One Of The Most 'Radical' Moments On Seinfeld, According To One Of The Show's Writers

When people think of bold, boundary-breaking "Seinfeld" moments, Susan's death often comes first to mind. The decision to casually kill off a fairly sympathetic recurring character — and to have the gang not care at all about her death — was a risky move. "Seinfeld" was always remarkably unsentimental compared to most sitcoms of its time, but even this might've been a bridge too far, spurring viewers to wonder if the series was a little too mean-spirited to keep tuning into each week. It probably also did a lot of damage to the envelope industry, but that's a separate issue. 

But despite Susan being the show's riskiest death, "Seinfeld" writer Larry Charles was also impressed by the "death scene" of Jerry. In season 2's "The Baby Shower," there's a dream sequence where Jerry is murdered by gunfire. Although the sequence was clearly a dream from start to finish and Jerry would stay alive for the rest of the show, Charles considered it to be "kind of a radical thing" for a sitcom to do. 

"To kill the main character, you know, and slow-motion death," Charles said in a behind-the-scenes documentary on the show. "And it was kind of fun, very Tarantino-like."

The sequence is pretty jarring in how cool it was. For a show with such a low budget at the time, the gunfire looked pretty realistic and impressive. (Well, minus the total lack of blood for Jerry's bullet wounds, but we can forgive NBC for not wanting to show that.) The best part was Kramer's very intense reaction to his friend/neighbor's death, which really sold the whole joke. 

"I love Larry Charles," said Jason Alexander, who plays George, in that same documentary. "I think he's quite brilliant. Whenever Larry writes comedy, there's bloodshed involved. There's mayhem and bloodshed. He's got a really dark sensibility." Larry Charles confirmed, "I probably killed more people in sitcoms than anybody else."

In addition to murdering Jerry, Charles got in trouble for one of his other season 2 episodes: "The Bet." It was an episode that was scrapped by NBC for one of Charles' jokes crossing the line. The episode featured Elaine deciding to buy a gun; Jerry disapproves of the decision, which leads to this exchange between the two of them:

Jerry: Annie Oakley ... is it warm in here or are you just packing heat?

Elaine: One bullet in the brainpan oughta drop your body temperature considerably

Jerry: I guess that would provide some cross-ventilation. Can you give me the Kennedy? In here (MOTIONING TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD) and out here (MOTIONING TO HIS ADAM'S APPLE)?

Elaine: Maybe I'll just take a little off the top.

Jerry: Aah, the Lincoln.

But it turned out that 1991 was still considered too soon for these sort of jokes. Julia Louis-Dreyfus objected to the joke, as did the executives at NBC, and the it never made it to primetime TV. The show would return to making JFK jokes a year later, however, with season 3's "The Boyfriend." The episode featured an extended homage to Oliver Stone's movie "JFK," except instead of a shooting the characters were investigating a suspicious spitting situation. It's one of the most famous scenes from "Seinfeld," although it wasn't Larry Charles who got to write it. Joking about the JFK assassination can work, it turns out; you just have to find the right angle.