Kramer takes over the duties of running Jewish Singles Night from Lomez, while Elaine tries to keep the mail guy in her office away from her due to his psychoness. Instead of firing him, she promotes him, until he is at a higher position than Jimmy Dugan and the rest of her staff, until it is just Elaine and the psycho. Meanwhile, Jerry is dating a gal who has a mentor who is dating Bania. These relationships end when she sees Bania's act. Eventually, Jerry becomes Bania's mentor, Jerry's gal's mentor becomes George Costanza b/c he needs someone to read and summarize his specialty of Risk Management, and Elaine's psycho from work becomes the protoge of Jerry's gal's mentor. Finally, Kramer can't cook for his life, so after some reminiscing by Frank of some horrible wartime moment, he agrees to help Kramer in his cooking quest.
Our Commentary
Ladies and Gents, I give you a Top 20 episode. Just a brief warning before continuing: Due to measures outside of my control (I had to study for my Contracts midterm), I didn't have time to write this commentary right after watching the episode, so this is a few days later, going home on the train, after taking the midterm, and doing pretty well, I think, thank you very much. Anyway, to the ep we go. First of all, let me say this episode is packed to the brim with laughs. If you were buying this episode in a supermarket, it would be found in the Laughter section of the store. You would then go down the Laughter aisle, go down about midway through the aisle, and it will be on your right hand side, on the top shelf, right in between a box of Comedy and a box of Hilarious. You would have to buy this episode with funny money (get it? Funny money! HAHA!) and you could use a coupon made out of Laughter that would lessen the price by about 12 Funnies. In other words, this episode is hilarious. That said, let's get to some of the specifics. Hilarious stuff with the whole mentor/protogee relationships, between George and Abby, Jerry and Bania, and Elaine and Eddie. Let's talk about Eddie. The man is hilarious with all of his pyschoness, with his kicking in a skull, description of his knife being the only friend left who is still alive, the only friend who hasn't betrayed you, and Elaine's super "Petermanesque" changes of rasberry scones and dewey meadows. Hilarious stuff with Jimmy Dugan saying "deranged pro-to-gee", George's super anal voice on the book on tape of Risk Management, and Jerry fixing Bania's material. With all of this, you'd have a pretty good episode. But I haven't even begun. The episode jumps up a few notches when Eddie says, "It's tough meeting someone you like. Let alone, somebody
JEW-EESH!
Then it jumps up a few more notches with Bania in his prime smile of "Gold, Jerry Gold!" Then somehow there are still more notches on this ladder, it must be the one that Yaakov saw, and it goes up those notches with Frank telling Estelle that "It sucks!". We're now in Top 34 episodes I'd say, but once again, I haven't begun. So now, I will begin. HI-LARIOUS stuff with Lomez being Jewish, Orthodox, Jerry, old school!; the entire Platoon spoof (which I never would have seen had it not been for Jared Jerome and his extreme war movie knowledge, except for Casualties of War, which is the only war movie that I had ever seen before seeing a bunch of war movies a la JJ); Frank telling Kramer all about it, and taking a swig of hard alcohol, and then screaming at Kramer to get out of his house at the mention that he cook again, b/c 200 Jewish singles need him, only to have no energy left to tell him to leave; Kramer cooking all of the Jewish delicacies; Kramer telling Jerry that he's got 3 kitchens going, with the specific Jewish delicacies being cooked in Jerry's apt., Newman's apt., and Mrs. Zanfino's apt., with little baby Joey over there in the playpen, watching it to make sure it doesn't burn, we assume; telling Jerry that he's skin and bones and that he must "eat, eat"; Jerry saying it's horrible, Kramer saying it's an acquired taste, Jerry saying it tastes like dirt, Kramer thinking that it must be b/c he multiplied wrong when he was following the recipe for more people than it called for, and then realizing that he actually dropped it on the ground; the list goes on and on. This episode is too funny for me to handle. It surely deserves our applause and it is a welcome addition to the Top 20. Adam - Hilarious episode. Top 25 material. There is too much to even write down on what's going on in this episode. From Risk Management to Kenneth Bania to of course Frank Costanza, this episode is truly an hilarious premise. And for all those reasons it is one of the greatest episodes in all of Seinfeld lore.
EPISODE GUIDE from Jerry Seinfeld: The Entire Domain by Kathleen Tracy
140."The Fatigues" (October 31, 1996)
SUMMARY Elaine promotes the mailroom psycho instead of firing him. Jerry's girlfriend has a mentor who dates
Bania. Kramer needs Frank to help him cook for 150 people on Jewish Singles Night. George discovers that blind
people can get any book on tape, so he plans to fail an eye test. Jerry's girlfriend sees Bania's act and loses respect
for her mentor. Frank Costanza's cooking skills are reborn, until he sees someone choking.
DIRECTOR Andy Ackerman
TELEPLAY Gregg Kavet and Andy Robin
GUEST CAST Joseph Urla (Dugan); Ned Bellamy (Eddie); A. J. Langer (Abby); Katie Layman (Cynthia); Eddie
Allen (Doctor); Gwen McGee (Janine); Lynn Manning (Blind Man)
RECURRING CAST Estelle Harris (Estelle Costanza); Richard Herd (Wilhelm); Steve Hytner (Bania); Jerry
Stiller (Frank Costanza)
