Seinfeld: The Stall | Episode 76 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 12, “The Stall.” Rob Cesternino and Akiva Wienerkur packed their tuna and salmon salad sandwiches as they attempt to reach the Seinfeld summit that is “The Finale”. This week, they breakdown “The Stall”, which first aired February 3, 1994 as part of season five, and was written by the great Larry Charles, who noted in an interview that he always seems to be involved with bathroom humor. There was of course a bit of Seinfeld news for Akiva to share this week. Jamie Gertz, who plays Jane in this episode, just celebrated her 50th birthday. With Scene It and Tweet of the Week a thing of the past, the guys jump right into the recap. Jerry’s opening standup is a bit about whales that Rob noted had nothing to do with this episode. The episode opens with Elaine in the bathroom stall at the movies, where there is no toilet paper. When she asks the woman next to her for some, the lady replies she can’t spare a square, leading to an argument between the two. When Elaine gets back to her seat with her new boyfriend Tony, she explains what happened to her. He’s mostly interested in why she didn’t bring him his popcorn. Meanwhile the woman who refused the toilet paper gets to her seat, and she happens to be Jerry’s new girlfriend. Jerry mostly blows off her side of the story, since he’s more interested in the artificial flavor of the popcorn. The next day, Jerry is on his computer when Kramer comes in to ask to use his phone in his bedroom. Jerry jokes to not call a 976 number, but Kramer actually is calling one of them. Elaine is there talking about her bathroom experience at the movie, and Jerry quickly tries to cover up for Jane. She notes that she’ll never forget her “flinty” voice, which troubles Jerry since they are all going on a double date that weekend. When Elaine picks up the phone, she hears Kramer talking dirty with the phone sex lady, claiming his name is Andre. Jerry thought the phone sex lady’s voice sounded familiar. Jerry and Elaine are driving, and she reminds him to defrost his freezer. Rob wondered why she cared about this. While talking about her new boyfriend, Jerry refers to him as hunky Tony, accusing her of dating a “mimbo”. They then both joke about how George has a nonsexual crush on Tony. At the diner, George is staring starry eyed at Tony while he tells a story about telling someone to “step off”. George comes up with their next extreme outing, and recommends bowling, while Tony counters with rock climbing, and they should go “manana”. George says he has to have a boil lanced manana, but when Kramer agrees to go, George also says he’s “down”, and he’ll even make sandwiches. Back at Jerry’s, Elaine makes fun of George for thinking he can rock climb, while Jerry calls George Tony’s sidekick. George is fine being the sidekick because Tony is so cool. He admonishes Kramer for cutting in on his day with Tony, which causes Kramer to tell George he’s in love with Tony. When Kramer answers the phone, he thinks he recognizes Jane’s voice from somewhere. In the next scene, Kramer and George are on the side of a cliff. Kramer is breezing around yodeling, while George is clutching the side for his life. Tony, who is below them climbing up, asks George to secure the rope then throw him a sandwich. George doesn’t get the first part done right, and Tony goes falling. Akiva thought you’d have to assume Tony was dead at this point. While eating pizza with Jane at his apartment, she won’t share a napkin with him. When Elaine buzzes up he quickly decides to give her many pieces of gum to help disguise her voice.