Seinfeld: The Pledge Drive | Episode 89 Recap Podcast

Listen to the Podcast: Rob Cesternino and Akiva Wienerkur continue their journey to watch every Seinfeld episode as they discuss Season 6, Episode 3, “The Pledge Drive.” Rob Cesternino and Akiva Wienerkur are never mistaken for their wives with their rich, radio voices, which they used to bring you the latest Seinfeld episode recap. This week, they talked about “The Pledge Drive”, which first aired October 6, 1994 as part of season six. The episode was written by Tom Gammill and Max Pross. There was only a bit of Seinfeld news this week. Akiva researched any connection to Seinfeld with the recent celebrities that have passed. He learned that David Bowie was the musical guest in 1999 when Jerry hosted Saturday Night Live. Jerry has been asked to host a charity drive for PBS. He receives a thank you card from the woman Kristin who is running it, but throws it away after reading it. When Kristin sees the card in the trash, Jerry tries to prove he’s sentimental by showing her all his cards from his nana. When Kramer notices checks in all the cards from Jerry’s Nana, he convinces Jerry to cash them. Nana gets a call from her bank since the cashed checks overdrew her account. Nana tries to go down to the bank after not leaving the house alone for 25 years, but the bank wasn’t at the same location as the last time she was there. Uncle Leo calls Jerry to tell him Nana was missing. Nana, who found the new location of the bank, calls Jerry from there, but Elaine answers and thinks it’s Dan, so she yells then hangs up. George is tasked with finding a Yankee to appear on the pledge drive, trying to appeal to the Yankee brass by pushing the network’s high culture. He wins over his boss Morgan on the idea when Morgan sees him eloquently eating his candy bar with a knife and fork, after being impressed when hearing Elaine talk about Mr. Pitt doing the same thing. George’s second plot line has him reeling from the waitress at Monk’s secretly giving him the middle finger at every opportunity. This comes to a head when George is driving Danny Tartabull to the pledge drive and sees another driver flip him off. He chases the driver for an hour only to learn the man had his hand in a cast projecting his middle finger up, leading to Danny Tartabull missing the pledge drive appearance. Elaine’s story starts with her hearing from Jerry that her friend Noreen hit on him. When she calls to confront Noreen, she mistakes her boyfriend Dan for Noreen, since his voice sounds exactly like hers. She mentions how Jerry thought Noreen was hitting on him, causing Dan to get upset. She would later hear Jerry’s reason why he thought she was flirting, and her and George disproved it. When Noreen learns this and asks Elaine about it, Elaine inadvertently turns Noreen off from Dan, pointing out his high talking, leading to her actually being attracted to Jerry now. Dan shows up at PBS to confront Jerry, but Jerry thinks it’s Noreen’s voice, so when he sends Kramer out to handle it, Kramer confuses Dan by assuming it’s him who’s attracted to Jerry. Kramer had small parts that wove through Jerry’s storyline. First, he decides to work the phones at the pledge drive Jerry is hosting, though he wants a cut of the proceeds. He also notices Jerry’s cards from his nana’s and convinces him to cash them. All the stories piece together in the ending segment. Uncle Leo comes by the pledge drive to assure Jerry that Nana’s okay, and tries to give him money. Nana calls in to the pledge drive, but Kramer answers and thinks it Dan at first, reassuring him that Jerry is not interested. Nana tells him she is Jerry’s grandmother, and she wants to give her money to Jerry, not PBS. The scene cuts to Monk’s, where Jerry shows a card from Kristin that has Bugs Bunny giving him t...