The Pitch (Seinfeld)

"The Pitch" is the 43rd episode of the sitcom Seinfeld. It is the third episode of the fourth season. It aired on September 16, 1992.

Plot

NBC executives meet Jerry after his nightclub act and ask to come up with an idea for a TV series. George decides he can be a sitcom writer and comes up with it being "a show about nothing." Kramer trades Newman a radar detector for a helmet, and later Newman receives a speeding ticket due to the detector being defective.

While waiting to meet the NBC executives, George and Jerry meet "Crazy" Joe Davola, a writer and "a total nut" who goes to the same therapist as Elaine. Jerry, desperately searching for conversation, casually mentions he'll see him at a party Kramer will soon be having. When it becomes apparent that Joe knows nothing about it and was not invited, Jerry panics and makes a hasty and unsuccessful attempt to backtrack. After Joe leaves, George returns and becomes more and more nervous about the impending meeting. Jerry tries to calm him down by building him up but he overdoes it and when they are called in to the meeting, George has a giant artificial chip on his shoulder. His arguing with the executives over his proposed non-premise ("a show about nothing"; no plot, no stories") does not go over well with them and when they signal their displeasure George storms off complaining about "artistic integrity", leaving Jerry to smooth them over and suggest other potential premisses.

Later, while discussing the disaster of the meeting with NBC, George focuses on starting a relationship with the one female executive, Susan Ross. When George later brings her to Jerry's apartment, Kramer drinks spoiled milk and vomits on her. Crazy Joe Davola, upset at not being invited to Kramer's party, attacks Kramer, kicking him in the head. However, Kramer was wearing Newman's helmet at the time, which saves him any visible injury. When Kramer tells Jerry this, he warns him that Davola says he will be looking for Jerry as well.

Production

In syndication, this episode does not feature Jerry's stand-up routine and also uses Season 3's logo at the beginning, as is also the case in The Ticket, The Cheever Letters, and The Virgin. Both this and The Ticket were originally broadcast as a one-hour episode, but are shown separately in syndication.

The primary storyline about Jerry and George co-creating the show Jerry was a tongue-in-cheek homage to the process that Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David experienced when co-creating the show Seinfeld. In the Season 4 DVD extra documentary called "The Breakthrough Season," Jason Alexander and Castle Rock executive Glenn Padnick discussed their initial skepticism about using this idea in not only one episode but as an arc for an entire season. Jason Alexander found it to be "insane" and "self-aggrandized." Glenn Padnick described the arc about the Jerry show as "inside baseball on a show that most people didn't know even existed."

References

• "The Pitch (Seinfeld)" at the Internet Movie Database