Jason Alexander Hated A Beloved Seinfeld Episode For A Good Reason

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Jerry Seinfeld's name may be on the title of "Seinfeld," but he alone did not turn the show into an era-defining pillar of comedy. The true engine of the series was the remarkable chemistry between the show's four leads. Jerry's titular Seinfeld filled the role of the everyman, trying (and usually failing) to chart his path through a chaotic world, but he would have been awfully lonely without the trio of Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Elaine Benes, Michael Richards' Kramer, and Jason Alexander's George popping in and out of his life.

Many of "Seinfeld's" best episodes – and also most of its worst — feature the foursome ping-ponging off one another as their best laid plans fall apart before their very eyes. There are only a few episodes that break this formula, excising a member of the neurotic gang. Turns out that Jason Alexander hated one of these episodes so much that he nearly quit the show over it. That episode was Season 3's "The Pen," which follows Jerry and Elaine visiting Jerry's parents in Florida. With no narrative reason for George and Kramer to join the trip, neither character appears in the episode, which infuriated Jason Alexander so much that, according to the book "Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything," Alexander took "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David aside to confront him about it:

"I went to Larry [David] when we came back to do the following episode, and I said, 'I gotta talk to you about what happened last week. You wrote me out of the show. I only want to be here if I'm indispensable ... If you do it again, do it permanently. If you don't need me to be here for every damn episode of "Seinfeld" you write, then I don't need to be here."

Over the years, Jason Alexander's recollection of the incident has stayed consistent, but his interpretation of it has grown more nuanced. At the time, his explanation of his outburst was purely artistic: if this show is truly meant to be about the ensemble of all four actors, then there was no reason every episode shouldn't have had some room for all of them, even if it was just a handful of lines. With his background in New York theater, Alexander came to "Seinfeld" almost like it was just another job, because at that point, it was. If he was going to leave theater behind for television, it had to be worth the risk.

Beneath that justification, however, was a bruised ego, as Alexander's co-star Michael Richards explained in his memoir "Entrances and Exits." "Jason came onto the show with the most confidence of anyone... and until the table read for 'The Pen,' he has assumed that 'Seinfeld' is a buddy show, starring him and Jerry. But this business breeds both massive egos and incredible insecurity, and this episode is one of those ego-jarring wakeup calls."

Alexander has since acknowledged that deeper psychological factors were driving his reaction. In a 2020 interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander said he was "very sorry" to have confronted Larry David the way that he did. He went on to explain that he was insecure about Julia's increased presence in the show. Luckily for everyone involved, Jerry had enough room in his home for two best friends, and Alexander is very, very glad David didn't call his bluff on leaving. "Thank god he didn't say 'take a hike,'" he joked in an interview with "Access Hollywood." "Because I would have had no life and no career."