New Seinfeld Script

The Teeth

Scene 1

Jerry’s apartment. Kramer enters as Jerry is brewing coffee.

Kramer: Hey buddy, you got any Plax?

Jerry: Yeah, there’s a new bottle in the bathroom. Why?

Kramer: Yearly appointment at the dentist with Whatley. I think a patient owes it to their oral care provider to make the process as pleasant as possible, Jerry.

Jerry: You’re worried about pleasing Whatley?

Kramer: I look forward to this annual event. I just slide into that faux leather chair, close my eyes, and wait for the water to roll over my gums like waves gently landing on the shores of my own personal Tahiti.

Jerry: (Looking a little sad). Fine.

Kramer: What’s wrong, buddy?

Jerry: I know I’ll regret saying this, but I have troubles, Kramer. Big troubles.

Kramer: Lay it on me.

Jerry: Well, I’ve been getting fewer and fewer gigs lately. I feel on, and the material’s the same as it’s always been. At first, I just shrugged it off, but now it’s getting serious. If things don’t get better, I may need to get a job. A job Kramer - is that what’s it come to?

Kramer: Maybe your material just isn’t resonating with the more socially conscious comedy club denizens of today. They may be seeing through you, buddy. They’re deep, Jerry.

Jerry: I tried tinkering with the material, but it didn’t work.

Kramer: Alright, buddy, don’t fret. I’m here to help. You remember my friend, Ken Oberhoffer?

Jerry: The guy who sells Churros near Penn Station?

Kramer: The same. His operation is a gold mine. And he’s always looking for an assistant. I could put in a good word for you. Minimum wage, but the sky’s the limit in terms of moving up in the organization. No promises, but he owes me one.

Jerry: Thanks, but I’ll pass.

Kramer: Jerry, you’re in no position to pass. Your cushy little niche “profession” seems to have given you the heave-ho. Now that you’re an out of work stage performer, you’re gonna need to start at the bottom.

Jerry: Alright. Just take the Plax and get out.

Scene 2

Brentano’s Bookstore

George is standing at the magazine rack looking at the Sport’s Illustrated bikini issue. He spies a gorgeous woman in the next aisle reading a magazine titled “New Age Science.” Walks over.

George: Ah, it seems you got the last copy of New Age Science. I was worried they were all out. I came all the way across town to get my NAS fix for the week. Could I have a look when you’re done?

Jane: Of course. There’s a wonderful piece in here on new research relating to geometry. The president of my chapter of the Flat Earth Society recommended it. And Stanley knows of what he speaks.

George: Oh, I’m sure Stanley does. I’m something of a geometry aficionado myself, you know.

Jane : (Smiling). Is that so? Hi, (extending hand), I’m Jane.

George: A pleasure, Jane. I’m George.

Scene 3

Jerry, Elaine and George at a booth in the coffee shop.

Jerry: So, you asked her out after she told you she was a member of the Flat Earth Society?

George: No. No. I asked her out when she told me that after joining the Flat Earth Society, her philosophy became “indulge in as much physical pleasure as possible, given the tenuous nature of the planet’s gravitation uncertainty in only two dimensions.”

Jerry: Another Constanza barrier laid down on the road to progress.

Elaine: George, do you have any idea how absurd this is? Even by your standards.

George: I grant you that the flat earth idea is radical. But so were Einstein’s ideas. And there is sex involved here. The photos of earth from space could be doctored. (Jerry and Elaine look skeptical) It’s possible.

Seinfeld: Just nix the flat earth talk, alright? I have enough problems as it is.

George: I could check with Steinbrenner, you know, see if he needs anyone. The problem is your skill set Jerry. I suppose you could do one of your bits to lighten up the players before a big game.

Seinfeld: Thanks, but no.

Elaine: Have you talked to your parents yet? Maybe Morty could sell that hideous Cadillac and lend you the money he gets for it.

Seinfeld: I called the other day. They said they wanted to consider their financial situation and I should get back to them today.

Scene 4

Tim Whatley’s office. Kramer enters.

Whatley: Kramer, my man. Have a seat.

Kramer: With pleasure, doc. Been looking forward to this. Let the oral hijinks begin! Giddy up…

Kramer sits down in the chair. Whatley begins to examine him.

Whatley: Hmm…. I never noticed this before. Astonishing, Kramer. This is truly remarkable…

Kramer: How so?

Whatley: Well, it appears you have mandibular talons on your central incisors. It’s a dental researcher’s dream come true. A one-in-a-hundred-million case! I can only imagine the advances in periodontal research that would result from analyzing this jaw. I know some folks in the American Dental Association who would kill for a shot to study your talons.

Kramer: Well, I’m game doc, where do I sign up?

Whatley: Ah, were it so easy. It’s post-mortem research, Kramer. Cadaver stuff. The data we need could only be gotten from a jaw completely disconnected from a human skull. Perhaps when you belong to the ages.

Scene 5

Jerry’s apartment. Kramer enters.

Kramer: Well, it’s done, buddy.

Jerry: What’s done?

Kramer: While making a sandwich. I’ve willed my body to the American Dental Association, Jerry. When Cosmo Kramer bids farewell to our little blue marble, his mandibular talons will help humanity march to new scientific peaks. I told Whatley and he was quite moved.

Jerry: Fantastic. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to call my parents and see if they’ll give me that loan.

Kramer: With his mouth full of food. No, I don’t mind. Sits on coach eating sandwich.

Split screen, Jerry on one side, Morty and Helen on speaker phone on the other.

Helen: Is Jay Leno still pretending he doesn’t know you?

Seinfeld: Ma, I told you to stop watching TMZ. So, have the two of you decided about a small loan?

Morty: I’m sorry, son. We can’t do it.

Seinfeld: What!?

Helen: Well, we were going to Jerry, but then your father watched a documentary called Scared Straight.

Morty: That’s right. And your mother and I are enforcing some tough love here.

Seinfeld: Oh, for God’s…

Morty: We are not loaning you the money, but I do have a business proposition for you. This way you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, Jerry.

Seinfeld: Ma…

Helen: I’m sorry Jerry, but your father’s mind is made up. You should hear him at the community center every night. He goes on and on about tough love.

Seinfeld: Fine, what sort of business arrangement?

Morty: I’ve been looking into buying a small warehouse on the west side of Manhattan. I’ll turn it into a storage house for longshoreman and stevedores.

Helen: There aren’t stevedores anymore.

Morty: What are you talking about!? There are plenty of stevedores. Where do you come up with this stuff?

Seinfeld: Go on…

Morty: Right. I’ll rent you the place at night and you can use it as a comedy club. You pay the cost of advertising, you rent the tables, chairs and sundries. In return, I get 20% of the net.

Helen: Morty, 20% is excessive. He’s your son.

Morty: Stay out of this, Helen, it’s business. 20% is a sweetheart deal.

Jerry: Fine.

Scene 6

George’s apartment. George and Jane in bed, under the covers.

Jane: George, I think we are ready to take the next step together.

George: Next step?

Jane: Centroid bonding.

George: (looking confused). I see.

Jane: We in the FES believe that once a man and woman have engaged in carnal pleasures, they need to undertake Centroid bonding.

George: And how exactly does that work?

Jane: Well, first, we journey to the Centroid.

George: Uh-huh.

Jane: George, there is so much you need to learn. If you take a map of the earth, a proper two-dimensional visualization that is, and you draw perpendicular bisectors from the corners, where the lines cross is the centroid: the center of the earth.

George: Right. And where might that be?

Jane: Big Arm, Montana.

George: And what exactly will we do there?

Jane: We’ll stand naked under the midday sun, hands united, while our brother and sister Flat Earthers slowly smear glue all over our bodies and then affix small rectangles that represent the earth, until we metaphorically become a flat earth ourselves.

Scene 7

Kramer walking across a street. As he crosses, a car with a driver wearing something that looks vaguely like the sort of mask a dentist places over your mouth, zooms by and almost hits him.

Kramer: “Hey, watch where you’re going!” (Kramer’s eyes fix on a Flossy the Tooth bumper sticker on the car.)

Kramer: “Flossy the Tooth. Oh man… I’m in serious trouble now…”

Switch sets. Jerry’s apartment. Kramer bursts in breathless.

Kramer: They’re after me, man. They tried to kill me! They want my mandibular talons, Jerry!

Jerry: What? Who’s after you?

Kramer: The ADA. Whatley must have tipped them off about my talons and now they’ve tried to knock me off so they can study my jaw.

Jerry: You’re nuts.

Kramer: Am I? Then why did a car with a Flossy the Tooth bumper sticker on it just try to run me down?

Jerry: Flossy the Tooth?

Kramer: Yeah, you remember, from the old TV commercials. She used to sing “Old Man Joe, his mouth disgusting and mossy. If only he had turned to me, his old friend Flossy.”

Jerry: Right.

Kramer: I did some online research, Jerry. The ADA makes the Teamsters look like Girl Scouts. According to Unsolved Medical Murders, they’ll do whatever it takes to get what they want. Grabs jaw. Oh man, my talons!

Jerry: Calm down.

Kramer: Calm down?! How can I calm down??

Kramer exists, passes George in the hall, and makes some sort of classic Kramer sound. George enters.

George: What’s that about?

Jerry: It’s nothing. Apparently the ADA has put out a hit on Kramer.

George. That’s a shame. Anyway, get this…

Scene 8

Kramer’s apartment. Elaine and Kramer.

Elaine: Ok Kramer, what’s so top secret that I needed to come to your apartment?

Kramer: Your old beau, Tim Whatley, has the thugs at the American Dental Association after me.

Elaine: laughing. Oh come on, Kramer.

Kramer: You can laugh if you want, but you’ll be singing another tune when you bury my decapitated body. Sure, it might make the lives of fellow mandibular talon sufferers better, but it won’t put my head back on.

Elaine: Look, even assuming I think Whatley and a bunch of nasty dentists are after you, what can I do it about?

Kramer: I need you to be my Mati Hari. A beautiful, smart spy working on the inside to save my life.

Elaine: blushing and smiling. Me? That’s so sweet.

Kramer: Ok, here’s what we do….

Scene 9

Jerry’s apartment, George has just finished up the story about Jane and Centroid bonding.

Jerry: Well, that’s a quite a winner you picked yourself. So, boy wonder, when are you off to Montana?

George: I’m not.

Jerry: You’re not going to let a little Dark Age fraternity pledging get in the way of sex?

George: Normally, I wouldn’t, but I think this is just the start of it. These Flat Earthers, they’re nuts, Jerry.

Jerry: Ah well, mark it up as another adventure in the annals of Costanza then.

George: Ah, shut up. I…

Phone rings. Jerry picks up and Morty is on the other end.

Morty: Son, I’m flying up tomorrow to check on the property. If I like what I see, I’m in business, and your floundering career may get back on track. Meet me at 633 West 12th Avenue on Wednesday.

Jerry: Look dad, I’ve been thinking about…

Morty: And work on some new material.

Morty hangs up.

George: I’m ending it with her after the next Society meeting.

Jerry: I’m sure she’ll be devastated. And just when you guys were off to Big Arm too. Oh well.

George: Good luck with your dad. I gotta go prepare for the break up.

Scene 10

Whatley’s office. Elaine is seated in the dental chair.

Whatley: Elaine, good to see you back. I’m glad the label maker incident is behind us.

Elaine: Water under the bridge. I’ve always felt bad about the way that happened. I mean you’re a nice guy, with an exciting profession.

Whatley: Well, I don’t know about exciting.

Elaine: Oh, come on. I bet you’ve got all sorts of stories from dental school. And how about those American Dental Association conferences? If the walls could talk, right?

Whatley: I mean…

Elaine: Share. Just pretend this is a barbershop and you’re giving me a shave.

Whatley: No really, those conferences are pretty tame. No wild stuff. Everyone is laser focused on talking about science. That’s all they care about. The dentists there would kill to make a big research breakthrough and present their findings.

Elaine looks up with a stunned look.

Whatley: (Looking in her mouth). Everything looks good in here, Elaine. Just make an appointment on the way out for six months from now and you should be set.

Elaine leaves through office door on the right. As she does she sees Joe Devola coming into the door on the left. Devola does not see her. We see Elaine mouth, “Devola!” Elaine stays long enough to hear Whatley ask Devola, “How’s our little project progressing?” Devola replies, “Should be any time now, Doc.”

Scene 11

Morty’s warehouse. A giant empty room, with dilapidated shipping crates scattered about.

Morty: This is it, Jerry. My ticket to some extra retirement income, and your chance to remake yourself as a semi-respectable joke teller.

Jerry: Quite the place.

Morty: You could set up your act over there. Pointing to a giant shipping crate. You can stand on the crate and deliver your schtick. Maybe even give yourself a nautical nickname. You know, like, um, Jersey Coast Jerry or Barnacle Jerry the Comedian. Something like that.

Jerry: Look dad, I…

Uncle Leo comes in.

Leo: Jerry, hello!

Jerry: Leo??? What the hell are you…

Leo: This is it, Morty? It looks like a something from Popeye the Sailorman.

Morty: Think past what you see here now, Leo. Imagine what it could be with just $50,000 in renovations. We’d split that, and, if we’re lucky, we could reduce our fiscal responsibility by pulling in a few hundred from the bar when Jerry performs. Jerry grimaces in the background. We are sitting on a gold mine here!

Jerry: What’s Leo got to do with this?

Morty: (Whispering, so Leo cannot hear). I love you son, but I can’t risk my retirement nest egg on the chance that your new bits make an audience chuckle.

Leo: What’s going on over there?

Morty: Relax, Leo.

Leo: Morty, you know my terms. I called Jeffrey, and he said he’ll do it. He has lots of material from the new Park’s Department tour he’s doing near the Natural History Museum. The people on the tour love him. Someone called him The New Morey Amsterdam. Jeffrey was saving the material for the book he’s been putting together, but he’ll use it on stage to help his cousin Jerry. Isn’t that something! (Turns to Jerry.) That’s your cousin. (Looks at Morty). Anyway, you know the deal: I invest if Jeffrey is Jerry’s opening act. Otherwise it’s flushing money down the toilet.

Jerry walks slowly out of the warehouse, shaking his head.

Scene 12

Jerry’s apartment. George walks in. Jerry is on the phone.

George: Well, I did it. I ended it. I’m back on a three-dimensional earth.

Jerry puts up his hand to tell George to stop.

Jerry (on phone): You’re kidding. That’s it? That’s all I have to do? Yeah, sure. Fine.

George: What was that about?

Jerry: That was my agent. She discovered why I was losing all my gigs.

George: Really.

Jerry: You remember about six weeks ago I was doing some sets out in Vegas?

George: Sure, out at Planet Hollywood.

Jerry: Right, well, I was trying a new bit about Imperial Butter, you know, how the name might offend college students. Well, apparently, the NRA has a new “Back to Guns and Butter for America,” ad out, and they told their rank and file I was anti-butter, and that they should boycott my act.

George: Wow.

Jerry: All I have to do is drop that bit, and I’m back in business, baby!

George: What about your father and the comic warehouse thing?

Jerry: Eh, he’ll be fine with it. He just likes to pretend he’s Rockefeller throwing dimes at the peasants once in a while. He’ll go back to the condo and tell the story of how he was willing to risk it all to save his son, but fate stepped in to lend a hand. They’ll love it.

Scene 13

Kramer’s apartment. Kramer and Elaine talking on the couch.

Kramer: See, I told you.

Elaine: Yeah, and then after that, when I was leaving, I saw Devola come in.

Kramer: Devola? Oh man…

Elaine: Don’t jump to conclusions. I mean there might a reasonable explanation.

Kramer: Oh, there’s an explanation. They want my talons - that’s the explanation!

Elaine: So, what are you gonna do?

Kramer: You can’t beat the ADA, Elaine. No one ever has. Grabs a book on his coffee table. Take a look at this.

Elaine: Mystified. You own a book on the history of the American Dental Association?

Kramer: And it’s a good thing, too. Take a look at pages 79-83.

Elaine: Opens the book. “The Expansionist Era. World-wide branches of the ADA.” Why the hell does the American Dental Association need offices in 134 countries?”

Kramer: Now you’re starting to understand. It’s time for me to hop on a plane and make myself scarce for a few months. I booked a red-eye flight for Sofia, Bulgaria.

Elaine: Oh come on.

Kramer is already packing a ratty old leather suitcase with clothing.

Scene 13

A Bulgarian Airlines plane. Kramer talking to the guy next to him.

Kramer: My first time to Bulgaria. You?

Man in seat: No, I’ve been many times. The organization I work for has long tried to get a foothold there.

Kramer: Is that right? I’m Kramer, nice to meet you.

Man in seat: Gary Freidsgran.

Kramer: Man, your voice sounds familiar. Have we met?

Man in seat: I do voice-overs on television commercials. Everyone thinks they know my voice.

Kramer: Which commercials?

Man in seat: Hundreds. But the one I’m best known for, in fact the one that brings me to Bulgaria, is “Old Man Joe, his mouth disgusting and mossy. If only he had turned to me, his old friend Flossy.” (Turns to Kramer and smiles). Nice cadence, don’t you think?

END