{"id":43979,"date":"2020-08-10T19:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T16:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-morbid-hilarity-of-the-junior-mint\/"},"modified":"2020-08-10T19:16:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T16:16:00","slug":"the-morbid-hilarity-of-the-junior-mint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-morbid-hilarity-of-the-junior-mint\/","title":{"rendered":"#The Morbid Hilarity of \u201cThe Junior Mint\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#The Morbid Hilarity of \u201cThe Junior Mint\u201d<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

This essay is part of our series<\/a>\u00a0Episodes<\/strong>, a bi-weekly column in which senior contributor\u00a0Valerie Ettenhofer digs into the singular chapters of television that make the medium great. This entry looks at the darkly uproarious episode of Seinfeld titled \u201cThe Junior Mint.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/hr>\n

If you only know one thing about Seinfeld<\/em><\/strong>, it\u2019s probably that it\u2019s \u201ca show about nothing.\u201d The de facto tagline for the sitcom, which George Costanza (Jason Alexander<\/strong>) himself used in a pitch for a failed show-within-a-show, is the descript<\/a>or that history has chosen for one of TV\u2019s best-ever comedy series.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also not entirely true. Sure, Seinfeld<\/em> is, as Saul Austerlitz writes in his book Sitcom<\/em>, \u201cA masterful exploration of minutiae.\u201d From the start, Larry David<\/strong> and Jerry Seinfeld<\/strong>\u2019s series hones in on the quirks and pet peeves and neuroses that make up everyday experiences. But as it grows bolder with each season, mixing absurd situations with comically mundane moments, the series in some ways becomes the opposite of a show about nothing. Seinfeld<\/em> pulls off several of the most hilariously complex self-contained plotlines ever seen on a sitcom, the comedy series equivalent of spinning a half-dozen plates atop poles without letting any drop to the ground.<\/p>\n

The series often weaves together outlandish scenarios that\u2019ll put you in stitches just to describe aloud (I think often of George\u2019s custom napping desk) and turns schadenfreude into high art by giving its characters an amoral shrugginess that makes nearly every twist of fate, even the bad ones, enjoyable. Seinfeld<\/em> often gets lumped in with its \u201890s contemporary, Friends<\/em>, but unlike any other traditional sitcom of its time, it refuses to give in to sentimentality and always makes a stranger, funnier choice than viewers expect. For a show about nothing, it\u2019s got a lot going on.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to \u201cThe Junior Mint<\/strong>.\u201d Though it\u2019s a less-referenced entry in the Seinfeld<\/em> canon \u2014 perhaps because, unlike classics including \u201cThe Contest\u201d and \u201cThe Soup Nazi,\u201d it doesn\u2019t have a pithy catchphrase \u2014 \u201dThe Junior Mint\u201d is nonetheless spit-take-level uproarious. The titular candy doesn\u2019t appear until midway through the half-hour, but the episode, written by Andy Robin<\/strong>, is on its game<\/a> from the start. In the opening scene, Kramer (Michael Richards<\/strong>, who won an Emmy for this episode), making a heavily applauded entrance, gets passionate about his log cabin wallpaper. \u201cI need wood around me. Wood, Jerry.\u201d He snaps his fingers, then once more for emphasis: \u201cWood!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jerry talks about meeting a woman (Susan Walters<\/strong>) in the produce section of the grocery store. George mulls over the idea of putting down $1,900 in \u201cfound money\u201d on a bet, then rents Home Alone<\/em> since he\u2019s only seen (and hated) the sequel. We\u2019re in classic Seinfeld<\/em> territory here, with the gang riffing on topics both familiar and niche alike. It\u2019s a fun guessing game for viewers, trying to determine which of these riffs will tie into the episode\u2019s usually interwoven main plot, and which are equally funny one-offs.<\/p>\n

Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus<\/strong>) enters and asks the others if they remember an artist she dated, a guy named Roy. In the mythologically dense New York-set series\u2019 fourth season, it\u2019s possible that we\u2019d know this minor character, but the audience hasn\u2019t met him yet. He\u2019s an artist known for paintings of triangles, and Elaine says she dumped him because he was fat. This is a jarring moment to watch in 2020; Elaine\u2019s fatphobia bristles against our retrospective sensibilities even as other unconscionable moments within the episode still warrant belly laughs. Roy\u2019s in the hospital awaiting surgery, she says, so the gang decides to visit him.<\/p>\n

At the hospital, disasters are set into motion in a typically Seinfeldian way. Kramer side-eyes the surgeon (Victor Raider-Wexler<\/strong>), worried he\u2019ll use a faulty retractor he heard about on 20\/20<\/em>. Roy (Sherman Howard<\/strong>) has lost weight and tells Elaine it\u2019s because he didn\u2019t eat for weeks after she dumped him. Of course, she\u2019s into him again.<\/p>\n

Austerlitz, describes the structure of the series in his book: \u201cIf there is a platonic ideal of the Seinfeld<\/em> episode, it is the foursome encountering a new patsy and promptly proceeding to destroy his or her life.\u201d This week, Roy\u2019s the patsy, and his destruction is multi-pronged and morbidly funny. As Kramer tactlessly describes the guts and gore of surgery like a grisly horror movie and Elaine single-mindedly hits on Roy, the two have no regard for his personhood. Across Seinfeld<\/em>\u2019s nine seasons, most of the people they meet are treated as props, and Larry David \u2014 like Kramer swimming the East River \u2014 continuously plunges deeper into the depths of their selfishness, returning each time with bigger and more surprisingly callous laughs.<\/p>\n

Roy heads into surgery in an operating theater. Kramer and Jerry watch from an overlooking balcony alongside a group of medical students. Enter: the Junior Mints. Kramer, who has treated this surgery like a cinematic event from the start (\u201cSpleenectomy.\u201d \u201cIsn\u2019t that where they remove the\u2026\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t ruin it for me; I haven\u2019t seen it yet!\u201d), brings candy to share during the show. He tries to force some on Jerry, who pushes them away. A Junior Mint arcs through the air in slow motion, falling down, down, down through the operating theater before plopping neatly into Roy\u2019s open body cavity. Jerry and Kramer look around them with shocked guilt. No one saw.<\/p>\n

How many sitcoms, even nearly thirty years later, have given us plots this audacious and ridiculous? TV lovers are lucky to have witnessed the advent of shows like It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community<\/em>, and Arrested Development<\/em>, each of which stretches the limits of what a comedic misadventure can look like, and none of which would exist without Seinfeld<\/em>. Yet no shows \u2014 except, perhaps, Larry David-driven heir apparent Curb Your Enthusiasm <\/em>\u2014 go as boldly and brilliantly into uncharted comedic territory while still keeping a comfortingly recognizable structure as Seinfeld<\/em> does.<\/p>\n

The Junior Mint, obviously, isn\u2019t great for Roy\u2019s recovery. When Elaine tells the guys that he\u2019s taken a turn for the worse, the episode becomes the most darkly comedic, unnervingly high-stakes bit of product placement imaginable. \u201cWho\u2019s gonna turn down a Junior Mint?\u201d Kramer says in defense of his faux pas. \u201cIt\u2019s chocolate, it\u2019s peppermint, it\u2019s delicious!\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, George considers investing in some of Roy\u2019s artwork in case his death makes it more valuable, and Jerry, in a classic B plot, tries to guess and snoop his way into learning the name of a woman he\u2019s already kissed, whose name \u201crhymes with a part of the female anatomy.\u201d This episode takes place seasons before George shrugs off his fiance\u2019s death at the hands of cheap envelope glue, but the conceit is similar. We knew the gang was shallow, selfish, and cowardly, but their total disregard for human life is a bleakly hilarious new low.<\/p>\n

The Junior Mint acts as a sort of a tell-tale heart, haunting Jerry and Kramer as they decide whether or not to report the excruciatingly embarrassing incident to save a man\u2019s life. They themselves are ultimately saved, however, when it turns out the minty freshness isn\u2019t what caused Roy\u2019s infection, but what staved it off.<\/p>\n

In the spirit of Seinfeld<\/em>, there\u2019s no lesson to be learned here. Elaine dumps Roy yet again when it\u2019s clear he\u2019s back to his overeating habit. George bemoans his useless new triangle paintings. Kramer and Jerry are off the hook, although Jerry\u2019s down a girlfriend thanks to his inability to communicate (\u201cMulva?\u201d he guesses sheepishly).<\/p>\n

The surgeon gets in one wry final joke about the unbelievable events of the episode: \u201cI think there were other factors at play here\u2026something happened during the operation that staved off that infection. Something beyond science<\/a>. Something perhaps\u2026,\u201d he says, hesitating in reverence, \u201cfrom above.\u201d Kramer offers him a Junior Mint.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

if you want to watch Movies or Tv Shows go to Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a> <\/span> for forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#The Morbid Hilarity of \u201cThe Junior Mint\u201d” This essay is part of our series\u00a0Episodes, a bi-weekly column in which senior contributor\u00a0Valerie Ettenhofer digs into the singular chapters of television that make the medium great. This entry looks at the darkly uproarious episode of Seinfeld titled \u201cThe Junior Mint.\u201d If you only know one thing about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1354,7059,26810,51339,51338,1389],"class_list":["post-43979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-columns","tag-episodes","tag-seinfeld","tag-the-junior-mint","tag-the-morbid-hilarity-of-the-junior-mint","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}