When Robin finished, he was proud of one part: the storyline in which Jerry forgets the name of the woman he was dating. He called David mid-draft and said, “This can’t happen.” People would say, “They let some amateur in and he came up with this stupid, unsterile-hospital-environment story.” Robin couldn’t believe David approved it this was crazy. But now he’d wrecked his career, and possibly the whole show, with this dumb Junior Mint plotline. People who had been there for decades were protective of their power. Everything felt overly cautious and full of fiefdoms. SNL was a surprisingly corporate environment all anyone talked about were ratings. Robin was happier at Seinfeld than he’d been at Saturday Night Live. Tying them all together was the tough part, out of which came one of the show’s first memorably absurd moments: when Jerry and Kramer observe the artist’s surgery from the gallery above while they snack on Junior Mints, only to drop one into the open body cavity below. He had some reasonable plots lined up: Jerry dates a woman whose name he can’t remember Elaine visits an old artist boyfriend in hospital to rekindle their romance when she sees he’s lost a lot of weight George buys a piece of art by Elaine’s paramour in case he dies in surgery and the value shoots up. His desperation led to some bizarre pitches, none more than the one that became his first episode, The Junior Mint. Now he couldn’t write a thing without ripping it apart. How would he maintain that quality? Or would he be the one to ruin it? When he got the call from the Seinfeld office, he knew he’d stumbled on something big and felt a huge responsibility to keep the show great. He had been editor of the Harvard Lampoon and worked as a writer at Saturday Night Live. He knew he could throw some Burl Ives into a Seinfeld script and Larry and Jerry would get it. Although he was in his 20s, he loved stuff from the 50s and 60s, smooth crooners like Johnny Mathis and Petula Clark. He felt a kinship with David and Seinfeld. Photograph: NBC via GettyĪndy Robin got his first Seinfeld script assignment in the fourth season, when he was already a fan. ‘They let some amateur in and he came up with this stupid, unsterile story’ … the Junior Mint. The director Tom Cherones saw it as similar to his own early feelings about the show. ![]() Actor James Hong expressed his confusion. In fact, the script baffled even the man who played the Chinese restaurant host. ![]() If the network didn’t like this, they didn’t like the show. ![]() David was adamant it was a funny half-hour of television about life’s little frustrations. Indeed, David balked even when Ludwin said – gingerly – “If you feel passionate about this, which you obviously do, go do it, and we’ll hope for the best.” He took David for a walk around the lot and allowed him to vent. But they also knew how precarious Seinfeld’s future was. David, especially, would not take this lightly. Now they sat in Bosgang’s car and agreed that killing the script was too provocative. They’d gone to the table-read in hopes of seeing progress – but there’d been no change. They didn’t think they could sell a concept this flimsy. Was this thing missing pages or something? There was no story! What would the other NBC executives say? To Bosgang, it confirmed the network’s worst fears about Larry David and Seinfeld – that they couldn’t hack it making a sitcom long-term. They’d been worried about the script from the get-go.
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