself in the third person. We get to see it from him ourselves (“Jimmy played pretty good”), and it’s not just Jerry who gets annoyed, but the audience, because Seinfeld keeps hammering the bit home throughout the entire episode. It leads to a mix-up with Elaine, who ends up agreeing to a date with Jimmy when, because of the way he speaks, she thinks she’s going out with someone else. Jimmy is not funny, though. The joke is beaten to the ground, leading me to wish that Jimmy would just go away.
Jerry Is Assaulted by Bryan Cranston’s Tim Whatley
Two other plots deal with a Seinfeld recurring character, dentist Tim Whatley (Bryan Cranston). He’s a cocky, unlikable man, but in “The Jimmy,” he shows a new, horrid side of himself. One story is more innocent, with Kramer visiting the dentist. But with the novocaine having numbed his mouth, his twisted facial features and slurred speech lead others to believe that he’s intellectually disabled, to the point that Mel Tormé sings to him at a benefit for Able Mentally Challenged Adults. Has the joke aged well? No. But the physical humor and the misunderstanding behind it all makes it funny, it’s not about mocking the intellectually disabled, in this case, Kramer is the butt of the joke.
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It would have been a totally different show.
Jerry, too, has a dentist appointment, but in Whatley’s waiting room, he’s disgusted to see adult magazines like Penthouse. When he goes back for a follow-up, Tim has a new, more attractive female assistant because he thinks it’s fun to swap. Jerry is knocked out by the nitrous oxide, but when he groggily wakes up, his vision blurred, he thinks he sees Dr. Whatley and the nurse getting dressed. Later, telling Elaine about it, Jerry is scared because his shirt was untucked too. He thinks he was assaulted while he was under, but Elaine responds, “So, you were violated by two people while you were under the gas. So what? You’re single.” Jerry tells Elaine that he’s damaged goods now, to which she tells him to join the club. And the studio audience laughs throughout it all. Yikes.
‘Seinfeld’ Makes a Joke Out of Many Serious Issues
Now, Seinfeld was never meant to be a serious sitcom. In nine seasons, they only ever had one serious scene. Instead, the characters are meant to be awful people who do and have awful things done to them, but the series has also, perhaps purposely, crossed the line at times. When George’s fiancée, Susan (Heidi Swedberg), dies and George is relieved, it’s awful, but it’s so out there that we can only laugh. It’s the more realistic episodes and ones that make light of those less fortunate that can be hard to watch now. For example, one episode of Seinfeld has an elderly man having a stroke played for physical comedy, and another treats a suicide attempt like a joke.
“The Jimmy” is one of my least favorite episodes because it aims so low. Jimmy is just one-note annoying. There is no attempt to make him more compelling. Kramer stumbles over his words and drools, as if this is how Seinfeld sees the intellectually disabled. And the Jerry story is just icky. It’s obvious that Jerry was sexually assaulted, but Elaine acts like it’s no big deal because he’s single. Would the joke have been played for the same laughs if it had been Elaine in Jerry’s position? But considering how, historically, sexual assault of male victims has been played for laughs, it’s not surprising that Seinfeld would do the same. What’s more disturbing is when Elaine tells Jerry to join the club when he calls himself “damaged goods.” Was it a subtle nod to the fact that Elaine has experienced something similar? Are we meant to laugh at that?
Seinfeld will always be my favorite show. I can watch it over and over whenever I’m down and need a pick-me-up. I’m not easily offended, and I don’t see Seinfeld as being too shocking to air today. But “The Jimmy” is one of the few uncomfortable episodes for me, and it’s not one that I add to the rewatch repertoire when I do revisit the series.
All episodes of Seinfeld are available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
