Seinfeld: The Mom & Pop Store | Episode 94 Recap Podcast

Rob Cesternino and Akiva Wienerkur have all their sneakers clean and ready for this week’s Seinfeld Post Show Recap episode.  This week they breakdown “The Mom and Pop Store”, which first aired November 17, 1994 as part of season six.  The episode was written by Tom Gammill and Max Pross.

Seinfeld related news – Akiva shared how Jerry is selling some of his Porsches, one of which is going for $7 million dollars.  In other news, Jerry won a bet with actor Steve Martin that led to Martin doing the opening standup act for Jerry after a decades long absence.

Jerry’s story – Jerry spends much of the episode wondering if he is invited to Tim Whatley’s party, considering Tim called for George and Elaine’s addresses.  Meanwhile, Kramer convinces him to let the Mom and Pop cobbler store clean and detail all his sneakers.  After stepping in gum, George doesn’t allow Jerry in his new car, so he has to wear cowboy boots since all his other shoes are at the cobbler.  After ridiculing George when they find out the John Voight who owned it spelled his name differently, George kicks him out the car near some street toughs.  When they chase him, he slips because of the boots and chips a tooth.

Desperate for a dentist because of his tooth, he tries to tag along to the party with either George or Kramer, but neither want to be associated with party crashing.  He decides to crash it on his own, and when he gets a dentist to look at the tooth, he accidentally knocks a statue of the Empire State Building out the window that falls on the Woody Woodpecker balloon being blown up below, popping it.  Tim yells at Jerry and points out he wasn’t even invited to the party.  The episode ends with Jerry and Kramer on a bus down to New Jersey in order to track down Mom and Pop, who stole Jerry’s shoes.

George’s story – George is shopping for a new car and has his sights set on the Volvo, but the salesman convinces him to buy the Chrysler LeBaron because the actor Jon Voight once owned it.  When Jerry is skeptical about it all, George tries to find a way to prove it so.  When Kramer gets bitten by Jon Voight, George also notices a pencil in the glove box from the prior owner, so he and Kramer decide to ask one of the dentists at Tim Whatley’s party to confirm if the bite marks are the same.  But at the party, Tim remarks how George must have bought John Voight the dentist’s LeBaron, ruining the mystique of the car.

Elaine’s story – Elaine is excited to be invited to Tim Whatley’s party, since she’s always had a crush on him.  In the meantime, she helps Mr. Pitt win a spot holding the rope on the Woody Woodpecker balloon in the Thanksgiving Day Parade by answering trivia about big band music.  When she picks up the tickets, she has to sit through a live big band performance, with the noise causing temporary hearing loss.  While at Tim’s party, she mistakenly turns down Tim when he asks her on a date, because she couldn’t hear him ask.

Kramer’s story – Kramer convinces Jerry to let the local Mom and Pop cobblers to clean all his sneakers to help keep them in business.  When he brings the sneakers in to the cobblers, he gets a nose bleed.  While lying back to stop the bleeding, he notices the wiring on the ceiling looks like it needs attention, which ends up costing Mom and Pop thousands of dollars.  While battling another nose bleed later, Kramer sees Jon Voight getting in a cab, so he chases him down to ask about the LeBaron.  Voight is startled by Kramer, so he bites his arm to get away from him.

Rob and Akiva tangents – Akiva opened the show by discussing his Twitter feud with his 14 year old sister.  Rob and Akiva spend some time talking about Jon Voight’s show Ray Donovan.  Rob brought up to Akiva that he didn’t share the not so fun fact of Boutros Boutros Golly recently passed away.  In the emails, Rob shared how he has often suffered from sporadic nose bleeds throughout his life.

What wouldn’t work in 2016 – It would be easy to find out via Instagram whether Jon Voight did own this car.  Also, Wal-Mart would have long since caused Mom and Pop to go out of business.

Letter grades and rankings – Akiva thought George deserved a B+, while Rob loved it, giving him an A.  Both thought Jerry deserved a C, as it was pretty weak.  Both also agreed that Kramer deserved an F.  Lastly, they agreed that Elaine deserved a B.  Akiva thought there were many holes in the plotline, so he ranked it at 144, while Rob thought it should be much higher.

Emails – Johnny De Silveira noted that writer Tom Gammill was the one who thought he was buying Jon Voight’s LeBaron, and it was in fact owned by Jon Voight’s mother.  He also asked why Kramer was getting so many nose bleeds.  Dr. Thomas the medical correspondent actually answered this question independently in an email, pointing out that normal healthy people do get nose bleeds, but perhaps the theory of Kramer being involved in the drug game could be the root of this.

Craig wrote in wondering if it was a coincidence that the recap of Tim Whatley’s first appearance on the show happened on the same weekend Bryan Cranston is up for the Oscar, though Rob and Akiva didn’t add credence to this.  Amir emailed to point out how it’s hypocritical of Kramer to bad mouth CEOs when he later runs Kramerica Industries.  He also asks why Tim had the Empire State Building statue, but Rob pointed out that it was Elaine who brought him this.  Lastly, Chester wrote in to share how in 2016, no radio station would have a song trivia giveaway since there are so many apps like Soundhound that could help cheating.  He also asked why Mr. Pitt wouldn’t just leverage his important status and buy his spot under the Woody Woodpecker float.

Tune in next week as the guys will recap “The Secretary”. Send in your questions by emailing[email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast by going to postshowrecaps.com/seinfeldITunes where you can rate and review the podcast. You can get a discussion going about the podcast by leaving a comment on the show page, and as always, you can follow them on Twitter @robcesternino and @keev26.