If you’re tuning into an episode of “Seinfeld,” you can generally expect its agents of chaos to get into all manner of bad behavior. They don’t really care what they do to other people unless it somehow involves implicating themselves, which goes against the traditional sitcom formula. It’s not exactly like “Seinfeld” to take a moral stance by the end of an episode, as most of them conclude with no one learning a lesson from the mess they made.
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In the season 3 episode “The Red Dot,” for example, the central conflict centers around George looking to get a gift for Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) as a thank you for getting him a job at the publishing company she works at. Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) joins his double chip dipper friend to the store, where they find a beautiful cashmere sweater. The catch is that it’s heavily discounted because of a small red dot. Just about everyone clocks it right away, but George is the only person with active blinders on and can’t admit that’s why he bought it in the first place. Through all fault of his own, George gets called out on it and winds up playing tag with the stained sweater until it ends up in the hands of multiple people by the end of it.
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At the top of the episode, Jerry sets off the background story in which he accidentally ends up swapping drinks with Dick (David Naughton), a guy Elaine has been dating at work. The mistake leads the former alcoholic to unfortunately slink back into his drinking habits. “The Red Dot” was originally going to end with the scene of Dick mentioning the red dot on the sweater, while Jerry, Elaine and George cower under a desk during his drunken office stupor. But a note from the higher-ups not only led to an additional scene, but it was one that deviated from the “Seinfeld” formula.
An executive wanted to show a happy ending for the former alcoholic Jerry gave booze to
Every episode of “Seinfeld” is bookmarked by Jerry doing his usual stand-up routine, with most segments varying on whether they tie into the episode or not. The one thing they do not do, however, is move the focus away from Jerry. That changed only one time with “The Red Dot” on account of Glenn Padnick. In a behind the scenes featurette, series co-creator Larry David talks about how the Castle Rock executive felt it would be best to show Dick regaining his sobriety at the end. “I threw something in there, but it didn’t make much difference to me,” says David.
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It’s a special button that uncharacteristically lets Jerry off the hook for the inadvertent chaos he unleashed, going so far as interrupting his series pastime to show that Dick has recovered his sobriety with a non-alcoholic drink in hand.
What’s most surprising about the stand-up interruption is how it doesn’t feel as shoehorned in as it could have been. There’s a moment earlier on where we cut to Jerry doing some of his stand-up, with a drunken Dick in the audience heckling the comedian. The final scene offsets the dour note of Dick’s drunken rambling through Elaine’s office to one that actually provides a funny conclusion, with Jerry confusing “off the wagon” and “on the wagon” in the opposite scenarios they’re used for.
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Every episode of “Seinfeld” is currently streaming on Netflix.
