“Seinfeld” may be named after Jerry Seinfeld, but it’s very much an ensemble show. By the end of an episode of “Seinfeld,” Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) is equally as important as George (Jason Alexander), as is Kramer (Michael Richards) and Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Chances are the core four will be thrust into a scenario that requires them to be on the same page à la “The Contest,” but there’s always this hole one or more of them will manage to dig themselves into on their own accord.
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If there’s a get rich quick scheme to be had, you’ll find Kramer taking advantage of it. If there’s a lie that needs to be maintained in order to secure a date, the consequences will always befall George. But the secret to a great Elaine plot is the subversion of someone who seemingly has it all together. She’s always quick to make comedic jabs at her friends getting into crazy predicaments. The confidence in Louis-Dreyfus’ Emmy-winning performance gives the impression that she’s not as dumb-witted as her guy friends, only to get a peek into her life that shows she’s just as prone to falling on her face as they are.
Whether she’s obsessing over someone not passing toilet paper (“The Stall”), going to war over soup (“The Soup Nazi”) or showing off her terrible dancing skills (“The Little Kicks”), an Elaine-centric plot tends to lead to beautiful chaos. Of the 180 episodes across its nine season span, it’s easy to pinpoint which one Louis-Dreyfus has no interest in watching.
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Julia Louis-Dreyfus didn’t watch the Seinfeld pilot because she’s not in it
“Seinfeld” would look near unrecognizable without the four faces that catapulted it to fame as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. But when it came time to shoot the pilot episode, there was an important face missing. Jerry, George, and Kramer (who originally went by Kessler and had a dog for some reason) were all present and accounted for, but no Elaine. “The Seinfeld Chronicles” feels like a bizarre “what if” where one of the show’s pillars was never built into the foundation. According to Louis-Dreyfus, her absence in that test run is reason enough to just never see it (via Cracked):
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“Not only was I not aware of the pilot episode of the show, but to this day I’ve never seen it. And I think I’m never gonna watch it. I don’t know why, it just feels superstitious.”
The closest thing the pilot had to a female presence among the cast was Claire (Lee Garlington), a server at Pete’s Luncheonette who didn’t exactly share the best chemistry with the guys. Louis-Dreyfus was brought aboard after an underwhelming test screening that labeled the show as “male-centric” (via Cracked). It’s not unlike what happened with “The Big Bang Theory” and the swapping out of one unpopular female lead for an ensemble mainstay. Though it was a shame for Garlington’s career, the show wouldn’t be what it was without Louis-Dreyfus.
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Later Seinfeld episodes would poke fun at Elaine’s absence in the pilot
One of the series’ running throughlines is Jerry and George getting their comedy pilot “Jerry” off the ground for a major network. It’s both a mirror and an inverse of the show in its present form, poking fun at the “it’s a show about nothing” mantra that latched itself on its legacy — even though the series is really about how comedians get their material. But one episode lets Elaine humorously confront her absence in the actual “Seinfeld” pilot.
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In the season four episode “The Shoes,” Elaine becomes upset when her character is written out of the script because Jerry and George worry that they don’t know how to write women. It’s a hilarious bit of meta commentary considering the episode was co-written by Larry David and Seinfeld himself. And not more than two seconds afterwards, an Elaine plot is set into motion with embarrassment over her Botticelli shoes. By the end, the men relent and write Elaine back into their pilot.
When it came to the series finale of “Seinfeld,” it’s rather fitting that the last scene, which sees the foursome sitting in a jail cell for all of the inconveniences they caused over the course of the show, circles back around to the very beginning. George and Jerry start recalling the same conversation they had about buttoning the top button on a shirt before realizing that they’ve repeated themselves. It’s funny that, in addition to coming full circle, it retroactively makes Elaine present for something she was never a part of.
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Every episode of “Seinfeld” is currently streaming on Netflix.
