Four Allusions to Movies in Seinfeld - TVStoreOnline

If you watch Seinfeld closely, you have probably noticed that they mention several movies without actually mentioning them. They do this by allusions, or referring to something from the movie that viewers would readily recognize. Here is a list of four allusions to movies that you may or may not catch when watching Seinfeld reruns.

Basic Instinct

Everybody remembers the scene in Basic Instinct where Sharon Stone uncrosses her legs during an interrogation and makes the questioners sweat during the questioning. In “The Package” episode, the show makes an allusion to this scene when Jerry is being questioned about a stereo that he was sending back to the manufacturer. On the advice of Kramer, Jerry was essentially committing mail fraud and he was being questioned by Newman, who was played by Wayne Knight. The brilliance factor that comes into the scene is the fact that Knight was also one of the interrogators in that famous Basic Instinct scene as well.

Chapter Two

The famous Neil Simon play was mentioned outright in the episode entitled “The Letter,” but only after several allusions were made to it. The girl that Jerry was dating in that episode wrote him a breakup letter that she copied directly a scene in the classic play and Jerry just happened to recognize it while flipping through the channels and seeing the scene in which the monologue was being spoken.

JFK

This is probably one of the most popular allusions to a movie throughout the Seinfeld series. It involves Jerry trying to explain how ridiculous Kramer’s and Newman’s theory was that Keith Hernandez spit on them in the parking lot following a Mets game. He insisted there had to be a “second spitter” to make their theory plausible. The episode used grainy footage and a reenactment just like the courtroom scene in JFK. Ironically, Wayne Knight was also in JFK and in the Seinfeld scene in which the “spitting event” occurred.

The Wolf Man

When Jerry starts shaving his chest to impress a girl, things don’t go well for him. The hair keeps growing back and getting itchier and itchier each time. Then, when he is stuck in a bus that is dropping off muffin tops at a garbage dump in the evening, he sees the full moon and finally has to run out of the bus to scratch his chest, letting out a “howl” of relief as he does so.

Do you have any favorite movie allusions that you have noticed in Seinfeld?

Cosmo kramerJerry seinfeldKeith hernandezNeil simonSeinfeldSharon stoneWayne knight