The Seinfeld Episode That Inspired MythBusters To Fact Check George Costanza

In the "Seinfeld" episode "The Implant" (February 5, 1993), George (Jason Alexander) accompanies his girlfriend Betsy (Megan Mullally) to her aunt's funeral, wanting to be supportive. The characters on "Seinfeld," however, are always trapped by their pettiness and neuroses, so it won't be long before George commits some kind of horrendous faux pas. Case in point, while at the funeral, George gets into an argument with Betsy's brother Timmy (Kieran Mulroney) over the etiquette of double-dipping. Is it acceptable — or sanitary — to take a bite of a chip at a party, and then dip the remaining piece back into a communal bowl of ranch dressing? Timmy is disgusted that George would dip a chip after taking a bite. "That's like putting your whole mouth in the dip." He seemed concerned that some remnants of George's saliva worked their way into the dip bowl. 

George, being a petty human being, refuses to listen, and smugly double-dips right in front of Timmy. A physical fight breaks out. Needless to say, Betsy and George didn't stay coupled for too long thereafter. 

But then, some "Seinfeld" viewers might wonder: who is correct? Some may bristle at the thought of a peer's saliva working their way into a bowl of party dip, and it may be easy to picture germs transferring into food that way, but is it really as unsanitary Timmy seemed to think? Some viewers may have needed to ask themselves some serious questions. Am I a double-dipper? Do I hate double-dippers? And would some scientific research prove which side of the dip argument was correct? 

Luckily, the creative souls at "MythBusters" stepped in to answer the latter question.

In the "MythBusters" episode "Banana Slip/Double Dip" (June 3, 2009), the show's two hosts, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, decided to see if Timmy was right when he said that double-dipping is like putting your whole mouth in a jar of dip. They set up some agar plates in Petri dishes in the hope of growing bacterial cultures, and measuring the levels of microbes in some dip after the act of double-dipping. They tried with chunky salsa and some cream cheese, and were sure to get a baseline reading, seeing how many microbes were in the dip before any chips entered it. Then they gleefully double-dipped just as George did in "The Implant." Dip, bite, dip. After the double dip, the MythBusters took a second bacterial reading to see if they added any new microbes to the mix.

Just for good measure, Hyneman and Savage did what Timmy had suggested, and put their whole mouths into the two dips. Yes, they both filled their mouths with dip and then spit it back out into the bowl. The pair then took a tertiary reading of microbes. If double-dipping really was the same and spitting up dip, the MythBusters were going to make sure. The Petri dishes were left in a 98-degree incubator for a 24-hour period. 

Shockingly, the MythBusters found that the salsa was lousy with bacteria ... for all three samples. Even with no human saliva in it, it was full of microbes. Indeed, they found that the control salsa somehow contained more bacteria than even the salsa they held in their mouths. It seems that, in a casual party environment, double-dipping will do nothing to taint a bowl of dip, as it's likely already tainted by environmental factors.

But the MythBusters weren't content to leave well enough alone. To make sure that double-dipping really added germs to a bowl of dip, they decided to re-conduct the experiment, but this time, start with a more sterile environment. Adam Savage took his chips to a radiation lab and had them bombarded with radiation in an attempt to kill all microbes on them. The lab technician who helped Savage said that the chip may taste funny after, but that they would indeed be safe to eat. 

The pair then hired a parthenogenesis expert, Dr. Russell Vance, to oversee the experiment. They mixed up a "dip" made of nothing but agar and sterilized water (don't worry, it's edible), and did the three-in-one test all over again. Surely, it wasn't very delicious. Yes, they even filled their mouths with the agar/water mixture, and then spit it back into the bowl. 

Their results: 

This time, the "dip" control was clean (as they expected), but the double-dipped samples were only slightly dirtier, producing tiny amounts of bacteria. Maybe one to three colonies. It seems that double-dipping can add microbes to a bowl of, uh, agar salsa. As for the full-mouth claims, the samples came out much dirtier, with dozens of bacteria colonies forming in them. So Timmy was wrong. Double-dipping isn't as bad as putting your whole mouth in the bowl. 

But then, Timmy was wrong in general, because exposed bowls of salsa at a party are fully of bacteria even when untouched. But it's likely that the average human immune system will easily kill off anything ingested in such a fashion. 

In a rare example of "Seinfeld" righteousness, George was correct. Dip however you want, and don't let people tell you that it's gross.