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Cosmo Kramer is a character on the American television sitcom Seinfeld (1989–1998), played by Michael Richards. The character is loosely based on comedian Kenny Kramer, Larry David's former neighbor.
Kramer is the neighbor of main character Jerry Seinfeld, residing in Apartment 5B, and is friends with him, George and Elaine. Of the series' four central characters, only Kramer has no visible means of support; what few jobs he holds seem to be nothing more than larks.
His trademarks include his humorous upright hairstyle and vintage wardrobe, the combination of which led to his categorization as a 'hipster doofus'; his violent bursts through Jerry's apartment door; and his penchant for nonsensical, percussive bursts of noise to indicate skepticism, agreement, annoyance, and a variety of other inexplicable responses as well as his love of smoking and Cuban cigars in particular.
Kramer appeared in all but two episodes: "The Chinese Restaurant" and "The Pen", in the second and third seasons, respectively.
o Kramer was known only as "Kramer" during the show's first five seasons (from 1989 to 1994), though in the pilot, "The Seinfeld Chronicles," Jerry referred to him as Kessler, which was his original name for the show, until they changed it to Kramer.
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Encyclopedia
Cosmo Kramer is a character on the American television sitcom Seinfeld (1989–1998), played by Michael Richards. The character is loosely based on comedian Kenny Kramer, Larry David's former neighbor.
Kramer is the neighbor of main character Jerry Seinfeld, residing in Apartment 5B, and is friends with him, George and Elaine. Of the series' four central characters, only Kramer has no visible means of support; what few jobs he holds seem to be nothing more than larks.
His trademarks include his humorous upright hairstyle and vintage wardrobe, the combination of which led to his categorization as a 'hipster doofus'; his violent bursts through Jerry's apartment door; and his penchant for nonsensical, percussive bursts of noise to indicate skepticism, agreement, annoyance, and a variety of other inexplicable responses as well as his love of smoking and Cuban cigars in particular.
Kramer appeared in all but two episodes: "The Chinese Restaurant" and "The Pen", in the second and third seasons, respectively.
Name
Cosmo Kramer was known only as "Kramer" during the show's first five seasons (from 1989 to 1994), though in the pilot, "The Seinfeld Chronicles," Jerry referred to him as Kessler, which was his original name for the show, until they changed it to Kramer. It was George who found out his unusual first name through an encounter with Kramer's long estranged mother, Babs (played by Sheree North), in the season six episode, "The Switch". Despite this, most characters continued to call him Kramer for the remainder of the show's run (although many minor characters did refer to him as "Cosmo"). In the season 9 episode The Betrayal, when we see how Jerry met Kramer, Kramer says that his name is incorrectly put down as Kessler in the apartment building. This ends the pilot's mistake. The source of the character's first name is from the name of a child who lived on Larry David's and Kenny Kramer's floor in their building.
The real-life Kramer
The character of Kramer was originally based on the real-life Kenny Kramer, a neighbor of co-creator Larry David from New York. However, Michael Richards did in no way base his performance on the real Kramer, to the point of refusing to meet him. This was later parodied in "The Pilot" when the actor playing Cosmo Kramer in Jerry and George's sitcom refused to base the character on the real Cosmo Kramer. At the time of the shooting of the original Seinfeld pilot titled "The Seinfeld Chronicles", Kenny Kramer had not yet given consent to use his name, and so Kramer's character was originally referred to as "Kessler".
Larry David was hesitant to use Kenny Kramer's real name because he suspected that Kramer would take advantage of this. David's suspicion turned out to be correct; Kenny Kramer created the "Kramer Reality Tour", a New York City bus tour that points out actual locations of events or places featured in Seinfeld. The "Kramer Reality Tour" is itself spoofed on Seinfeld in "The Muffin Tops." In the episode, when Kramer's life stories are used by Elaine for the use of various stories in Peterman's biography, he develops a reality bus tour called "The Peterman Reality Tour" and touts himself as "The Real J. Peterman".
Background and family
In "The Letter", Kramer tells two art patrons that he ran away from home at age 17 and stowed away aboard a steamer bound for Sweden. It is unknown how he returned to the United States from Sweden, or whether the story is even intended to be true.
Kramer never completed high school; however, it is learned in "The Barber" that Kramer has a GED.
Kramer was estranged for a long period from his mother, Babs. Unlike George Costanza and Jerry Seinfeld, Kramer's character does not have a well-developed network of family members shown in the sitcom.
During an opening discussion, Kramer revealed to Jerry that in 1979 he was struck on the head by a falling air conditioner while walking on the sidewalk. Jerry asks if that was when Kramer lived in the village, to which Kramer replies that he cannot remember. This is discussed in the beginning of The Little Kicks.
Kramer has stated that his heroes are Mickey Mantle (who is also one of George's heroes) and Bette Midler. In "The Visa", Kramer played baseball with Mantle at a fantasy camp but during a brawl between the campers and the Yankees (instigated by him no less) he inadvertently knocked him unconscious. His response to the predicament was succinct and to the point: "I got the hell out of there!" He also went to great lengths to obtain a pineapple Italian ice for Bette Midler before protecting her in "The Understudy".
In "The Strong Box", it was revealed that Kramer spent a brief time in the Army, although information about this time is "classified".
Characteristics
Kramer has many conflicting personality traits. Described in "The Letter" by an art patron as "a loathsome, offensive brute", he is often shallow, callous, and indifferent. On the other hand, he is the closest thing to a "nice person" in Seinfeld. Though eccentric, Kramer is more often than not caring, friendly and kind-hearted; he often goes out of his way to help total strangers in plight, and tries to get his friends to also help others and to do the right thing even when they don't want him to. These are also the moments where Kramer's more articulate, dramatic, and poetic personality shines through.
Kramer is known for his extreme honesty and, correspondingly, his lack of tact; in "The Nose Job", he tells George's insecure girlfriend that she is as pretty as any girl in New York City, she just needs a nose job. Instead of being horrified, many characters end up thanking Kramer for his candor. Kramer never gets into trouble for it, but his friends often do; this is especially prevalent in "The Cartoon" where Kramer makes comments to Sally Weaver (Kathy Griffin), who then blames Jerry for "ruining her life" as a result. He also gets his friends directly into trouble by talking them into things such as parking illegally in a handicapped space ("The Handicap Spot") or urinating in a parking garage ("The Parking Garage").
One explanation as to Kramer's personality and traits, with respect to his mysterious childhood and background, is hinted in "The Chicken Roaster". After a series of conflicts, Jerry is forced to live in Kramer's apartment and vice-versa, which quickly has an effect on both characters. Jerry, bothered endlessly by the many problems in Kramer's home, quickly begins acting like his wacky friend, showing that Kramer might be radically influenced by his own apartment but has simply grown used to it. Of course, when Kramer finally begins living in Jerry's regular and normal apartment, he quickly and briefly becomes more like his calm and quick-witted friend. Its the only episode which Kramer and Jerry's personalities have been swapped.
His relationship with George and Elaine is as moderately strong as with Jerry. He helps Elaine in "The Watch", "The Engagement", "The Soup Nazi" and "The Slicer", and helps George in "The Busboy", "The Stall" and "The Slicer". His conflict with Elaine is "The Seven" and with George in "The Susie".
His relationship with Jerry is very questionable. Simply put, Jerry is usually reluctantly persuaded into doing things. Kramer also at times gets into arguments with Jerry, in episodes such as "The Chaperone", "The Kiss Hello" and "The Caddy". On the other hand, Kramer has displayed an almost unbending loyalty toward Jerry in many episodes, especially when choosing to help him against Newman in many episodes, including "The Suicide" and "The Millennium". In the same respect, Jerry has helped Kramer out of good will in some episodes and always seems to forgive and ultimately accept his friend's mooching tendencies.
His relationship with Newman is defined from the start in "The Suicide", in which he gets along very well. Like the main characters, they also get into conflict with each other. Their "quick rich schemes" are noted in "The Old Man" and "The Bottle Deposit". The most notable conflict other than each other is Keith Hernandez in "The Boyfriend" until the baseball star straighten out the facts along with the famous JFK parody.
His relationship with Susan is mixed. Although he gets along in "The Secret Code", there are many episodes in which he made her life in a mess. He vomited on her in "The Pitch", unwittingly burned her father's cabin in "The Bubble Boy", dated Mona while Susan was a lesbian in "The Smelly Car" and calls her "Lily" in "The Invitations".
Kramer's apartment is the subject of numerous radical experiments in interior design, including "levels" (no furniture) in "The Pony Remark", and a reconstruction of the set of The Merv Griffin Show in "The Merv Griffin Show". Inside views of Kramer's apartment are seldom, but it is known that he installed hardwood flooring and woodgrain-like wallpaper to, as he explains to Jerry, "give it the feel of a ski lodge." The apartment is centred around a large hot tub and couch styled after a 1957 Chevy.
In "The Visa", George commented, "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."
Idiosyncrasies
He suffers from coulrophobia—a fear of clowns—in "The Opera", "The Gymnast" and "The Slicer". He also shares this phobia with Frank Costanza.
In the episode "The Raincoats," he panics when the word "mouse" is mentioned.
Kramer has an extremely low tolerance for alcohol; in The Red Dot, he became very drunk after only one drink of Scotch whisky.
He has seizures whenever he hears the voice of Mary Hart, co-anchor of the show Entertainment Tonight, as seen in the episode "The Good Samaritan" (incidentally, at least one real-world case of so-called 'Mary Hart epilepsy' has been reported in North America).
Kramer is inexplicably popular with both George's and Jerry's parents, although this isn't true at first. In "The Handicap Spot," Estelle calls Kramer "trouble" and expresses her dissatisfaction at her son hanging around him. It is revealed in "The Blood" that he calls the Seinfelds once a week (as he explains to Jerry, "If you called them more often, I wouldn't have to."). George's parents let Kramer stay at their house in an episode when they are away on a trip. They even let Kramer have a "girl over" (which George explains they never let him do). He even briefly moves into Jerry's parents' retirement community in Florida, where Morty Seinfeld recruits him to run for Condo Board President in an attempt to establish a puppet régime. Kramer even manages to befriend the "Soup Nazi," which seemed impossible because of the Soup Nazi's short temper and his outbursts at anyone who holds up the line.
Kramer's conversation often contains onomatopoeia or nonsensical sounds, difficult to transcribe, in order to emphasize an emotional point or describe earlier actions. He frequently expresses his agreement with a sentiment or suggestion via the word "Giddyup!"
Romantic relationships
Of the four main characters, Kramer has the fewest on-screen romantic relationships. He does not seem to have trouble attracting women (once stating, "I have many relationships."), but his relationships often come to an embarrassing end, and, like Jerry's, are usually short lived. Some of Kramer's most notable relationships include:
- In "The Conversion," after Kramer attracts the attention of a young Latvian Orthodox novice, Roberta, he learns from the priests that he has the Kavorka ("lure of the animal", a powerful attraction over women).
- In "The Puffy Shirt," Kramer dates Leslie, a "low-talker," a woman who speaks quietly.
- In "The Friars Club," Kramer tries to copy Leonardo Da Vinci by only sleeping 20 minutes every three hours, but when he finally falls deeply asleep in his Connie's arms, she thinks he is dead, puts him in a sack and dumps him into the Hudson River.
- In "The Smelly Car," Kramer "converts" Susan's lesbian lover, Mona, to heterosexuality, one of the many reasons why Susan hates Kramer.
- In "The Chinese Woman", Kramer dates Elaine's friend Noreen, whom he tries to steer away from what he perceives as Elaine's negative influence. In this episode, Kramer is preoccupied by the fact that despite having slept with many women, he has never gotten a woman pregnant, and he consults a doctor about his sperm count. By the episode's end, it is implied he may have impregnated Noreen, but the possibility is never raised again.
- In "The Non-Fat Yogurt", Kramer's passionate encounter with Cheryl, a lab technician results in the accidental mix up of Rudy Giuliani's blood test.
- In "The Pie", Kramer dates Olive from the coffee shop, whose super-long nails are the only cure to his itchy back. When he loses his itch and wants to break up with her, he uses a mannequin that looks like Elaine as his pretend new girlfriend.
- In "The Wife", he gets overly-tanned after falling asleep on a tanning bed and then horrifies his African-American girlfriend Anna and her family who think he's doing blackface.
- In "The Maid", his girlfriend Madeline moves to downtown Manhattan and Kramer cannot handle the "long-distance relationship".
- In "The Dog", Kramer has a relationship with Ellen whom all of his friends hate.
- In "The Library", Kramer attracts the Librarian/Poet Marian after claiming "she needs a little tenderness, she needs a little Kramer." He eventually falls in love with her poetry; however, it doesn't work out. Kramer mentions in "The Tape" that one night he was sleeping in bed with her, so therefore, their relationship supposedly ended between that episode and "The Nose Job" (the next episode), as Kramer begins dating Audrey, George's ex-girlfriend.
- In "The Soul Mate", Kramer falls for Jerry's girlfriend Pam and with Newman's help tries to win her over. He even gets a vasectomy for her because he finds out she isn't interested in having children (he later states that the procedure was botched, and he's even more potent as a result).
- In "The Money", Kramer dates Emily (played by Sarah Silverman) who has the "jimmy legs" which keep him up at night.
- In "The Truth", Kramer dates Elaine's roommate Tina who enjoys making out in the living room and dancing to tribal music.
Protégés
Kramer has on a few occasions taken people under his wing and aggressively protected their interests.
- In "The Chaperone", he becomes the personal coach of Miss Rhode Island (Karen) at the Miss America pageant. He trains her on poise, walk and even on singing technique.
- In "The Understudy", Kramer becomes a super-protective bodyguard and nurse to an injured Bette Midler after she is knocked over by George at a softball game. He is so protective of her that he even prevents George and Jerry from apologizing to her at the hospital.
- In "The Voice", Kramer gets an intern from New York University (NYU) who is supposed to be working for "Kramerica Industries", but he really ends up "mending chicken wire", having "high tea with a Mr. Newman" and setting up lunch appointments with Jerry at the coffee shop. Darin the intern becomes so loyal to Kramerica that he even continues on as Kramer's assistant after the internship is revoked by the university—but later Kramer announces Darin "is going away for a very long time" (implying he will be going to jail) after the failed oil bladder invention.
- In "The Gum", Kramer takes Lloyd Braun—who recently was released from a mental institution—under his wing and helps him get back on track by letting him help in the restoration of the Alex Theatre.
- In "The Chinese Woman", Kramer becomes especially protective of Elaine's friend Noreen.
- However in "The Fatigues", the role is reversed when Kramer has no cooking skills and needed Frank Costanza to help cook Jewish food for his community.
Bizarre beliefs and philosophies
Kramer is known to embrace opposite and reverse philosophies and to reject acceptable social behaviors or established facts. For example, he insists in "The Jimmy" that you have to eat before undergoing surgery because "you need your strength", even though patients are told not to eat before an operation because doing so can interfere with anaesthesia.
- In "The Heart Attack", Kramer reveals he doesn't believe in being treated at hospitals when he warns George that his friend Bob Sacamano went in for a hernia operation which was botched and now he speaks in a falsetto voice. Because of this he recommends for George to opt for a holistic healer. When George finds out how much cheaper it is, he goes with Kramer's advice, which he later regrets.
- In "The Opera", Kramer wears casual clothes to an upscale opera, commenting that "People do dress up when they go to the opera; I don't." Kramer also admits that he suffers from coulrophobia (fear of clowns). Kramer also expresses his belief that Italian people used to sing to each other, but they stopped because 'they couldn't keep up, they got tired'.
- In "The Strike", Kramer is enthusiastically eager to celebrate Festivus, a holiday ("for the rest of us") created by Frank Costanza.
- In "The Andrea Doria", when he developed a severe cough; Kramer refused to see a doctor, after he claims they botched his vasectomy, preferring instead to be treated by a veterinarian. His rationale is that veterinarians are superior physicians because they are expected to care for multiple species.
- In "The Foundation", Kramer inspires a despondent Elaine to have greater self-confidence with the "Katra" philosophy that she thinks he learned in his karate class. As it turns out, "Katra" is a Vulcan trait that Kramer saw in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and in actuality, Kramer is the only adult in a karate class full of children.
- In "The Butter Shave", Kramer finds butter is a better protection for his skin after shaving. His skin feels so good with butter; he takes to spreading it all over his body (which entices Newman's voracious appetite).
- In "The Cafe", Kramer adamantly insists that a time limit on the application of a law is a "statue of limitations". Jerry attempts to correct him, but gives up in the face of Kramer's stubborn ignorance.
- In "The Wallet", Kramer declares that he believes that all home package deliveries should be abolished because it renders homeowners vulnerable to intruders.
- In "The Dinner Party" Kramer tells George that he never carries a wallet because it throws his hips "off kilt".
- In "The Engagement", Kramer claims that he doesn't use a watch, and that he tells time by the sun. He also claims that he can guess "within the hour".
- In "The Hot Tub", Kramer tells Jerry that he does not use or trust alarm clocks and that he uses his "mental alarm clock" claiming that it never fails. He also says that your body knows what time it is.
Employment
Despite the failure of the majority of his schemes and his unwillingness to even apply for a normal job, Kramer always seems to have money when he needs it; in "The Visa", George makes a comment about Kramer going to a fantasy camp. The only example of this demonstrated on the show was in the episode "The Subway", in which Kramer places a $600 bet on a horse at 30-to-1 odds, which amounts to winning $18,000.
The only steady job Kramer is known to have had was in "The Strike", when he went back to work at H&H Bagels after being on strike for over a decade. His union finally settled the strike when the minimum wage of New York was raised to the hourly rate Kramer had been demanding from his employer (Kramer still felt the strike was a success), and he was re-employed. He only worked there during that one episode before he was fired. During the time he was working at the bagel shop, he went on strike again because of having to work during Festivus, a holiday invented by Frank Costanza.
Kramer has engaged in a variety of short-lived jobs. He worked part-time as a department store Santa before being fired for spreading Communist propaganda to young children in "The Race". In "The Bizarro Jerry", he worked at an office where he was not actually employed, describing his daily activities to Jerry as "T.C.B. You know, takin' care of business." His "boss" eventually "fires" him, commenting that his reports resemble work by someone with "no business training at all." In "The Beard", he was paid to be a decoy in a police lineup. A story arc of the fifth season included Kramer's idea for a coffee table book about coffee tables, which was eventually published in "The Fire". His success in that particular endeavor was short-lived, however, because he spilled coffee on Kathie Lee Gifford while promoting the book on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee in "The Opposite". In The Pick, he became an underwear model for Calvin Klein, which must account for at least some of his income. The biggest boost to Kramer's income would have to be in the episode "The Wizard" when his coffee table book is optioned for a movie by a "big Hollywood so-and-so", earning Kramer enough royalty money to retire to Florida (although he moved back to New York almost immediately after a "political scandal" involving going barefoot in the clubhouse, which cost him the election for condo board president.)
He is a compulsive gambler who successfully avoided gambling for several years until "The Diplomat's Club", in which he bet with a wealthy Texan on the arrival and departure times of flights going into New York's LaGuardia Airport. Earlier than that, "The Pony Remark" and "The Subway" still shows that Kramer is a tough gambler.
A struggling actor, Kramer briefly lived in Los Angeles, where he accosted Fred Savage, appeared in a cameo on Murphy Brown, and was a suspect in a string of serial killings ("The Keys", "The Trip"). Back in New York, Kramer worked as a stand-in on a soap opera with his friend Mickey Abbott in "The Stand In", and was given a one-line part in a Woody Allen movie in "The Alternate Side" (His line, "These pretzels are making me thirsty", became the show's first catch phrase.), but he was fired before completing his scene. Kramer has worked in various other theater projects, such as acting out illnesses at a medical school in "The Burning".
In the episode "The Strong Box", Kramer says one of the things in the box is his military discharge. Upon being asked, "You were in the army?", Kramer replies, "Briefly." In the episode "The Muffin Tops", Kramer mentions shaving his chest when he was a lifeguard.
Kramer's financial status seems to be contradicted across episodes. For example, in one episode George asks Kramer if he can break a twenty-dollar bill, to which he replies, "I only have hundreds" ("The Mango"). However, in another episode, in which he explains to Jerry that wallets are a nuisance and that he should use a money clip, Kramer advises Jerry to "keep the big bills on the outside" and shows Jerry his own money clip as an example, to which Jerry responds, "That's a five" ("The Reverse Peephole").
When Kramer decides to pay off Jerry (for all the food that he took from Jerry in a week) which was $50 he says "I don't have that kind of cash" and he ends up selling his bicycle to Newman to settle Jerry.
Inventions, entrepreneurship, and lawsuits
Kramer showed an entrepreneurial bent with "Kramerica Industries," for which he devised plans for a pizza place where customers made their own pie ("Male Unbonding"), a bladder system for tankers that would "put an end to maritime oil spills" ("The Voice"), and a product that would put ketchup and mustard in the same bottle.
He also came up with the idea of a beach-scented cologne in "The Pez Dispenser", but a marketing executive for Calvin Klein informed him that the idea was senseless. However, in "The Pick", it is revealed that Klein has produced a cologne called Ocean based on the same idea. When Kramer confronts him about this, his interaction with a Klein executive lands him a photo shoot in connection with the cologne as an underwear model.
In "The Doorman", Kramer and Frank Costanza co-develop a prototype for a brassiere for men called the "bro" or the "mansiere". It's mentioned again in "The Fusilli Jerry" when Frank believes that Kramer used "the move".
In "The Muffin Tops", Kramer cries foul after failing to receive due credit for J. Peterman's book success which was unduly based on Kramer's misadventures. He then confronts Peterman during a book signing, and is kicked out of the event. Kramer then declares himself to be "The Real Peterman" and initiates The Real Peterman Reality Bus Tour, charging customers $37.50 for a tour of his life. On the matter of this tour, Jerry commented that it was "basically $37.50 for a mini 3 Musketeers bar."
Kramer also hatched a scheme to smuggle actual Cubans to the United States to make his beloved outlawed Cuban cigars, only to learn the "Cubans" are actually Dominicans ("The English Patient").
He participates in lawsuits against various people and companies, represented by Jackie Chiles, a parody of Johnnie Cochran. In "The Maestro," he settled one such suit (though he received no monetary compensation) against a coffee company whose beverages were too hot (a reference to the McDonald's coffee case). In "The Abstinence," Kramer sues a tobacco company for the damage its products caused to his appearance, and in "The Caddy," he sued Sue Ellen Mischke for causing a traffic accident that ruined his chances at becoming a professional golfer.
Coffee Table Book about Coffee Tables
A storyline running throughout the fifth season is the development of one of Kramer's few successful ideas. Kramer first thought of the book in "The Cigar Store Indian", although he later claims that he was skiing when he first had the idea. Throughout the season, his quest to get the book published becomes a running gag, and, although Elaine is portrayed as disliking the idea, Pendant Publishing (where Elaine and Kramer's then-girlfriend worked) decides to publish it in "The Fire".
In "The Opposite", Kramer goes on Regis and Kathie Lee to promote the book. By accidentally spitting his coffee over Kathie Lee Gifford ("All over my Kathie Lee Casuals!"), his book tour immediately goes down in flames. Also in the episode, as a result of a bizarre chain of events, Elaine inadvertently causes the end of Pendant Publishing and therefore the end of Kramer's book. Nevertheless, the book is mentioned later in the episode "The Wizard" where it is revealed that the book was being made into a movie and the money Kramer makes causes him to move to Florida temporarily.
The book itself was full of pictures of celebrities' coffee tables, and even had a pair of foldable wooden legs. He also said that he had plans for a coaster to be built into the cover, and it is unknown if this feature was actually implemented at any point.
Kramer's other inventions and ideas
- A pizzeria where you make your own pizza pie. It falters because of a dispute between Kramer and Poppie over whether cucumbers can be pizza toppings. ("The Couch")
- Installing a garbage disposal as the drain in his shower, so that he could prepare vegetables while showering ("The Apology").
- Redoing his entire apartment in imitation wood wallpaper "It's wood, Jerry." ("The Junior Mint").
- Redecorating his apartment with the set of The Merv Griffin Show ("The Merv Griffin Show").
- Adding a screen door outside his apartment front door ("The Serenity Now").
- Using the homeless to pull rickshaws in New York City ("The Bookstore").
- Reversing the peephole in his apartment front door so he can see inside to see if someone was waiting to ambush him with a sock full of pennies. Ironically, this very thing happened to another character at the end of the episode.("The Reverse Peephole").
- Owning his own chicken to obtain fresh eggs. He later discovers that the chicken is really a rooster and trains him to become a cock fighter ("The Little Jerry").
- Saving his blood in a refrigerator ("The Blood").
- Joining Newman who re-attempts an original (and refined) idea by Kramer. Using a mail truck to take cans to a Michigan recycling plant, where the bottle deposit return is worth 10˘, as opposed to New York's 5˘ ("The Bottle Deposit").
- Getting rid of his refrigerator so that he would only eat fresh food ("The Soup").
- Placing oil in a giant rubber bladder to prevent oil spills. However, during the test of the giant ball of oil at Play Now, it falls on the unsuspecting head of Jerry's girlfriend ("The Voice").
- A small statue of Jerry made of fusilli pasta (because he's silly), a macaroni statue of Bette Midler (Macaroni Midler), and a ravioli statue of George (presumably "ravioli George"). All pastas "capture the essence" of their respective personae. ("The Fusilli Jerry", "The Understudy")
- A cologne that smells of the beach, an idea which is eventually stolen by Calvin Klein. ("The Pez Dispenser" and "The Pick")
- Blacking out the divider stripes on two of the lanes in a four lane highway to make it more "luxurious." ("The Pothole")
- A brassiere for men. Kramer and Frank Costanza dream this up as a business partnership. It never happens because they bitterly disagree over the name for the product: Kramer wants to call it the "Bro", Mr. Costanza wants to call it the "Manziere".
- A Necktie dispenser to replace dirty ones, as seen in ("The Stock Tip")
- Vowing to only wear clothes which were fresh out of the dryer. He ends up baking the clothes in the oven, having run out of quarters for the machine, as seen in "The Calzone."
- Adding wooden levels to his apartment to create space and eliminate furniture. Seen in both ("The Pony Remark") and in the pilot which Jerry and George create for NBC.
Pseudonyms
Like the other three characters, Kramer has pseudonyms he uses in various schemes; H.E. Pennypacker, Dr. Martin Van Nostrand, and Peter Van Nostrum are the most popular. Nostrum means "a medicine or remedy in conventional use which has not been proven to have any desirable medical effects".
Under the name H.E. Pennypacker in "The Puerto Rican Day", Kramer poses as a buyer interested in an apartment in order to use its bathroom. Kramer appeared as Pennypacker to help Elaine get revenge on a store, Putumayo, by repricing all the merchandise in the store with a pricing gun ("The Millennium"). In the latter capacity, he claimed to be "a wealthy American industrialist."
As Dr. Martin von Nostrand, Kramer tried to get Elaine's medical chart to erase the negative comments her doctor had made in "The Package". He also used the von Nostrand alias in the episode "The Slicer", posing as a dermatologist for a cancer screening at Kruger. Kruger later recognised him as Dr. von Nostrand in "The Strike". Kramer used the name Martin von Nostrand (without the "doctor" prefix) while auditioning for the role of himself on the show Jerry in "The Pilot, Part 1". Kramer posed as Professor Peter von Nostrand in "The Nose Job" in order to retrieve his jacket from another man's apartment.
Kramer was also referred to as "Assman" in reference to the license plate the state of New York accidentally gave him in "The Fusilli Jerry". Occasionally, he is called "the K-Man" ("The Barber", "The Bizarro Jerry", "The Busboy", "The Hamptons" and "The Soup Nazi").
A derogatory designation for Kramer has been "hipster doofus", a moniker assigned to him by a woman in a wheelchair he once dated in the episode "The Handicap Spot", and occasionally directed at him by Elaine, as in "The Glasses". The nickname was first used in a newspaper review of Seinfeld.
Reception
The Seinfeld cast was placed sixth on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters.
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