Cosmo Kramer, played by Michael Richards, is the wacky, mysterious next-door neighbor to Jerry in the hit sitcom Seinfeld. While never actually holding a steady job, Kramer always manages to fund his random ideas and schemes while never running short of his signature hip, vintage clothing. From his love of fresh fruit and Cuban cigars to his brief stint as a pimp, Kramer is a character that always keeps his audience guessing.
While he’s almost even more famous for his manner of physical comedy, jittering around and bursting through Jerry’s door without so much as a knock, Kramer also has quite a few moments of brilliance in his lines. Not always sensible and probably not someone the audience is willing to take life advice from, his free-wheeling personality makes him an interesting person to listen to.
“Everything I Have I Owe To This Face.”
Never one for modesty, here the audience finds Kramer panicking over his recently destroyed looks. After seeing smokers being forced to stand outside in the cold in order to maintain their habit, Kramer concocts a business plan to open a smoke lounge for them in his own apartment.
Distressingly, the secondhand smoke begins to distort Kramer’s appearance, making him look leathery and weathered. Panicked, Kramer takes up a lawsuit with the tobacco industry, only for him to settle with no pay and a billboard of his ragged face, much to his lawyer’s disapproval.
“Somewhere In This Hospital, The Anguished Squeal Of Pigman Cries Out!”
While at the hospital to visit a friend who recently gave birth, Kramer accidentally stumbles into the wrong room and becomes convinced he’s uncovered a pigman (half-man half-pig), an apparent government conspiracy involving mutation.
As fans of the show would expect, he becomes obsessed with the idea and convinced that the pigman needs to be freed by Kramer’s own hand. Eventually, he is successful in freeing the pigman only to uncover he’s just a “fat little mental patient,” who ends up stealing George’s car after making his escape. It’s never mentioned but it’s highly doubtful Kramer ever paid for the car.
“We Have To Do It. It’s Part Of Our Lifestyle. It’s Like Shaving.”
In this episode where the gang decides to hold a contest to see who can go longest without masturbating. When Elaine wants in on the contest, Jerry, George, and Kramer are hesitant to let her join as they think it would be too easy for her, with Kramer claiming it to be part of their lifestyle.
In the end, Kramer isn’t too far off with his theory as he ends up being the first person in the contest to cave, not even a day after it started.
“Who’s Going To Turn Down A Junior Mint?”
While Jerry and Kramer join the gallery to watch Elaine’s ex-boyfriend’s splenectomy, Kramer offers Jerry a Junior Mint, to which he declines. Never one to give up without a fight, Kramer presses Jerry, wondering how anyone could turn it down, saying “it’s chocolate, it’s peppermint. It’s delicious!”
In the argument, Kramer accidentally drops a mint down into the surgical room, into the body of Elaine’s ex. Luckily, the man’s health actually rebounds with his doctor thanking a miracle “from above,” Kramer’s Junior Mint.
“I’m Talking About A Support Undergarment Specifically Designed For Men.”
Another one of Kramer’s random but vaguely brilliant business ideas, Kramer develops the concept of a bra for men, the “bro,” after George discovers his father has abnormally large breasts and worries what that means for his own future.
After getting a business meeting with an undergarment expert, the deal falls through, and the bro is abandoned. Of course, being Kramer, it ends up coming in handy when a group of vigilantes who think he’s a mugger attempt to detain him, only for him to distract them with the bro.
“He’s Not a Nazi. He Just Happens To Be A Little Eccentric. Most Geniuses Are.”
Kramer, always one to make friends with some of the most random people, manages to be the only one in his group who can get on the good side of the notoriously strict soup chef.
While George and Elaine are both banned from the establishment, Kramer builds a relationship with the man who confesses he thinks Kramer is the “only one who understands,” him. In the end, Elaine shuts the restaurant down by threatening to publish his recipes.
“I’m Out There Jerry, And I’m Lovin’ Every Minute Of It!”
After finding out from Elaine that he shouldn’t wear briefs as they could lower his sperm count, Kramer goes to a fertility clinic to have his fears confirmed.
Insistent on raising his sperm count, Kramer has the option to start wearing boxers or go without underwear, and he chooses the latter making his friends deeply uncomfortable. Eventually, his plan works out and by the end of the episode, it’s insinuated that he may have gotten a woman pregnant.
“It’s Like A Sauna In Here.”
In an episode that takes place predominantly inside of a sauna, Elaine and Jerry concoct a plan to determine if the new girl he’s been seeing has had a breast implant. Meanwhile, Kramer thinks he saw Salman Rushdie in the men’s sauna.
The comedic peak of the episode happens when Kramer delivers this zinger while, in fact, in a sauna. George and Jerry aren’t amused but it’s surely a quote fans of the show bring up any time they get a chance.
“You’re As Pretty As Any Of Them. You Just Need A Nose Job.”
Kramer was never one to mince words, especially since he never really seems to know what he’s saying in the first place. While sitting around getting to know George’s new girlfriend, Kramer offensively tells her she needs a nose job.
Scarred by the incident, she decides to get a nose job only for surgery to go horribly wrong and leave her with an even more disfigured nose.
“These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty.”
This seemingly random line has ended up being one of the show’s most enduring gags. In this episode, Kramer, an occasional actor, gets a one-line role in a Woody Allen movie, the line being “these pretzels are making me thirsty.”
After being repeated by everyone in the show an absurd number of times, trying to figure out the perfect delivery, Kramer finds himself fired from the set after slamming a glass down and injuring Woody Allen.
