The Busboy

"The Busboy" is the 17th episode of Seinfeld to air, despite being the eighth produced. The episode was the 12th and final episode of the show's second season. It aired on June 26, 1991.

"The Busboy"
Seinfeld episode
Episode no.Season 2
Episode 12
Directed byTom Cherones
Written byLarry David & Jerry Seinfeld
Production code203
Original air dateJune 26, 1991
Guest appearance(s)
  • David Labiosa as Antonio
  • Doug Ballard as Eddie
  • John Del Regno as Manager

Plot

Jerry, George, and Elaine are at dinner when a menu on an adjacent table catches on fire. George puts it out and explains to the manager that the busboy, Antonio (David Labiosa), left the menu too close to a lit candle. Elaine jokingly declares she is never eating there again. The manager gets in an argument with the busboy and immediately fires him. Elaine and especially George fear their remarks may have caused the firing.

George and Kramer visit Antonio's ramshackle apartment to apologize, much to George's discomfort. Things get only worse when they accidentally leave the door open, letting his cat out, and his lamp gets broken. A few days later, Antonio comes to Jerry's apartment to see George, who is terrified that he will hurt him. Instead, Antonio tells him that there was a gas line explosion at the restaurant that killed five employees, including the busboy hired to replace him. Moreover, his search for his cat was both successful and led him to stumble upon a better-paying job. He thanks George for inadvertently saving his life and getting him a better job.

Elaine faces having her boyfriend Ed stay with her for a week. Increasingly irritated by the live-in situation, she puts him onto a plane back to Seattle, only to oversleep and on the way to JFK International Airport and encounter a five-car pileup on Rockaway Blvd. With her boyfriend still with her, he gets into a shouting match and eventually a fistfight in the hallway of Jerry's apartment building with Antonio, resulting in injuries on both ends after they fall down several flights of stairs. The busboy loses his new job, George is forced to take care of his cat, and Elaine's boyfriend is bedridden at her apartment for several more weeks.

Production

This episode was noted by the supporting cast in an interview used for a DVD set as the first sign that Jerry would be a generous writer, being very good about including the co-stars into simultaneous story lines. Jerry himself does not have a lead role in either of the episode's plots.

Larry David credits this episode as the first time that multiple storylines intertwined.

This episode was filmed in October 1990, simultaneously with "The Pony Remark" and "The Ex-Girlfriend".

In this episode, George claims to know the best public toilets anywhere in Manhattan. In the seventh season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry has written the reunion so that George has parlayed this knowledge into an iPhone app called "iToilet", which the fictionalized version of Jerry would describe as "An iPhone application that leads you via your GPS to the nearest acceptable toilet wherever you are in the world".

"La puerta está abierta" (= "The door is open"), a line the busboy uses, may have been taken from the children's television show Sesame Street.

Reception

At 12.5 million viewers, this episode had the fewest viewers for any Seinfeld episode in its original airing.

David Sims of The A.V. Club gave the episode a C+.[1]

References

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