The Seinfeld Episode You Didn't Realize Had A Seamless Special Effects Shot

In the "Seinfeld" episode "The Bookstore" (April 9, 1998), Newman (Wayne Knight) and Kramer (Michael Richards) decide that it would be good money to start their own rickshaw service. Neither of them wants to be the rickshaw puller, however, so they decide immediately to hire an employee, leading to a series of very strange interviews/auditions. One of their candidates, being stronger than them, steals the rickshaw. Recall that Newman and Kramer are not very good businessmen. 

They eventually get the rickshaw back and have to return it to their own neighborhood. Rather than both walk, Newman convinces Kramer to pull him. Kramer hates the arrangement. At one point, when the two are on a sloped street, Kramer stops to stretch his arms, accidentally sending Newman rolling backwards down the hill. In one hilarious wide shot, one can see the poor, screaming, helpless Newman zooming down the street, completely out of control. The streets are supposed to be New York, but the citizens of Los Angeles will recognize that it is definitely L.A.

Although it's a wide shot, one can see that it is definitely Newman in that rickshaw. One might assume that Wayne Knight did his own stunt and that the filmmakers simply pushed him down a hill, catching him before the rickshaw crashed into anything. However, the shot was far more complex than that. The rickshaw was, in fact, being pulled by a truck. In post-production, the truck was carefully, painstakingly, digitally erased from the frame. You'd never be able to tell from the final cut of "The Bookstore," as the special effects are seamless. Sure, it's a half-second moment, but it's seamless nonetheless. 

"Seinfeld," of course, isn't a very FX-heavy show, so such a stunt is notable when it comes along.

On the "Seinfeld"  DVD special features, episode director Andy Ackerman expressed relief in being able to leave the studio and shoot on location. The "Seinfeld" sets were located at Red Studios in Hollywood, specifically at 846 North Cahuenga Blvd., while downtown L.A. is only about 30 minutes away (which, translated through Los Angeles traffic terms, is only about six or seven miles). Ackerman also noted that the runaway rickshaw was more classically comedic than the show ordinarily got, comparing it to something one might see in a W.C. Fields movie.

The episode's director of photography, Wayne Kennan, noted that filming Downtown presented a problem, in that he wasn't able to zoom out too far and reveal that it wasn't New York City. He also noted, as to the effects: 

"We had a truck pull the rickshaw down the street with Newman in the back of it (of course). Then, in post, erased the truck." 

Ackerman was astonished by how clean and beautiful the shot was. Most TV viewers would not have been able to detect any VFX trickery.

Fun trivia: the entire rickshaw storyline was a last-minute replacement for "The Bookstore." It seems that the showrunners penned and filmed an entire B-story wherein Kramer offers to help out a fatigued cabbie (Ted Post) by offering to take over his shifts for free. Kramer, however, gets the cabbie's taxi towed away, and offers his own car as a replacement. It seems that the showrunners didn't like that story, and decided to edit it out entirely. The Newman/Kramer rickshaw story was hastily written in its place, and filmed entirely in one day, including the truck sequence. Few have seen the excised cabbie story, but the rickshaw story was a fine replacement.