If you can’t be Randal Graves, perhaps you could learn a thing or two from Cosmo Kramer.
The character Kramer from the sitcom Seinfeld is a fascinating character to study because he lives the stereotypical life of Riley. This article is a deep dive into the character because I kept coming back to Seinfeld while writing Herd Immunity. Kramer exhibits the textbook slacker in many ways that Randal doesn’t. Let me go through a few of my favorites and tie them into themes I discuss throughout the books.
In the pilot episode The Seinfeld Chronicles, Kramer spoils the ending of the Mets game to Jerry and then remarks, “You know, I almost wound up going to that game?” Jerry responds, “You haven’t been out of the building in ten years.”1 I’m glad they abandoned this angle because Kramer is more fun when he’s out in public. Also, doesn’t that sound like a textbook misanthrope: staying in his apartment for ten years? This is the first instance of Kramer mooching food off his neighbors, as he shows up with two empty slices of bread and asks Jerry if he has any meat.2
To better understand Kramer, one has to understand the slacker mindset better. Kramer is a very laid-back character. Throughout the show, we only see him get rattled a couple of times. For the most part, Kramer goes about his day-to-day life, content to let the world happen to him. For a bit of a gestalt of Kramer, here is George Costanza’s description of Kramer from the episode The Visa:
Kramer goes to a fantasy camp. His whole life is a fantasy camp. People should plunk down two-thousand dollars to live like him for a week: do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors and have sex without dating; that’s a fantasy camp.3
I discuss retiring early in Herd Immunity, Societal Deprogramming, but Kramer realizes his dream of retiring early and moves to Florida. There is another excellent Kramer moment from the episode The Wizard:
Jerry: How much are they payin’ you?
Kramer: Let’s just say that I don’t have to worry about working for a while. A long while.
Jerry: That’s funny because I haven’t seen you working for a while. A long while.
Kramer: Yeah, and you’re not going to, because I’m hanging it up. Boys, I’m retiring.
Jerry: From what?
Kramer: From the grind. I mean, who needs it? I mean, I’ve accomplished everything I’ve set out to do.
Jerry: [seeing that Kramer has a new watch] What’s that?
Kramer: Oh, I bought myself a little retirement gift. Gold watch.
Jerry and George: Ooh!
Kramer: Well, it’s not really gold.
Jerry and George: Aww.4
I cataloged Kramer’s antics from all nine seasons of Seinfeld. Like in the Randal post, I took the liberty of splitting them into various spheres of life. I encourage readers to watch the show, particularly if you enjoy well-written television. I also included the title of every episode for easy reference.
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Social:
- Kramer has a varied social circle. He’s friends and neighbors with Jerry and, consequently, friends with George and Elaine. His best friend is Newman, Jerry’s mortal enemy, who lives across the hall. In addition, Kramer has several friends mentioned but never shown: Specter, Lomez, and Bob Sacamano are notables.
- Kramer mooches stuff off his friends and neighbors.
- Kramer is under the impression that he can take anything from Jerry’s fridge and vice-versa. To counter this mooching problem, Kramer invents a tab system where he writes down everything he eats and drinks from Jerry’s fridge aiming to “settle up” at the end of the week. [The Seven]
- Kramer doesn’t carry his wallet after his osteopath says it’s bad for his spine and throws his hips off-kilter. When George asks him what he does for money, Kramer says he never takes it with him, and somehow he gets by. [The Dinner Party]
- When Jerry buys a new Saab 900 from Puddy, Kramer takes another salesman out for an all-day test drive to endorse the car for his celebrity friend (Jerry). [The Dealership]
- Kramer mistrusts the stock market, claiming, “It’s all manipulated with junk bonds.” [The Stock Tip]
- Kramer practices radical honesty: He tells George’s girlfriend, Audrey, “she’s just as pretty as other girls; she just needs a nose job.” [The Nose Job]
- Kramer also makes a few enemies: After Jerry tells crazy Joe Davola about Kramer’s party, Davola kicks Kramer in the head for not inviting him. Thankfully, he traded his radar detector to Newman for his motorcycle helmet. When the radar detector fails, Newman tries to use Kramer to fight his speeding ticket in court. Kramer can’t remember the lies and blows it, causing Newman to fly into a rage and attack him on the witness stand. [The Pitch]
- Kramer distrusts the medical profession. When George needs a tonsillectomy, he suggests Tor Eckman, a healer and naturalist. Eckman’s potion turns George Purple. [The Heart Attack]
- Kramer has a skill in which he always remembers a face. While on an airport pick-up with George, he sees a familiar man and then proceeds to wrack his brain over who this gentleman is. When driving to LaGuardia to pick up Jerry and Elaine, he remembers that the man was an old roommate that owed him money. Kramer spends the rest of the episode trying to get the money back. [The Airport]
- Kramer believes everyone in the apartment building should be on a first-name basis. He takes Polaroids of the tenants and posts them on the wall in the lobby. [The Kiss Hello]
- Kramer is rarely starstruck: He saw Joe DiMaggio at Dinky Donuts [The Note]; he scared Fred Savage away in a café in Hollywood. [The Trip] Kramer becomes an assistant to Bette Midler when she gets injured in a charity softball game. [The Understudy] Kramer and Newman despise Keith Hernandez after he spits on them after a Mets game. They learn it was a misunderstanding and agree to help him move. [The Boyfriend]
- Kramer means well with his philanthropy: He keeps forgetting to enter the New York marathon. [The Apartment] Kramer volunteers for the PBS pledge drive, but only for the tote bags. [The Pledge Drive] Despite this, he thinks that UNICEF is a money-laundering operation with the kids and the little orange boxes. [The Cartoon] Kramer misunderstands George and sells a birthday card with the entire Yankees organization’s signatures to a sports collector, who then sells it to a child who is dying of cancer. Kramer promises the child that Paul O’Neil will hit two home runs for him in exchange for the card. [The Wink] Kramer does an AIDS walk but refuses to wear the ribbon and is assaulted when refusing. [The Sponge] Kramer helps restore a historic theater to help gain landmark status from the city. [The Gum] While dropping off a list of shortcuts for the fire department, a fire breaks out at a store, and Kramer fulfills his lifelong dream of steering the hook-and-ladder. Sadly, the store still burns to the ground. [The Secret Code]
- Kramer is a connoisseur of the finer things: He likes fresh fruit from a specialty market and gets banned when he tries to return a rotten peach. [The Mango] He understands the value of having a great barber. [The Barber] He also splits a case of Mackinaw peaches with Newman. [The Doodle] He wants a chicken to get cage-free eggs but buys a rooster instead. [The Little Jerry] Kramer likes fresh clothing from the drier. He begins heating his clothes in the oven when he runs out of quarters. After agreeing to pick up calzones for George and Steinbrenner, he gets kicked out of Paisano’s because they cooked his clothes too long. [The Calzone] Kramer adopts a one-mile stretch of the Arthur Burkhart Expressway. He refuses to use their clean-up crew and does it himself. He also decides to widen the lanes by blacking out lane lines one and three, turning four lanes into two, causing major accidents and pile-ups. [The Pothole] After being displeased with the meat quality in a sandwich at the coffee shop, Kramer trades his sausage press for a deli slicer. [The Slicer]
- Kramer is adept at cold-reading. When George refuses to tell his fiancé his ATM pin, Kramer deduces it by reading George’s body language and understanding his innermost desires. [The Secret Code]
Women:
- George attempts to convert to Latvian Orthodox to continue dating his girlfriend. When Kramer picks him up from the basilica, he meets a novice (aspiring nun), and she falls for him and begins questioning her faith. Later in the episode, the patriarch tells Kramer that he has this lure of the animal, in Latvian, the kavorca. Kramer then attempts to rid himself of the kavorca by bathing in vinegar and garlic. [The Conversion]
- In a later episode, Kramer meets Uma Thurman at the movies. He takes Jerry’s dry-cleaning stub to write her number down. When Elaine asks how he pulled that off, Jerry remarks, “He’s got the kavorca. Later, he buys a tube of moisturizer from Barney’s, and it leaks inside his suit that he sells to Bania, forever erasing the number. [The Secretary]
- After Kramer has sex with his girlfriend Emily, he can’t sleep in the same bed because she has “jimmy legs.” They decide to have sex at her place, and they both sleep at their place. Kramer thinks someone is breaking into his apartment, so he moves into Costanza’s house, where he and Emily have separate beds. [The Money]
- When Jerry wants to break up with a Romanian gymnast, Kramer convinces him to stick it out because of the flexibility. When Jerry tells Kramer there’s always a price to pay for sexual dalliances, Kramer tells him to pay that price. [The Gymnast]
- Kramer believes in safe sex. He gets a gross of condoms from his friend Bob Sacamano and shares them with his friends. [The Fix-Up]
- After the four friends enter a contest regarding who can go the longest without masturbating, Jerry and Kramer see a gorgeous woman in an apartment across the street. Kramer leaves Jerry’s apartment and then enters a couple of minutes later, slams $100 on the counter, and exclaims, “I’m out!” At the end of the episode, the audience sees Kramer sleeping peacefully with the woman from across the street. [The Contest]
- Kramer sees one of Jerry’s exes, Gail, on the street and snubs her. Because he snubbed her on the street, it intrigues her. Gail never kissed Jerry after three dates, but she makes out with Kramer after the snub. Kramer then rationalizes that he understands women–the snub is good! They love the snub! [The Shoes] Elaine confirms this later when she dates a pilot. In her words, “because he doesn’t pay attention to me and he ignores me… I respect that.” [The Wife]
- George “drives women to lesbianism; Kramer brings them back.” [The Smelly Car]
- Kramer is vehemently anti-marriage. When George and Jerry have a conversation in the coffee shop, wondering if there is more to life, Kramer sets Jerry straight, telling him that there isn’t! He describes marriage and kids as “man-made prisons” because she’s always there, and you have to ask permission to use the bathroom. [The Engagement]
- Due to a mix-up at the DMV, Kramer ends up with a proctologist’s vanity plate, “ASSMAN.” As a result, big-assed women throw themselves at Kramer. While driving George’s mother home from the doctor, Kramer stops short at a light, and Estelle interprets it as he is “copping a feel.” George’s dad, Frank, accuses Kramer of “stealing his move.” [The Fusilli Jerry]
Work:
- Kramer was out of work for a long time. Throughout the show, he never had a job, but he does work a few times throughout the show. Despite being out of work, Kramer always seems to find money.
- Kramer has a tenuous career as an actor: First, Kramer gets a small role in a Woody Allen film as an extra. Because he makes Woody laugh, he is given a small speaking role: “These pretzels are making me thirsty!” [The Alternate Side] Kramer gets in trouble with Jerry for using his apartment too much, and Jerry takes his spare keys back. This prompts Kramer to move to Los Angeles to further his acting career. He gets a bit part on Murphy Brown and is fired after one episode. [The Keys] While living in L.A., he’s confused for a serial killer, “The Smog Strangler.” [The Trip] When Jerry and George are casting the pilot for NBC, Kramer auditions to play the role of Kramer. Kramer doesn’t get the part, but he attempts to coach the actor on how to play him. [The Pilot] Kramer’s friend Mickey gets a job as a stand-in on the soap opera All My Children. [The Stand-In] When Mickey auditions to be in the Actor’s Studio, Kramer ruins the scene by being unable to sit down because of his skin-tight jeans. [The Wait Out] Mickey gets Kramer a job as a seat-filler at the Tony Awards. When Scarsdale Surprise wins the award, he’s whisked onstage with the producers. The producers allow Kramer to keep the Tony if he fires Raquel Welch from the show. [The Summer of George] Kramer and Mickey act out symptoms of various diseases at a hospital for med students; Kramer’s gonorrhea portrayal steals the show. [The Burning]
- Kramer was on strike at H&H bagels for twelve years until management gave in to their demands to pay him $5.35 per hour. Elaine tells Kramer, “I believe that is the new minimum wage. “ Kramer retorts, “ Now you know who to thank for that.” [The Strike]
Entrepreneurial Ventures:
- Kramer has his umbrella corporation throughout the show, named Kramerica Industries.
- Early in the series, he conceives the idea of a make-your-own pizza place (Think Mod Pizza or Blaze Pizza) with the added twist that the customers top their pizzas and then slide them into the oven. When George corrects him that “you can’t have people shoving their arms into a 600-degree oven!” Kramer responds, “It’s all supervised!” [Male Unbonding] This venture almost gets off the ground when Kramer and Poppie partner up and then call it quits because they argue over the right to choose any toppings they want, mirroring the pro-life/choice debate. [The Couch]
- Kramer conceives an idea for a coffee table book about coffee tables and later pitches it to Elaine’s boss at Pendant Publishing. [The Cigar Store Indian] His book is such a hit that it lands him on the Regis and Kathy Lee show. The book is canceled when Elaine’s boss refuses to shake hands with the Japanese consortium leader, and their merger gets canceled. [The Opposite] Kramer later options it for a movie, prompting his retirement to Florida. [The Wizard]
- Elaine and J. Peterman buy Kramer’s kooky stories for $750 when Elaine realizes that Peterman’s day-to-day life is boring. Kramer gets bummed out when he can no longer tell his stories at public gatherings. [The Van Buren Boys] Even though Peterman gives Kramer his stories back, Elaine still uses them in the book. Kramer confronts Peterman at a book signing, and he gets thrown out. As revenge, he starts the Peterman Reality Bus Tour, driving a bus around New York City, showing people the highlights of his life. Kramer later uses the bus to haul Elaine’s muffin stumps to the dump. [The Muffin Tops]
- Kramer partners with Jerry’s father, Morty, to sell his vintage raincoats to a second-hand store in New York. However, the venture sours when moths eat the raincoats after George donates his father’s cabana clothes to the same store. [The Raincoats]
- After noticing that George’s father, Frank, has breasts, he and Frank decide to manufacture and market a brassiere for men: The Bro, aka The Mansiere. [The Doorman]
- Kramer and Newman partner on a few schemes: They collect records to sell for a profit, but the records break in a fight with the store owner. [The Old Man] They collect 10,000 pop bottles and cans to drive in a mail truck to Michigan to exchange them for ten cents instead of five. [The Bottle Deposit] After reading that Hong Kong is outlawing the Rickshaw, Kramer conceives the idea of bringing the Rickshaw to New York City. They decide to use homeless people to pilot the carriage, but the venture never takes off because a homeless person steals their carriage. [The Bookstore]
- When the owners decide to renovate the Cloud Club restaurant (an idea Kramer conceived two years prior), he realizes he has no time to pursue his entrepreneurial ventures and hires an intern. Their first invention was a bladder system for oil tankers to prevent ocean spills. When Kramer and Darin push the bladder out the window onto Jerry’s girlfriend, Darin takes the rap for Kramerica Industries. [The Voice]
Leisure:
- Kramer has a gambling problem that appears in multiple episodes: He bets Jerry a big dinner with a dessert that he can redesign his apartment with levels and steps. [The Pony Remark] Kramer learns about a fixed horse race on the subway. He wins and gets chased out of OTB. [The Subway] Kramer sits in the Diplomat’s club at La Guardia airport and gambles with a Texan on flight arrivals. When he gets deep in the hole, Newman brings a mailbag owned by David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) as collateral. [The Diplomat’s Club]
- Cigar smoking is a common theme throughout the show as well. George regifts a box of Cuban cigars to Kramer, which was given to him by Susan’s father. [The Wallet] Kramer accidentally burns down Susan’s father’s cabin with one of the same cigars. [The Bubble Boy] After getting kicked out of the coffee shop for smoking, Kramer turns his apartment into a smoking lounge. [The Abstinence]
- Kramer plays a lot of golf. He had a deal with the pro at the Westchester Country Club, every time he gave him a Cuban cigar, he got a free round of golf. Because the cigars all burned in the cabin fire, he goes to the Cuban embassy to get more cigars. Kramer trades his favorite jacket for Cuban cigars and free golf. [The Cheever Letters] Kramer also endangers the life of a whale while practicing his drives at Rockaway Beach. [The Marine Biologist] Kramer’s also a stickler for the rules. After enforcing a rule on the golf course with a former baseball player, the baseball player was seen in a dispute with a dry cleaner and later questioned about his murder. Kramer drives the escape Bronco, taking the baseball player to see his fish. [The Big Salad] Kramer’s dream is to become a pro on the senior tour, so he hires a caddy. Stan the Caddy helps him off the course with other aspects of his day-to-day life. Stan costs Kramer his lawsuit with a candy bar heiress. [The Caddy]
- Kramer is also an amateur photographer. He takes Elaine’s photo for her Christmas card, and she inadvertently exposes her nipple. [The Pick] Kramer also takes George’s photo when George is interested in dating the cute girl who works at the one-hour photo place. [The Package]
- Kramer also has a good fitness regimen. He mainly swims but also walks a lot because he lives in Manhattan. After being unable to get his time in the pool because of old people’s exercise classes, he decides to swim in the polluted East River. [The Nap]
- Kramer has a varied sleep schedule and doesn’t trust alarm clocks. He has a mental alarm and sets his head for 6:45 A.M. [The Hot Tub] He also reveals that he doesn’t wear a watch because he tells the time by the sun. He can accurately guess within an hour. Elaine asks him what he does at night. He says, “well, night is tougher, but it’s only a couple of hours.” [The Engagement] When Kramer reads a biography of Leonardo da Vinci, he becomes fascinated with polyphasic sleep. He rationalizes that taking a 20-minute nap every three hours will give him more time to complete his other projects. This plan backfires when he falls asleep on his girlfriend, Connie. Thinking that he died, Connie calls her brothers, and they dump Kramer in the Hudson River. [The Friars Club] Kramer eventually gets a pocket watch. He gets sick of waiting for daylight savings time and “springs ahead” an hour before it starts. He shows up to the basketball game an hour early and gets kicked out when he throws a hotdog at Reggie Miller. [The Susie]
- My favorite aspect of Kramer’s slacking is when Lomez sells him his hot tub. It fits in his apartment with all the wood paneling. Elaine’s marathon-runner friend, Jean-Paul Jean-Paul, takes a soak in it. [The Hot Tub] Kramer traded his stereo to Lomez for some steaks. [The Package] Kramer’s Japanese friends also take a soak and drink saké. [The Checks]
Kramer is a fantastic case study on slacking. Whether you love Seinfeld or not, I urge everyone to live a little like Kramer. I have one challenge for my readers: go back and watch Seinfeld again, this time through the eyes of Cosmo Kramer. I think you’ll begin to see the show, and life itself, in a new light.
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1 Seinfeld. 1989. Season 1 Episode 1. “The Seinfeld Chronicles.” Directed by Art Wolff. Written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. Aired July 5, 1989, on NBC. https://www.netflix.com/title/70153373
2 Ibid.
3 Seinfeld. 1993. Season 4 Episode 15. “The Visa.” Directed by Tom Cherones. Written by Peter Mehlman. Aired January 27, 1993, on NBC. https://www.netflix.com/title/70153373
4 Seinfeld. 1998. Season 9 Episode 15. “The Wizard.” Directed by Andy Ackerman. Written by Steve Lookner. Aired February 26, 1998, on NBC. https://www.netflix.com/title/70153373