A Michael Richards Quirk Became A Part Of Kramer's Character On Seinfeld

Some of the best sitcoms live and breathe on the diverse idiosyncrasies of its talented ensemble. If every character talks, acts, and says the same things in the same way, there wouldn't be anything for them to bounce off of, especially on a show like "Seinfeld." The hit NBC sitcom thrives on four different corners of the New York friend group sowing chaos wherever they go in the manner they see fit, inadvertently or not. Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) is an exaggerated reflection of the comedian lifestyle, often being the one to point out the bizarre observations of his friends' lives. (That's what the entire show is based around, after all.) His right-hand man, George Costanza (Jason Alexander), on the other hand, is a tried and true neurotic who's very full of himself and will do just about anything to make certain opportunities work out in his favor. From a distance, Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is the most responsible member of the group, being consistently employed throughout the series' run, yet she constantly finds herself receiving the worst end of the stick. It's Jerry's next-door neighbor, however, who possessed the show's biggest and most unpredictable personality.

"Seinfeld" would look a whole lot different if the core ensemble didn't have Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer. Loosely based on Kenny Kramer, the former real-life neighbor of series co-creator Larry David, the character resembles a cartoon come to life, with many of the same animated expressions. Jerry, George, and Elaine all have some sort of worry about how they present themselves to the world, but Kramer couldn't be more carefree about his entire existence. He's a blunt presence who's always getting into schemes and hopping from one random gig to another. Kramer's the kind of guy you know who has social connections in all sorts of places. For instance, he's the only person who the infamous Soup Nazi actually considers a friend. But most importantly to the show, he deeply cares about helping his friends out however he can.

Richards gives such a memorably funny performance throughout the nine season run of "Seinfeld" that it would be virtually impossible to see anyone else embodying this character. His post-Kramer career would be marred by not just the comedian's failed follow-up sitcom, but his infamous tirade of racial epithets at comedy club hecklers in 2006, which naturally led to his exile from the spotlight for a while. (It's always a shame when funny people reveal their worst traits.) Richards has come out of his hole in recent years, having written a book about his life and the incident in question. In spite of this career ding, "Seinfeld" is still considered one of the best sitcoms of all time, with a lot of Kramer-isms still being used today, and one of Richards' co-stars noticed one performance tic that became a constant attribute of his character.

"The Maestro" was where the world was first introduced to the recurring character known as Jackie Chiles (Phil Morris), a parody of high-profile lawyer Johnnie Cochran. In this episode, Kramer approaches Jackie to represent him for an incident regarding scalding hot coffee that he accidentally spilled on himself in the previous episode ("The Postponement"). In addition to showing his overindulgence with caffeine, Kramer also finds himself saying a bunch of words incorrectly throughout the episode. Julia Louis-Dreyfus noticed that Richards' many mispronunciations often bled over into how his character would say them (via DVD featurette):

"One thing that we always used to laugh about is that Michael would always mispronounce words by accident; And they often made it into the show and they do twice in 'The Maestro' episode. He says 'thee-a-ter' and he also says 'café latte.' We would just love it and we would often try not to laugh when he did it so that he would continue to do it because it was an accident, though sometimes I wonder if he wasn't doing it on purpose. But there's no way of knowing now."

In addition to the examples Louis-Dreyfus lists here, there's also the time that Kramer hilariously confuses the phrase "statute of limitations" as "statue of limitations." It wouldn't be the first time something Richards' performance would make his co-stars laugh because of something he's said. But for as much as these phonetic flubs would end up in Kramer's dialogue, Elaine was just as guilty as anyone else. Some of her best mispronunciations were "stuperstition" instead of superstition, "boyd" instead of buoyed and, my personal favorite, "boogetyman" instead of boogeyman. The difference between the two is that Elaine sinks in her embarrassment, while Kramer just acts like the other person is the crazy one for thinking it's said any other way.

Outside the confines of the performance, it's natural to screw up some words here and there. It happens to the best of us, especially if we've been saying it our way for a good chunk of our lives. The most humiliating part is being rightfully called out on in, where we usually have to face embarrassment on the receiving end. I say this as someone who only moved to Massachusetts about four years ago and, within year one, mistakenly said "War-chest-her" instead of "Wooster" for the town of Worcester.

Every episode of "Seinfeld" is currently streaming on Netflix.