Seinfeld: The Label Maker | Episode 98 Recap Podcast

Rob Cesternino and Akiva Wienerkur labeled themselves excited to bring you another Post Show Recap of their run through the Seinfeld series. This time they break down “The Label Maker”, which first aired January 19, 1995 as part of season six.  The episode was written by Alec Berg and Jeff Schaffer.

News – Rob wanted to remind the listeners to call in to the voicemail line on postshowrecaps.com/voicemail for their own 100th episode retrospective, or the traditional way by emailing [email protected].  Akiva noted that Obama was in Cuba with Seinfeld guest star Derek Jeter for a goodwill baseball game this past week.

Jerry’s story – Jerry has to give away his Super Bowl tickets due to the Drake having his wedding the same day.  He eventually gives them to Tim Whatley.  He learns soon after that the Drake’s wedding is off, and is thinking of degifting the tickets, since Whatley was guilty of regifting the label baby.  He later finds out that Tim has invited Newman, then eventually Elaine.  After Tim learns Elaine doesn’t want to share a bed, he offers the ticket back to Jerry, who ends up seated next to Newman at the game.

George’s story – George is dating a new woman, Bonnie, and is finally getting to see her apartment.  When he sees Bonnie’s apartment, he is in love with it, especially the velvet couch, except she has a male roommate that looks just like George.  He can’t seem to get over it, eventually inadvertently convincing Bonnie to drop Scott as a roommate.  This ruins everything, since all the great stuff, including the velvet couch in the apartment belonged to Scott.

Elaine’s story – Elaine discovers that Tim Whatley may have regifted the label maker to Jerry she gave him for Christmas.  She decides to get to the bottom of it by going out with Tim, then asking to go up to his apartment after to look for it.  This leads Tim to think he is getting to go “downtown” with her, so he invites her to the Super Bowl with him, though the hotel he reserves only has one bed.  Elaine is offended by this, so she calls off the date, admonishing Tim for regifting the label baby.

Kramer’s story – Kramer and Newman are involved in a heated game of Risk, so heated that they needed to have Jerry keep an eye on the board while Newman was at work.  Despite many attempts by Newman to disrupt the status of the game, they eventually reconvene.  The game is interrupted again when Kramer’s car gets towed, but he grabs the board to take with him.  While on the subway, a Ukrainian mistakes their game talk for trashing his country, so he promptly smashes the board, ruining their game.

Rob and Akiva tangents – Rob and Akiva went on several great tangents throughout the recap.  Akiva shared how he threw a Super Bowl party for the very game in the episode, complete with the six foot party sub. The guys talked about how they both have experience with label makers, both agreeing the labels leave much to be desired.  Rob shared how he had a college friend that went the female roommate route that didn’t go well, while Akiva confirmed he could never be the Scott in that situation.  Akiva wondered why Newman doesn’t evoke the federal offense technique whenever anyone lays a hand on him.  When discussing which character would make the worst world leader, Akiva thought it would be Uncle Leo, but Chester had a whole list, with Steinbrenner, Mr. Lippman, Mr. Peterman and Susan as the greatest potential world leaders.

What doesn’t work in 2016 – In 2016, Jerry could just sell his Super Bowl ticket online.  Also, Kramer and Newman would probably have played a digital game, or just snap a photo of the Risk board with a phone.  Lastly, George could find out a lot about Bonnie and Scott from their Facebook pages.

Grades and Ranking – Akiva and Rob thought Jerry had a descent storyline, earning a B.  They thought George was great once again, earning an A.  They disagreed on Elaine’s grade, with Akiva saying C, while Rob loved the “label baby” line, giving her a B.  Both enjoyed the Kramer and Newman Risk game, deciding he deserved an A.  Akiva thought it was a solid but not spectacular episode, ranking it at 92, while Rob thought it should be ranked better.

Emails – Dan the benefactor wondered who would be a better world leader, Kramer or Newman.  He thought Kramer would be too erratic, but Newman is evil.  Johnny De Silveira wondered why George couldn’t just break up with Bonnie.  Akiva and Rob chalked it up to George being George.  Craig emailed in to remark how happy he was to hear the CFL reference.  He also asked how they thought George’s devils’ threesome ended up.  Rob and Akiva thought George probably folded pretty quickly and got out of there.

Liz emailed in and expressed how she loves how they tie the stories together, but thought it was creepy of Tim Whatley to just assume one bed in the hotel would be fine without asking.  Jess also had a point about this topic, finding it weird that Elaine would be prudish about the hotel when she’s been wanting to get together with Tim for some time.  Lindsay asked if either has had any marathon board game competitions.  Rob noted that he played a game for 38 straight days, while Akiva had a 5 hour session of Monopoly, but it promptly ended when Shabbat ended and they were allowed to use technology again.

Amir wondered why Newman would allow Jerry to be the neutral party when he’s so close to Kramer.  Akiva thought Newman would think Jerry wouldn’t care enough to help Kramer cheat.  He also thought that Bonnie and Scott may have had a preexisting relationship since they had discussed the threesome prior to George mentioning it.  Lastly, Chester pointed out it was strange that Kramer, George and Elaine were not invited to the Drake’s wedding, but friends enough to have to buy an engagement gift earlier in the series.

Tune in next week as the guys will recap “The Scofflaw”. 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.