Seinfeld: The Puffy Shirt| Episode 66 Recap Podcast

Listen to the Podcast: Rob Cesternino and Akiva Wienerkur continue their journey to watch every Seinfeld episode as they discuss Season 5, Episode 2, “The Puffy Shirt.” Rob Cesternino and Akiva Wienerkur want to be pirates, but also want to bring you the most extensive recap of each Seinfeld episode each week. This week they breakdown “The Puffy Shirt”, the second episode of season five, which first aired September 23, 1993 and was written by the Larry David. Forgoing Seinfeld news, Akiva and Rob jump right into the recap. Jerry’s opening stand-up is a bit about moving back in with your parents. The episode opens with George talking to Jerry about having to move back in with his folks. Rob and Akiva pointed out how they really develop the Frank and Estelle Costanza characters this season. Kramer comes in talking about how George should just borrow money or move in with Jerry or him instead. In the next scene, George is moving his stuff into his parents’ house. After commenting on how much stuff George has, Estelle tries to get them all to eat bologna sandwiches, but is rebuffed strongly. Rob and Akiva talked at length about the decline in bologna’s popularity, wondering why so, when it is essentially the same thing as hot dogs. When Jerry and Kramer go to leave, George realizes the ramifications of having moved back in with his folks. Jerry and Elaine are out at dinner with Kramer and his new girlfriend Leslie, who is an extremely low talker. Throughout the dinner, Jerry and Elaine have to just nod along to what she says, ultimately leading to Jerry agreeing to wearing this ridiculous pirate like shirt she has designed on his upcoming appearance on The Today Show for a charity appearance that Elaine is heading up. While out to dinner with his parents, George is thwarting off suggestions from Estelle to take a civil service test while Frank simultaneously talks about his silver dollar collection. Fed up by all this, George decides to get away for a few minutes. As he’s walking away, he bumps into a woman who immediately notices he has great hands, telling him she is an agent for hand models and should call her. At Jerry’s apartment, George is showing Jerry his hands, but Jerry doesn’t see anything special. Kramer comes and pranks George with a joy buzzer, which causes George to panic so much that he puts on some oven mitts and walks out . After George leaves, Kramer tells Jerry how excited Leslie is that he will wear the puffy shirt on his Today appearance. Jerry realizes he inadvertently agreed to wear it when Leslie was low talking at the restaurant. He then utters the famous line, “I don’t want to be a pirate!”. The next day, George is manicuring his hands in his parents’ living room. Estelle is over the moon about it all, while Frank is cutting the idea down. She offers George some Jello, but Frank yells about there being fruit in it, while Estelle yells that George likes the bananas. George scolds them, saying the stress is bad for the epidermis, and decides to take the Jello to his room. In the green room at The Today Show, Kramer is there smoking a cigar while Jerry laments wearing the puffy shirt. When Elaine comes in, she laughs at the shirt, then panics when she realizes Jerry agreed to wear it on the show. Meanwhile, George is on set for his first hand model shoot, where they are all telling him his hands are some of the best they’ve ever seen. When Jerry sits down with Bryant Gumbel, Bryant can’t get to the interview about the charity as he is in hysterics over the puffy shirt. Jerry gets quite defensive, revealing that he had no idea he agreed to wear this ridiculous shirt. As he says it, we hear Leslie offstage scream about him slamming the shirt. Back with George at the photo shoot, a woman on set is really taken with him because of his hands,