"The Pledge Drive" is the 89th episode of the
NBC sitcom ''
Seinfeld
''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, with a total of nine seasons consisting of List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It ...
''. This was the third episode of the
sixth season.
It aired on October 6, 1994.
The episode revolves around
Jerry,
George, and
Kramer's volunteer efforts with a
PBS pledge drive
A pledge drive is an extended period of fundraising activities, generally used by public broadcasting stations to increase contributions. The term " pledge" originates from the promise that a contributor makes to send in funding at regular interva ...
. Subplots include Jerry's grandmother going on a perilous adventure through the city to deal with bounced birthday checks,
Elaine committing a series of misunderstandings stemming from the high-pitched voice of her friend Noreen's boyfriend, and the start of a new trend in eating
finger food
Finger foods are small, individual portions of food that are eaten out of hand. They are often served at social events. The ideal finger food usually does not create any mess (such as crumbs or drips), but this criterion is often overlooked in o ...
s with utensils.
Plot
Jerry tells
Elaine that her friend Noreen was hitting on him. Elaine is skeptical, since Noreen has a boyfriend. She calls and asks about this, but the person on the end of the line identifies himself as Noreen's boyfriend Dan, who Elaine mistook for Noreen because he is a "high-talker" (i.e. his voice is high-pitched). This angers Dan and Noreen, particularly since Jerry's allegation is untrue. When Elaine explains her mistake to Noreen, she is dismayed that her boyfriend's voice can be so easily mistaken for a woman's, and turns her romantic interest towards Jerry.
Jerry agrees to help a
public television
Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive f ...
fundraiser for New York
PBS member station
WNET and
Kramer volunteers with answering phones. The PBS representative, Kristen, sends Jerry a thank you card. While going over the fundraiser script with him, she notices the card in the trash and is offended. He tries to prove his sentimentality by showing her cards from his grandmother "Nana" that he has saved for years. This only offends her further, and Kramer is outraged when he sees Jerry never cashed the checks inside the cards.
At Monk's, Jerry asks
George to bring a
Yankee to the pledge drive. Elaine tells them how she witnessed her boss
Mr. Pitt eat a
Snickers
Snickers (stylized in all caps) is a chocolate bar consisting of nougat topped with Caramel#Candy, caramel and peanuts, all encased in milk chocolate. The bars are made by the American company Mars Inc. The annual global sales of Snickers is ...
bar with a knife and fork. George sees this as a classy way of eating. When he asks the waitress about the bill, she points to it with her middle finger, leading George to think she is surreptitiously
giving him the finger.
When the rest of Yankee management opposes the idea of supporting the pledge drive on the grounds that they already give to
channel 11 (WPIX-TV, the real-life over-the-air broadcaster for Yankee games at the time of this episode's airing), George changes their minds by insinuating that PBS is classier than channel 11 while eating a
Snickers bar with knife and fork. This starts a trend that sweeps the city and evolves to include other
finger food
Finger foods are small, individual portions of food that are eaten out of hand. They are often served at social events. The ideal finger food usually does not create any mess (such as crumbs or drips), but this criterion is often overlooked in o ...
s such as cookies and donuts.
Jerry cashes Nana's checks to appease Kramer; since they were written on an account that was abandoned, the account becomes overdrawn. Nana leaves home for the first time in years to go to the branch and settle matters, causing her to be presumed missing. When she calls Jerry from the bank, Elaine answers the phone and assumes it's Dan, since he has been harassing her over Noreen's obsession with Jerry. She tells Nana to drop dead and hangs up. When Dan attempts to confront Jerry about Noreen, Kramer thinks Dan is in love with Jerry. While driving Yankee
Danny Tartabull, George sees a driver supposedly give him the middle finger and insists on pursuing him. Catching up with him at a gas station, he finds the driver actually has his hand in a cast and splint that forces his middle finger to be extended. The delay causes Tartabull to miss the pledge drive. Nana calls the drive and Kramer persuades her to donate $1,500.
Uncle Leo panics since Nana is on a
fixed income
Fixed income refers to any type of investment under which the borrower or issuer is obliged to make payments of a fixed amount on a fixed schedule. For example, the borrower may have to pay interest at a fixed rate once a year and repay the pr ...
and can't afford such a large gift, and runs onto the set yelling "Stop the show!" In light of the disasters of Tartabull's no-show and the disturbance caused by Leo, Kristen sends Jerry another greeting card, this one of a bunny giving him the finger.
Production
The episode's writers
Tom Gammill and
Max Pross were talking one day about someone they knew in college who ate his Snickers bars with a knife and fork;
Larry David
Lawrence Gene David (born July 2, 1947) is an American comedian, writer, actor, and television producer. He is known for his dry wit, portrayals of awkward social situations, and brutally honest takes on everyday life. He has received two Prim ...
encouraged them to include this in the episode.
Because
Ian Abercrombie could not chew fast enough to finish a bite of Snickers bar between his lines of dialogue, David told him to swallow each bite whole. Abercrombie recalled that over the course of rehearsals and multiple takes, he consumed the equivalent of about four Snickers bars in this manner, an experience so unpleasant that he has not eaten a Snickers bar since.
[ The day after the episode first aired, Abercrombie was having lunch in a restaurant; while he was waiting for his coffee, the waiter put a plate with a Snickers bar on his table. Apparently, the whole restaurant was in on the joke.][
After filming was completed, the producers decided that Brian Reddy's high voice was not high enough, and hired a voice actress to dub over all his lines.][ The banker's line "Wait, we can do this over the phone" was also added in post by a different actor, since the show's producers realized that the episode made it look like the banker was to blame for Nana's dangerous adventure, which was not the intent.]
A number of sequences were filmed but deleted before broadcast, including George demonstrating high-pitched talking and Kramer finding his own greeting card for Jerry in the trash. Due to their inordinate number some of them, such as scenes showing Nana riding a dangerous-looking subway and talking to a postal worker,[ were not even included on the ''Seinfeld'' DVD releases.
]
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pledge Drive
Seinfeld season 6 episodes
1994 American television episodes
Telethons