"The Gum" is the 120th episode of NBC sitcom Seinfeld. This was the tenth episode for the seventh season. It aired on December 14, 1995.
Plot
Kramer is active in the re-opening of the Alex movie theater. George's nemesis Lloyd Braun, who had a nervous breakdown after messing up David Dinkins' reelection campaign in "The Non-Fat Yogurt", has a pack of Chinese chewing gum that Kramer insists everyone try. George begs off, stating that he doesn't chew gum.
At the theater, Elaine doesn't want to sit near Braun, so she invents the story that she has to sit with Jerry close to the screen because he supposedly forgot his glasses. While watching the movie, Elaine's ivory button falls off, and she accidentally "reveals herself" to Lloyd and Kramer. Elaine complains to a policeman about a florist's washing the sidewalk with a hose, and her exposed blouse convinces the policeman to tell the florist to disconnect the hose.
George visits a friend, Deena, and her father, "Pop," who had a mental breakdown. Pop starts tinkering with George's car's engine and smashes it with a tool out of frustration. George thinks a cashier at Monk's kept a twenty-dollar bill of his that he doodled on. He pursues her and has to buy a pack of gum to look inside the register, much to the surprise of Lloyd, who thought George didn't chew gum. While he is confronting the cashier in her car on the street, George's "Jon Voight car" catches fire due to the damage caused by Pop, and the fire can't be extinguished by the hose because the florist had to disconnect it.
Jerry must wear glasses while around Lloyd to keep with Elaine's excuse. He exchanges glasses when the ones he got from the lost and found were discovered to belong to Geoffrey Haarwood (or, as Kramer says it, "Harharwood"), a former Hollywood costumer who runs the "The Institute for the Preservation of Motion Picture Costumes and Wardrobes" (also known as the IPMPCW). The new glasses Jerry wears make it impossible to see clearly, and he inadvertently gives Lloyd a $100 bill to buy the Chinese gum. Lloyd tries to purchase a visibly old hotdog from the vendor, and the vendor asks Lloyd if he is insane, because the hotdog is "from the Silent era"; when Kramer hears this, he insists on eating the hotdog in an effort to show that Lloyd is not insane, which then makes him sick. Kramer throws up on the sidewalk, and the florist brings his hose back out to clean it. Elaine confronts him about this, giving away the fact that she was the one who spoke to the police about stopping him spraying the sidewalk with the hose, and he accidentally sprays her when distracted by someone calling his attention. When she comes to the Alex in a wet shirt, Lloyd once again believes that Elaine is trying to get his attention, while Kramer reprimands her because "the Alex is a family theater and not one of her swing joints."
George's friend Deena thinks he is showing signs of mental illness when he tries to explain the true situation, which sounds increasingly ridiculous to her. George wears a Henry VIII costume for Kramer's premiere at the Alex, and discovers he had the $20 bill all along, but Deena sees him in the costume and thinks he has gone insane as he yells that he got the costume at "the Institute." Elaine sees the ivory button on Haarwood's ascot and tries to undo it, making Lloyd and Kramer think she's flirting with him. Lloyd later comments that Elaine really needs to find a boyfriend.
External links
- "The Gum" Full Script
- "The Gum" on IMDb
- "The Gum" at TV.com
