The Boyfriend (Seinfeld)

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Boyfriend
Series = Seinfeld


Caption = Kramer is hit with spit.
Season = 3
Episode = 34 - 35
Airdate = February 19, 1992
Production =
Writer = Larry David & Larry Levin
Director = Tom Cherones
Guests = Keith Hernandez
Episode list = List of "Seinfeld" episodes
Season list = Infobox Seinfeld season 3 episode list
Prev =
Next =

"The Boyfriend" is a two part episode of the sitcom "Seinfeld". The episode was the 35th and 36th episode for the show, and 18th and 19th episode for the show's third season. It aired on February 19, 1992.

Plot

The Boyfriend, Part 1

Jerry meets Keith Hernandez and wants to make a good impression. Meanwhile, George is out of time on his unemployment and he works harder than ever on his scheme to get a 13-week extension. He tells the unemployment office he was close to a job with Vandelay Industries, a company that makes latex products and whose main office is Jerry's apartment. Kramer and Newman take Hernandez back to a time when they were allegedly spit on by him; however, Jerry supports the "second-spitter theory" that Hernandez was not involved. Keith asks Jerry about Elaine's status. Keith makes a date with her and breaks a date with Jerry.

The Boyfriend, Part 2

George tries two more approaches with the unemployment officer. Jerry gets Kramer to accompany him to see a former neighbors' new baby, "you got to see the baby." Though he's gone out with Keith once, does that mean he must help him move? Elaine and Keith are hitting it off until he pulls out a cigarette. George wants to sleep with a really tall woman. Keith supports the "second spitter theory." Jerry and Elaine both break up with Keith and George might get his wish.

uperman reference

* Keith Hernandez: I love your bit on Jimmy Olsen.

Magic Loogie Theory

Kramer: I hate Keith Hernandez. Hate him.
Newman: I despise him.
Elaine: Why?
Newman: Why? I'll tell you why?
Kramer and Newman who should talk then decides they both tell their sides of the story.Newman: June 14, 1987, Mets Phillies. We're enjoying a beautiful afternoon in the right field stands when a crucial Hernandez error opens the door to a five run Phillies ninth. Cost the Mets the game.
Kramer: Our day was ruined. There was a lot of people, you know they were waiting by the player's parking lot. Now we're coming down the ramp ... (cuts to a flashback filmed in the same style as the Zapruder film) ... Newman was in front of me. Hernandez was coming toward us, as he passes Newman turns and says, "Nice game pretty boy." Keith continued past us up the ramp.
Newman: Then a second later, something happened that changed us in a deep and profound way from that day forward.
Elaine: What was it?
Kramer: He spit on us... and I screamed out, "I'm hit!"
Newman: Then I turned and the spit ricochet off him and it hit me.
Elaine: Wow, what a story.
Jerry: Unfortunately the immutable laws of physics contradict the whole premise of your account.
Allow me to reconstruct this if I may for Miss Benes as I've heard this story a number of times.
Newman, Kramer, if you'll indulge me.
According to your story Hernandez passes you and starts walking up the ramp.
Then you say you were struck on the right temple.
The spit then proceeds to ricochet off the temple striking Newman between the third and fourth rib.
The spit then came off the rib made a right turn hitting Newman in the right wrist causing him to drop his baseball cap.
The spit then splashed off the wrist, Pauses in mid air mind you...
Makes a left turn, and lands on Newman's left thigh.
That is one magic loogie.

Trivia

* The working title for this episode was "The New Friend" Part 1. On the Seinfeld Season 3 box set, this episode was included with an introduction by Jerry Seinfeld. He names the episode "The New Friend."
* According to Newman and Kramer, Hernandez spit on them after a New York Met game against Philadelphia Phillies on June 14, 1987. They state that he committed an error which opened up a 5 run 9th inning costing the Mets the game. The Mets, in fact, played the Pittsburgh Pirates on that date, away, at Three Rivers Stadium. The Mets won 7-3 with Keith Hernandez going 2-4 with 2 RBI & 2 runs scored. Keith, along with the rest of the Mets, did not commit a single error. [http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/schedule.php?y=1987&t=NYN]
* According to the special introduction by Jerry Seinfeld available on the DVD, this (and part two) was his favorite Seinfeld episode (at the time).
* The spitting scene was a reference to the John F. Kennedy assassination and the magic bullet theory, as dramatized in the movie JFK, in which Wayne Knight (Newman) played a supporting part. He played the same role in both the Seinfeld episode and the JFK movie.
* Also present in the film cutaway, a man can be seen on a grassy knoll opening his black umbrella. This is a reference to the famous Umbrella Man present at the Kennedy assassination
* Though Jerry first spoke the immortal line "Hello, Newman" earlier this season in "The Suicide", this episode marks the first time that he says it with his familiar intonation of loathing, which he would use for all subsequent utterances of the phrase.
* The events of a Hernandez error are based on a game in Philadelphia in 1985.
* After Newman and Kramer put their differences with Hernandez behind them, they both state their reasons as to why Roger McDowell spat on them. Kramer says that they were in the right field bleachers yelling at him in the bullpen. This would mean that the game would have had to have been played at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia since Shea Stadium has no right field bleachers. The term "gravelly road," a parody of the "grassy knoll" of Dealey Plaza, could have applied to either Shea or the Vet.
* In the "Inside Look" for the episode on the Seinfeld DVD, Keith Hernandez said that Darryl Strawberry was originally supposed to be the "Second Spitter", but Hernandez said that due to Strawberry's recent drug problems, Roger McDowell would be a better choice at the moment.
* Toward the end of the episode, Elaine breaks up with Hernandez because he smokes. Jerry tells her, "You're like dating C. Everett Koop!" referring to the U.S. Surgeon General who crusaded against smoking in the 1980s. Hernandez would eventually quit smoking, and in 2008 began doing anti-smoking public service announcements that aired on SportsNet New York, for which he works as an analyst on broadcasts of Met games.