27 little-known Seinfeld facts and trivia you didn't know about the show
It's been 27 years since Seinfeld ended, but the series remains one of the most popular sitcoms of all time.
In fact, the show is so iconic it has its own dedicated 24/7 channel streaming back-to-back episodes on 9Now.
Debuting in 1989, the series created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David ran for nine truly hilarious seasons.
Seinfeld followed four self-absorbed friends – Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer – as they navigated (and aggravated) their way through the minutiae of daily life.
Along the way, it gave us many iconic moments, from Jerry's puffy shirt to Elaine's dance moves.
In honour of the show's enduring impact, we've rounded up a series of facts and trivia to impress even the biggest Seinfeld superfan – including a surprising link to Desperate Housewives.
Our Seinfeld dedicated channel is now streaming 24/7, available only on 9Now.
Jerry dated three Desperate Housewives
How's this for a coincidence?
Seinfeld aired long before Desperate Housewives began in 2004, but three of that cast had previously played one of Jerry's love interests.
Brenda Strong, left, played Elaine's nemesis, the 'braless wonder' Sue Ellen Mischke who Jerry takes a shine to in 'The Caddy'.
Jerry dated Teri Hatcher's character Sidra, centre, in Season 4 and then Marcia Cross' Dr Sidarides in Season 9.
With all that history, we would've loved to have seen Jerry on Wisteria Lane!
Across nine seasons, Jerry Seinfeld dated a total of 73 women.
According to Seinfeld's Season 9 DVD extras, this number includes both on-screen romances and those mentioned in passing.
Interesting indeed!
Here they are years later in Desperate Housewives.
Brenda Strong is pictured in the centre, Teri Hatcher second right and Marcia Cross is second left.
There was only one episode without George
Seinfeld had a total of 172 episodes – and there's only one that doesn't feature George.
In Season 3's 'The Pen', Jerry and Elaine visit Jerry's parents in Florida.
Jason Alexander only realised he wasn't involved in the episode during a table read, and he was nervous about what it meant.
At the time, he told Larry David to include him in every episode or write him out permanently.
Bold move!
But in a 2020 discussion with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander admitted that demanding outburst was born out of insecurity as he worried that Elaine's role would diminish George's.
Thankfully, there was room for everyone going forward!
The pilot episode is very different to the rest of the series
The series Pilot, titled 'Good News, Bad News', was the world's introduction to Seinfeld – but it's not the show as we now know it.
In the episode, Jerry is ecstatic that a woman he met on the road is coming to stay with him in New York, but he is flabbergasted when he discovers she's engaged to be married.
Two of the major differences are that Kramer is called Kessler in the pilot and Elaine is no where to be found.
The female lead was originally a waitress called Claire
A different character entirely was the female lead in the pilot.
Lee Garlington played Claire the Waitress, who worked at the diner the group frequented.
However, the character was replaced with Elaine Benes when the series was picked up for a first season.
Jerry's apartment number changed throughout the series
Jerry's apartment number was 5A for most of Seinfeld's run, but it was an interesting road to get there.
In the pilot, it's an 8 before changing to 411 for the rest of Season 1.
In Season 2 there was other continuity issues as it switches back and forth between 3A and 5A, as the episodes aired in a different order to how they were filmed.
But on the end, it was settled as 5A which it remained from Season 3 onwards.
The 'real' Costanza sued Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David for $100 million
While Jerry is, of course, a loose reflection of Seinfeld in real-life, he and co-creator Larry David have always maintained that George was a based on David.
However, Seinfeld's former friend Michael Costanza begs to differ.
He sued the creators and network NBC for US$100m, claiming they had used his likeness in the show.
The case was thrown out of court, but that didn't stop Costanza.
He wrote a book titled The Real Seinfeld (As Told by the Real Costanza).
In it, he wrote: "George is bald. I am bald. George is stocky. I am stocky. George and I both went to Queens College with Jerry. George's high-school teacher nicknamed him 'Can't stand ya.' So did mine. George had a thing about bathrooms and parking spaces. So do I."
Meanwhile, the real Kramer runs a Seinfeld bus tour
You may recall us mentioning that in the pilot, Kramer's name was Kressler.
That's because this guy, Larry David's former real-life neighbour Kenny Kramer was hesitant to let his name be used.
He ended up relenting, but was only paid $1000 for the pleasure.
However, he definitely used the connection for bigger things!
He has run Kramer's Reality Tour since the show was on air, giving visitors to New York City a tour of sites made famous by Seinfeld and telling behind-the-scenes stories.
In a strange moment of Kramer inception, the tours were parodied during Season 8 episode 'The Muffin Tops' when Elaine's boss J. Peterman uses Kramer's stories in his own autobiography.
Kramer then develops a bus tour, touting himself as 'the real J. Peterman'.
The show was never actually pitched as 'a show about nothing'
Seinfeld is known as "the show about nothing", but that was never the original intention.
During a 2014 Reddit AMA, Seinfeld admitted that both he and co-creator Larry David were surprised by the show's lasting "show about nothing" legacy.
"The pitch for the show, the real pitch, when Larry and I went to NBC in 1988, was we want to show how a comedian gets his material,'" Seinfeld explained.
However, a joke in Season 4, where Jerry and George unsuccessfully pitch "a show about nothing" to TV executives took on a life of its own.
"The show about nothing was just a joke in an episode many years later, and Larry and I to this day are surprised that it caught on as a way that people describe the show, because to us it's the opposite of that," Jerry said.
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