Callbacks have always been a staple of comedy, especially in stand-up when jokes can be repeated later in a set with new context. It took a while for the callback to make its way to TV comedy, because TV comedy is built around audiences not needing to watch every episode, thus being able to drop in on any week and understand what’s going on.
The TV callback was revolutionized by one of the biggest fanbases in TV history, the writers felt comfortable calling back to classic episodes a few weeks or even years after they initially aired.
George Double-Dips A Chip
One of the most iconic moments in Seinfeld history is George getting schooled in the dishonorable art of double-dipping. A few episodes later, in the season finale “The Pilot,” George can be seen double-dipping a chip.
It’s unsurprising that George learned nothing from the incident, as he stood his ground even then: “You dip the way you wanna dip, and I’ll dip the way I wanna dip.” It’s like putting his whole mouth right in the dip!
Mendy’s
In “The Soup,” after Kenny Bania gives Jerry a brand-new Armani suit in exchange for “a meal,” there’s a debate about whether or not soup constitutes a meal, as Bania takes Jerry to a restaurant called Mendy’s and decides to save the “meal” for another time.
This whole ordeal was traumatizing for Jerry, who wants to spend as little time with Bania as possible, and it shows when Jerry gives Tim Whatley tickets to the Super Bowl in “The Label Maker” and Whatley offers to take him out to Mendy’s. Jerry desperately refuses; he’s not ready to go back to Mendy’s.
“Laughing And Lying!”
When Jerry and Elaine start hanging out with Susan in “The Pool Guy,” George starts to lose his mind as his worlds collide. He tracks down the three of them to a movie theater and yells into the crowd that he knows they’re there, “Laughing and lying!”
In the series finale, when Jackie Chiles is defending the quartet in court against charges of ignoring the Good Samaritan law of Latham, Massachusetts, he similarly accuses the jury of “laughing and lying.”
Kramer’s Pasta Figurines
In “The Fusilli Jerry,” Kramer gives Jerry a little figurine he made of him out of fusilli. He tells George he’s making one of him out of ravioli, suggesting that he’s making a pasta figurine out of each of his friends.
We don’t often get to see the inside of Kramer’s apartment, but when we do in “The Pool Guy,” as he steals business from Moviefone (555-FILK), there’s a shelf full of pasta figurines in the background.
Glamour Magazine
In the opening of “The Contest,” widely regarded to be Seinfeld’s best episode, George arrives at the coffee shop and tells his friends that his mother “caught” him. As he tells the story, it begins with him leafing through a Glamour magazine.
Later that season, in “The Handicap Spot,” George visits his parents’ house while Estelle has some friends over and can be seen reading a Glamour magazine on the couch.
Plan 9 From Outer Space
In season 2’s “The Chinese Restaurant,” one of Seinfeld’s game-changing episodes, Jerry, Elaine, and George wait for a table in a restaurant, worrying they’ll miss a showing of Plan 9 from Outer Space that they’re on their way to see.
In season 7’s “The Postponement,” Jerry and Kramer a poster for another showing of the so-bad-it’s-good Ed Wood classic and Jerry mentions that five years ago, he was supposed to see it and missed the screening. This time, they get into the screening, but Kramer gets scalded by his coffee, leading to a parody of the Liebeck v. McDonald’s lawsuit.
Sponge Bath
When Estelle is hospitalized in “The Contest” and George goes to visit her, a female nurse gives a female patient a silhouetted sponge bath behind a curtain, driving George wild under the circumstances.
A few episodes later, in “The Outing,” Estelle is hospitalized again following her alarmed reaction to reading in the paper that George is gay (mistakenly outed by a student journalist profiling Jerry). When George goes to visit her, a male nurse gives a male patient a sponge bath behind the same curtain.
Ménage À Trois
In “The Switch,” Jerry tries to come up with a way to trade in his current girlfriend, who never laughs at his jokes, for her roommate, who always laughs at them, and what he and George cook up is to suggest a ménage à trois.
In “The Label Maker,” when George tries to get his girlfriend to break up with him using the same suggestive tactic on her and her roommate. Unfortunately, she and her roommate are game, putting George in an even more uncomfortable position.
George Calls Marisa Tomei
Although George and his friends’ George’s suspect date with Marisa Tomei in “The Cadillac.”
He initially struck out with Tomei because he was engaged, so after Susan’s death, he decides to call her and says, “I got the funeral tomorrow, but my weekend is pretty wide open...”
The Testimonies In The Series Finale
While the plot of the series finale wasn’t to everyone’s tastes, and it’s actually one of the most controversial finale episodes in TV history, it did pave the way for a delightful series of callbacks.
When Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are arrested in Latham, Massachusetts, for ignoring the so-called “Good Samaritan Law,” all of their old adversaries come out of the woodwork to testify in court, including Babu, Steinbrenner, Mr. Pitt, the Soup Nazi, the Bubble Boy, the low-talker (whose testimony is difficult to understand), Marla the virgin, the library detective, the old lady Jerry mugged for a marble rye, and the doctor who told an indifferent George about Susan’s death.