The Frogger

"The Frogger" is the 174th episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. It is the 18th episode for the ninth and final season. It first aired on April 23, 1998.

Plot

Elaine is confronted with cake from two separate celebrations at her workplace; tired of the forced socializing, she calls in sick the next day. Jerry and George go to their old high-school hangout, Mario's Pizza Parlor, for one last slice of pizza before it closes down. Kramer has visited the police station where he obtained some caution tape used for crime scenes and also heard about a serial killer nicknamed "The Lopper" who is on the loose in the Riverside Park area.

At Mario's, George discovers he still has the high score on the old Frogger video game, with a score of 860,630 points; both he and Jerry remember that they stopped going to Mario's because he had a tendency to insult his customers. Elaine's co-workers give her a cake to celebrate her return to work from being sick, but she refuses to take part in any future celebrations. Jerry dates Elaine's friend Lisi (Julia Campbell) and discovers that she's a sentence-finisher: "It's like dating Mad Libs!" After lamenting that his shrine will be gone, George decides to buy the Frogger machine to preserve his fame, but Jerry asks how he will move it and keep it plugged in to preserve the high score. Kramer discovers that the last victim of the Lopper looked a lot like Jerry.

George works to find a solution to his Frogger problem, and Kramer volunteers the help of a man he knows named "Slippery Pete" (Peter Stormare). Missing the 4:00 sugar-rush she'd become used to from all the celebrations, Elaine raids her boss Peterman's refrigerator, where she finds a piece of cake. Later Peterman reveals that it's worth $29,000 because of its historical significance: it's from King Edward VIII's wedding.

Jerry wants to break up with Lisi, then discovers she lives in the Riverside Park area. To avoid the Lopper, he takes her back to his place, where she finishes one of his thoughts that takes their relationship to the next level. Elaine tells Jerry and George about the cake, then tells Jerry that Lisi is planning a weekend trip for them to Pennsylvania Dutch country. Jerry fears that Lisi received the wrong message; a trip like that means it's a serious relationship! that Elaine tries to even out Peterman's slice of cake, but gets swept up in the moment and finishes it off. George tries to coordinate the movement of the Frogger machine. Elaine looks for a replacement for Peterman's cake, and Kramer suggests an Entenmann's cake. Jerry goes to Lisi's apartment, where he tries to break up with her.

When Jerry is finally ready to leave, it's 10 hours later and dark, and as he exits the apartment he sees a man whom he fears is the Lopper and pleads that Lisi let him back inside. (It's actually just "Slippery Pete"). Peterman is bewildered when he has his piece of cake appraised at $2.19. George finds "Slippery Pete" playing his Frogger game on battery power until only about 3 minutes of power remain. The only available power source is across the busy street, and Kramer has run out of caution tape. Convinced he does not need any help, George starts moving the machine across the busy street, moving through traffic like the frog from the video game. However, as George reaches the opposite sidewalk he is unable to lift the game onto the curb; an oncoming Freightliner smashes the game cabinet, causing Jerry to quip, "Game over".

Peterman shows Elaine surveillance videotape of her eating and "dancing" with the slice of cake. He is convinced that the effect of such a "vintage" cake on her digestive system will be all the punishment she needs and dismisses her.

Continuity

• There are several continuity goofs regarding Frogger: George's high score is not present when the Frogger game's screen is first shown. At that time, the high score is 7,200, merely the score of the boy who just finished playing it. Also, Frogger arcade games only record high scores and not initials.
• Although George and Jerry need to go to Mario's Pizza for one last slice, and Mario has an apron with Mario's Pizza scrawled across it, the store front is Five Roses Pizza. Additionally, the store front has two large plate glass windows in front, but when George walks through the door they are in a fully enclosed set.
• While the crew was filming the famous overhead shot of George moving the Frogger game across the street, Jerry Seinfeld noticed that the street was painted with white lines, which was supposedly inconsistent with the yellow lines in the Frogger layout. The crew quickly fixed this inaccuracy by covering the white lines with yellow tape.^[1]

The Frogger arcade game

• On September 24, 2005, The Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard issued a colorful poster that offered a $1,000 cash prize to the first video game player who could break George Costanza's fictional Frogger high score of 860,630 points as portrayed in "The Frogger". No player was able to break this mark before the December 31, 2005 deadline. On December 22, 2009, Pat Laffaye of Connecticut, USA, scored a Frogger world record high score of 896,980 points.^[2][3] His score was beaten again by Michael Smith, who scored 970,440 points on July 15, 2012.^[4]
• The sound effects during George's moving of the machine are actual sounds from Frogger, played in time with his movements. The sound that plays shortly after the machine is smashed by a truck is the "squash" sound when the frog is hit by a vehicle during the game.

Episode Notes

• This episode was originally going to be titled "The Cake Parties".
• Jason Alexander performed his own stunt in this episode, actually diving out of the path of an oncoming truck and being showered with the shrapnel of the crushed Frogger machine as the truck ran it over. He later recounted that two large and heavy pieces of paneling from the side of the game landed uncomfortably close to his head during the shooting of this scene.
• Most of scenes deleted from this episode involved Kramer attracting a new "long distance" girlfriend; this carries over to the next episode "The Maid".
• The "get well, get well soon" song has the same tune as Corkey Buchek's "Bing-Bang Song," interpreted by Borat in his film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, directed by Larry Charles.

External links

The Frogger at the Internet Movie Database

References