‘Seinfeld’ is coming to Hulu: Time to catch up on your Seinfeld-isms
Have you heard? Seinfeld is officially going to be streaming directly to your computer via Hulu, starting this June, and we couldn’t be more excited that our four favorite New York City eccentrics are coming to a stream-a-thon near you.
With Seinfeld back in our lives on a regular basis, we’ll be revisiting all our favorite jokes from the show: We’ll likely be asking for a knife and fork so we can eat our candy bars like those “society types;” we’ll take any opportunity to say, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that;” and it’s possible we may start introducing ourselves as Art Vandelay to every third new person we meet. (It would be just plain silly to do it every time.)
Here are 16 more Seinfeld-isms (and the parts of episodes they’re from!) we’ll definitely be working into everyday conversation.
“Yadda yadda yadda”
At first, George is totally on board with his girlfriend’s skip-to-the-chase approach—after all, the yadda yadda yadda adds a certain efficiency to a conversation. But then he realizes what’s behind her yadda yaddas…
George: “Listen to this. Marcy comes over and she tells me that her ex-boyfriend was over late last night, and ‘Yadda yadda yadda, I’m really tired today.’ You don’t think she’d yadda yadda sex?”
Elaine: “I’ve yadda yaddaed sex.”
George: “Really?”
Elaine: “Yeah…I met this lawyer, we went out to dinner, I had the lobster bisque, we went back to my place…yadda yadda yadda, I never heard from him again.”
Jerry: “But you yadda yaddaed over the best part.”
Elaine: “No, I mentioned the bisque.”
“No soup for you!”
It’s clear Elaine did not heed others’ Soup Nazi warnings as she drapes her body over the soup shop’s counter, leisurely contemplating her order. The Soup Nazi is displeased, this much we know, yet Elaine attempts a conversation:
“Has anyone ever told you look exactly like Al Pacino?” More displeasure.
“You know…Scent of a Woman? Hoo-ah. Hoo-ahhhh!” Continued displeasure.
You can guess what happens next.
“Step off.”
MTV’s Dan Cortese played Elaine’s boyfriend and George’s man-crush, cool-guy Tony (or as Jerry liked to call him, “hunk-ee Toe-ney”), and first delivered the phrase “Step off” most hilariously in the coffee shop while paling around with an absolutely giddy George. Unfortunately, things took a turn after a rock climbing accident that left Tony’s beautiful “mimbo” face wrapped in bandages. Now, Tony was requesting that George “step off.” “Oh…” George pleaded, “Oh Tony, don’t.”
“Get. Out!”
Elaine’s catch phrase that expressed intense surprise and shock was paired with a two-handed shove so powerful that it would often send its recipient flying into the next room. Poor Bizarro World Jerry got knocked clean off his feet.
Low Talker, High Talker, and Close Talker
We can thank Kramer’s girlfriend the “low talker” for putting Jerry in “The Puffy Shirt” on national television, all because he couldn’t quite make out what she’d actually asked of him. And by “couldn’t make out,” we of course mean, “couldn’t hear a bloody word of.”
A “high talker” was to blame when romantic turmoil ensued because Elaine could not distinguish between her friend’s voice and her friend’s boyfriend’s voice over the phone:
Elaine: Noreen, were you hitting on [Jerry]?
Dan: Noreen’s not here. This is Dan.
Blast!
And Judge Reinhold as the “close talker” went nose-to-nose with everyone he spoke to, with Kramer reacting as only Kramer could.
Going out on a high note.
Rather than stick around after delivering a real zinger, only to follow up with dud resulting in crickets, George starts exiting rooms the second after he realizes he’s landed a good joke. Always leave ‘em wanting more!
Spongeworthy
When Elaine finds out the makers of her go-to contraceptive sponge are discontinuing the product, she buys up what’s left and realizes she has to reevaluate her whole “screening process” for who is “spongeworthy.” Conservation is key, people.
“George is getting upset!”
In an episode called “The Jimmy,” the gang encounters a guy at the gym who has a very strange way of talking. He refers to himself in the third person, and most hilariously so in a series of exclamations after he slips on Kramer’s drool. (Kramer had just been to the dentist and was still numb from the Novocain.) Flat on his back, Jimmy was not happy:
“Jimmy’s down! Jimmy might have a compound fracture! Jimmy’s going into shock…Jimmy’s gonna get you, Kramer!” And, as they’re wheeling him away, “Jimmy holds grudges!”
In later episodes, George adopted Jimmy’s manner of speaking whenever he was having, you know, a moment.
“These pretzels are making me thirsty.”
This was Kramer’s line as an extra in a Woody Allen movie, and everyone had a suggestion as to how he might best deliver it.
Festivus
Much to George’s embarrassment, Festivus was his dad’s answer to the over-commercialization of Christmas. And much to our delight, Frank Costanza had a touching story of the holiday’s origins:
Frank:“Many Christmas’ ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon, I realized there had to be another way.
Kramer: What happened to the doll?
Frank: It was destroyed. But out of that, a new holiday was born…a Festivus for the rest of us!
Is anyone else totally in the holiday spirit all of a sudden? Who wants to go not decorate a Festivus pole?!
Hello, Newman.
Said by Jerry, with a healthy amount of loathing, every time he encountered one of his not-so-friendly neighbors.
Shrinkage
On a weekend trip to The Hamptons, George is in his room toweling off post-swim when Jerry’s girlfriend walks in on him, sans trunks. She looks down, laughs, and then turns tail. George immediately starts yelling, “I was in the pool! I was in the pool!” Debating the extent of womens’ knowledge on the subject, Jerry and George summon Elaine.
George: “Do women know about shrinkage?”
Elaine: “What do you mean, like laundry?”
Serenity now!
Frank Costanza’s doctor gives him a relaxation tape that instructs him to say “serenity now” whenever his blood pressure gets too high. But the way he screams it doesn’t seem all that serenity inducing—something Lloyd Braun, George’s childhood friend, can attest to, having recently done a turn in the loony bin. He lets George in on the real deal: “Serenity now, insanity later.”
Worlds Colliding (and Independent George)
When George’s girlfriend Susan starts hanging out with Elaine, George really starts to lose it in new and interesting ways. Susan suggests “we all go to a movie,” and George cannot—and will not—contain his discontent: “Worlds are colliding! George is getting upset!”
Later at Jerry’s, he explains that there are two Georges: relationship George and independent George. “And, he’s dying, Jerry! If relationship George walks through this door, he will kill independent George! A George, divided against itself, CAN NOT stand!”
[Mic drop.]
In the Vault
This was their way of saying, mum’s the word. Many a secret went into the vault, but those combinations were apparently not too tough to figure out.
Kramer Mannerisms
Okay, technically these aren’t phrases, but Kramer speaks with his body, does he not? Let’s all work some of these classic moves into our shtick.
Fired up yet? Great! Countdown can now commence for the return of our favorite show about nothing, that really was something.
Mackenzie Schieck is pop culture sponge, Friends expert, Nancy Drew wannabe, latte addict, and snickerdoodle connoisseur living in the sparkling city of Seattle. As a freelance writer she has contributed to Visit Seattle, SeattleMag.com, and more—and she was also an editor at Allrecipes.com for seven years. Visit her cooking-for-one blog, Single Servings, for delicious recipes and pretty pictures of food, and follow heron Twitter @mackenziewords.
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