Top 30 Seinfeld Characters

Top 30 Seinfeld Characters

Written by Zeromage 16 Comments
Last Updated:: May 8, 2008

10. Tim Whatley

I once read that dentists have a higher rate of suicide than other professions. But Tim Whatley D.D.S (that’s Doctorate of Dental Science, I think) doesn’t really fit this mold. At least not in the sense that he bangs all of his dental assistants. Whatley has been known to be a promoter of the “swinging lifestyle”, especially with his own employees. Now it’s always been hard to get a good look at the flirty dental hygienist with all her face shielding going on, but most of the time I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Dr. Tim did have several characteristics of depression that could lead to suicide though. For one, he’s not much well liked amongst the other Seinfeld characters. Kramer coined the phrase “anti-dentite” when he claims that Jerry doesn’t like Tim. Whatley was also branded a “re-gifter” which can have severe problems on your emotions later on in life. To top it off he keeps Penthouse magazines in his office and possibly does lewd and perverted things to his patients while under gas in his office. The average pedophile may not find a problem with this, but Middle America does. Re-gifters deserve to jump off of a building to end their misery….those bastards. But since the guy became a Jew in order to make jokes about Judaism he has to have some sort of confidence in himself to continue in his dental career and sleep with as many assistants as he can. Good for you doc!

9. Mickey Abbott

Mickey Abbott is a struggling NYC actor who also happens to be a dwarf (not to be confused with a midget, as Dwarves have extra Magical resistence). He is also the good friend and frequent co-worker of Cosmo Kramer. They’ve worked together as Santa Claus and his helper elf, stand-ins on a soap opera playing a father and son, and as “patients” portraying symptoms at a medical school so that students could diagnose them with the correct disease. In one of the more memorable Seinfeld moments Kramer “gives” him gonorrhea because he thought he’d “have fun with it”, whereas Mickey wants to act out “bacterial meningitis” because he feels it is the “Hamlet” of diseases. Mickey is quick to anger when referred to as a “midget” and will threaten and sometimes physically attack the accusatory party. He frequently loses his temper, and is easily riled when something doesn’t go his way, and with Kramer, things very rarely turn out the way you expect. That’s what makes these two such a great comedic duo, whether they are getting into fights over who gets to date who on a double date, or when they are arguing over the bigger issues, such as communism versus capitalism.

8. Jerry Seinfeld

As the man whose last name is the name of the show, it was a given that Jerry Seinfeld would make our list. At the beginning of each episode we’re always greeted with a little tidbit of Jerry’s actual stand up comedy, and it usually gives you a little heads up as to the theme of the episode you’re about to watch. And in most Seinfeld episodes you’re never truly ready for the wild plot lines that simultaneously occur, always finding some great connection at the very end that ties them all together. After all a bachelor comedian living in New York City often finds himself in a mirade of misunderstandings that get him into trouble. Often caught with both hands out to his sides, his eyes wide open and his high pitched voice going “whaaattttttttt did I do?!” Jerry is the glue of the show and a true nerd himself, as evidenced by the glimpses of Superman that are dabbled throughout his small city style apartment. And as an avid cereal fan, you are sure to find a nice selection of fresh cereals stored above his sink, that is as long as he’s not in the middle of a horrible reconstruction of his kitchen by an indecisive carpenter. From candy striped suade coat mix-ups to misinterpreted mouth readers, Jerry is always in the middle of crazy situations, which for the most part he had nothing to do with in the beginning. He is the “straight man” of the show. While he is weird in his own right, he’s also “normal” enough to counterbalance the wackiness of characters like George and Kramer.

7. Jack Klompus

Jack Klompus is the wannabe president of the Del Boca Vista condo board, and Morty Seinfeld’s arch-nemesis. He was Morty’s version of Newman, although throughout the series he would prove to be a nuisance to all the Seinfeld family, not just Morty. Jack was a slimy old man who spent most of his days bragging about his astronaut pen that could write upside down, and in his first appearance on the show (“The Pen”) Jack insisted that Jerry take his beloved pen and then proceeded to tell everyone at the condo how Jerry had stolen it. In the end Jerry gave the pen back to Jack, however Jack continued to mention the pen to Jerry in future appearances.

In another memorable episode, “The Cadillac”, Jerry had bought his father a brand new Cadillac. Jack assumed that because Jerry’s stand up act was so terrible that Morty had embezzled condo treasury funds to buy the car. This accusation began a series of events that led to Morty’s impeachment from the office of condo president. Following this episode the Seinfelds sold the Cadillac to Jack for $6,000. After Jerry found out that his parents had sold the Cadillac he went to Florida to buy the car back from Jack. The old man demands $14,000 for the car and Jerry agrees. However before he can take possession of the car, Jack drives it into a swamp near Alligator Alley. After spending all his money on buying the car back from Jack and getting it repaired, Jerry found himself out of cash and credit and had to sleep in the car overnight. Of course since Jack was such a great antagonist, he would return in many other episodes and remain a constant thorn in the side of the Seinfelds right up until the end of the show.

6.Crazy Joe Davola

Joe Davola has a nickname. His nickname is “Crazy”. Only its not really one of those nicknames that you would normally substitute for the person’s real name, ya know what I mean? For instance, the standard nickname for someone named Anthony is Tony. But when a nickname is included in the person’s name along with their usual name, it’s more of a personal trait. Such is the explanation for “Crazy” Joe Davola. This guy hates Jerry. When I say hate…I mean hate. He blames Jerry for all of his misfortunes and shortcomings. For example, Joe, a writer, submitted a script to NBC around the same time Jerry was working on his pilot. Even though it was NBC that rejected the script, Crazy Joe blamed Jerry for this failure. But when Crazy Joe takes out his anger, he does it on other people. Kramer suffered the fate of a roundhouse kick to the head. It may have exploded his cortex if he wasn’t wearing a helmet. Some rather innocent punks were mercilessly made bitches of in Central Park by Joe and his martial arts skills. Joe is so F-ed up he works out, lifts weights, and cries all at the same time. His love life is no picnic either. Elaine was his center of affection until she dumped him, and shacked up with Joe’s psychiatrist. In one of the more serious moments in the show, Elaine is trapped by a brooding Joe and is only able to escape by getting him in the face with binaca. Although he is more out there than the Voyager probes, Joe has some good times terrorizing Jerry and George, and that’s good enough for us.

5. Kruger

Kruger was one George’s bosses towards the end of the Seinfeld series. Known to be lazy and successful at the same time, Kruger would go on to be one of the most memorable characters in the Seinfeld for his noticeable indolence. We first gain a glimpse into these characteristics of Kruger when he is deciding whether or not to hire George at Kruger Industrial Smoothing. Kruger quips nonchalantly, “I could go either way on you…but what the hell, we need someone”. George retorts ebulliently by saying “You won’t regret this sir!” to which Kruger simply sits back and says “I don’t care”. As George is “busting” over this fortuitous occurrence, it’s only a couple days on the job before George realizes that he will have to babysit Kruger into getting any work done. For example, George suggests that Kruger get their business sign fixed outside their building because the “R” in “Kruger” is falling apart. Kruger responds felicitously to this seemingly enormous problem by saying “Why don’t we keep the sign like it is, listen to it, K-Ugggeerrr!”. Another day on the job and George is trying to help Kruger with some finances. George finds himself doing all the work while Kruger is continually goofing off. Instead of helping George out, Kruger is seeing how many times he could rotate on a rotating chair without using his feet looking like a kid in a playground when he says “Look, 3 times!”. Because of that, and some other foolery including nominating George as “Koko the Monkey” in one episode, Kruger would go on to be one of the most absurd characters in the Seinfeld series. The mere sight of Kruger would make the viewer jocular and excited for the episode to see how careless this CEO would take his job.

4. Frank Costanza

George’s crazy father, Frank Costanza no doubt embodies what ‘neurotic’ would look like if it were to take on the shape of a human being. The word is afterall, defined as ‘prone to excessive anxiety and emotional upset’. And well, Mr. Costanza wouldn’t be Mr. Costanza if he wasn’t excessively anxious and emotionally upset. Also being loud, paranoid, agitated and suspicious, he fits the mold to a tee. No one would accuse of Frank Costanza of holding back because we all know that restraint is something he has very little of. With a temper as huge as his TV Guide collection, he’ll grind an axe on your head if he’s got one to grind. He doesn’t care who the flock you are. You could be George Steinbrenner pouring your heart out over a death in the family, and he still won’t hold back. Nope, he’ll look into your teary eyes and respond not by offering his deepest condolences but by screaming at you for trading Jay Buhner. He’ll then wrap up the conversation by telling you “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU’RE DOING”. No one ever accused Frank Costanza of tactfulness. But that’s no surprise to us. As avid Seinfeld fans, we at old-wizard know Frank Costanza’s not the most couth or sympathetic light in the socket but all agree he’s by far the most burnt out and that’s how we like it. ‘Serenity now’ can wait for later. Festivus is for the restofus.

3. Cosmo Kramer

Cosmo Kramer is clearly the most noticeable character in Seinfeld, and perhaps all 90’s sitcoms for that matter. He’s tall, lanky, aloof, and most of the time bizarre – much to the audiences enjoyment. What Kramer represented was a slapstick comedy that had lost it’s pert since the old black and white shows of the 50’s. He was always falling down, sliding into Jerry apartment, and making more random noises than a group of monkeys in a South American forest. Kramer was not just limited to his slapstick modes though. Some of the writing for Kramer was genius and executed to perfection by Michael Richards (Kramer). Kramer would come up with some of the most strange ideas that most of the time never made sense like installing a garbage disposal as the drain of his shower so he could prepare vegetables when showering. Another madly random idea involved turning his whole apartment into the set of the Merv Griffin show. Without a doubt, the most odd of Kramerian ideas was reversing the peephole in his apartment door so people could see inside his apartment rather than him being able to see who’s at his door. Kramer was never short of non-sensical ideas that were jocular in the most absurdist fashion. Only with the coffee table book that actually turned into a coffee table, would Kramer enjoy the success as an innovator of new technologies. The character of Kramer involving bad ideas, awkward presence, and a million and one stories about friends never seen in the Seinfeld series, ubiquitously make Kramer one of the most essential interlopers in Seinfeld. Watch a show with him and Newman teeming up to do one of these former ideas and you’re in for pure comedy.

2. Newman

Every truly great protagonist has had an equally great antagonist. Superman had Lex Luthor, Batman had the Joker, and Aquaman had… I’m sure you see my point. In Seinfeld, Jerry’s arch-nemesis was a portly mailman named Newman. Newman was the ying to Jerry’s yang, and was a frequent source of annoyance to Jerry. Newman often seemed quite amused at how effectively he irritated Jerry (which of course only irritated Jerry all the more), although Newman was rarely ever the victor in the battle of wits between the two. Newman was also a good friend of Kramer’s, and the pair were always participating in various get-rich-quick schemes much to the TV viewing audience’s delight. In “The Bookstore,” Newman and Kramer decided to use a rickshaw to transport people from place to place, and in another episode they try to figure out how to turn a profit returning bottles and cans to Michigan where the refund is ten cents instead of five.

As a sitcom character few have ever had depth of Newman. This was a guy who took his job as a mailman very seriously (as long as it is not raining); and he would often end up protesting the idea of any mail being considered “junk.” However, he was known to use his job for corrupt purposes, such as purposely withholding mail for blackmail revenge, or using the Union to get himself out of jail. But nlike most TV villians, he wasn’t all bad. Despite his girth, Newman was also an expert climber (a skill that he learned in the Pacific Northwest) and a terrific tennis player. Jerry also once agreed with George that, “…he is merry.” Newman is also a prolific poet, once writing poetry for Kramer to use to win a woman’s heart. His angry rants directed against Jerry clearly demonstrate his impressive and dramatic command of his role. In fact, one of Newman’s most well known speeches takes place in “The Finale”, after Jerry refuses to take him to Paris:

“Alright! But hear me and hear me well, the day will come, oh yes, mark my words Seinfeld, your day of reckoning is coming, when an evil wind will blow through your little playworld and wipe that smug smile off your face. And I’ll be there in all my glory, watching, watching as it all comes crumbling down!”

1. George Costanza

“Everyone’s always telling me I’m a character,” George Costanza told Jerry at Monk’s coffee shop while they were discussing making him into a character on the new sitcom they were developing. Truer words have never been spoken on prime time T.V. George is neurotic, self-loathing, and at times portrayed as slow-witted, but nevertheless he has been one of the most popular characters of the show amongst its diehard fans. Why? George represents the bulk of the American T.V. watching audience, even if they don’t want to admit it to themselves. Deep down we’re all lazy and self-loathing, and anyone who so brazenly admits it to themselves and everyone around them is looked upon as a hero by the T.V. watching public. But George is also a character in his own right. He has an affinity with anything related to restrooms. In one episode, he quits his real estate job solely because he’s forbidden from using his boss’s private bathroom. In another episode, he claims to have a cursory knowledge of the locations of the best bathrooms in the city. When working for the Yankees, he suggested having the bathroom stall doors stretched all the way to the floor (allowing people’s legs not to be seen while in the stalls) and he has even shown a fascination with toilet paper and its history. “Everything comes down to toilet paper with you, doesn’t it?” Jerry once remarked.

One question one may ask about George after watching Seinfeld for a few episodes is how this short, stocky bald man is able to date so many hot women? He’s unemployed and living with his parents for most of the show’s history after all. The answer is that George will go to any lengths, and do or say anything to get these women. This is a guy who once converted to the Latvian Orthodox church in order to get the girl (and had the audacity to cheat on his conversion test for that matter). George’s main issue isn’t with getting women, its with keeping them. He usually eventually gets caught in his intricate web of lies or finds some small flaw with the women he dates (he once broke up with someone for beating him at chess). George is based primarily upon co-creator Larry David, and many of George’s predicaments were based on past real-life experiences of David. Such as in “The Revenge”, when George quits his job in a fury only to realize his actions were a mistake, so he goes back the next day as if nothing happened. This mirrored David’s actions while working as a writer for Saturday Night Live, when he quit and then returned to his job in the same manner. In the end though, Jerry Seinfeld described the character of George Costanza best when he said “Anger is the key to this whole character, justifiable anger . . . It’s justifiable from the point of view that he got, a raw deal, handed a bad hand in life, and he’s gonna get even.”

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16 Comments

#1 StuffGuy says:
March 15th, 2010 at 1:46 am

Good to see George got #1. Costanza…”CAN’T STAND YA!”

Frank at number 4 is awesome too… “You want a piece of me?!”

#2 Hi says:
March 15th, 2010 at 10:14 pm

Omg Elaine should be at number #1 not number #17

It should be…..#4 George
#3 Jerry
#2 Kramer
#1 Elaine

#3 Marcus34 says:
March 15th, 2010 at 10:47 pm

This list is pretty good, i agree that elaine should be higher up on the list, but i think it’s ubsurd that frank costanza(jerry stiller’s character) is that high on the list, there were parts of the show when i knew he was going to have a 2 or 3 minute segment and i’d turn the channel so i didn’t have to watch his angry, hairy, old ass yell and scream stupid shit.

The same goes for J Peterman, i think it’s funny that he launched from his seinfeld character to being a cancelled crappy game show host.

My favorite character on seinfeld is and will always be Kramer, Michael Richards’ character is THE reason people tuned in week after week.

#4 etam says:
March 15th, 2010 at 2:49 pm

i dont know how peterman is so low on the list that guy is classic. also jerry and kramer should have been #1 and #2 with costanza at three.

#5 Bobby says:
March 15th, 2010 at 12:59 am

Where is Bookman? The library worker who takes his job too seriously?

And I agree with George at 1. Whoever said Elaine should be needs to shut the hell up, she was one of the worst characters.

#6 Alex says:
March 15th, 2010 at 2:19 pm

Where’s Estelle Costanza?? Susan Ross?? The Rosses?? Bookman??

Llyod Braun wasn’t that great a character (though I’ll give it, his character did make for a classic episode).

Still a good list though. The greastest character, IMO, is the one character most people think of first and those that didnt even watch the show that often can most associate with it. I think that’s between Kramer and George. I put Kramer at #1.

#7 Ivey says:
March 15th, 2010 at 3:33 am

As long as George is number one im satisfied, hes probably the best character of all sitcoms.

#8 Kevin says:
March 15th, 2010 at 7:25 pm

What about the guy I think was in the first season or second I cannot remember, he shares a cab with Jerry and they end up watching Rochelle, Rochelle together and he’s also a stand-up comedian and he was just annoying Jerry throughout the whole episode I found it funny and wish he could’ve came back in later episodes to annoy him more. Still a pretty good list though, I will agree, where bookman is, or what about the guy that was hired as Jerry’s butler who stole the statue of George and Kramer stole it back pretending to be a PI? that one was pretty good moments there as well.

#9 M Di Maria says:
March 15th, 2010 at 6:24 pm

Who was the awesomely beautiful girl Jerry dates in “The List”?

#10 Kevin says:
March 15th, 2010 at 9:20 pm

What about the guy in the Seinfeld episode? his name was Jean-Paul!!! this guy was funny when he started swearing on the set and calling the baby a bastard when he was really a bastard child…HAHAHA… “No it was the volume! Yes Seperate knob… WHY SEPERATE KNOB! WHY SEPERATE KNOB!!!” …….. AWESOME!!!

#11 Galactus20 says:
March 15th, 2010 at 3:13 am

Awesome list!

#12 Julie says:
March 15th, 2010 at 2:36 pm

Pretty good list – considering our dogs are Kramer & Newman! We just got a puppy and can’t decide between Puddy & Maestro!

#13 Jesse says:
March 15th, 2010 at 1:13 pm

To all wondering why elaine isnt higher on the list… Before i go over this i must explain i own all seasons and have watched ALL episodes with commentary and notes about nothing, not to mention all inside looks (i know im a loser )

But basically the elaine character was only ever put in the show because NBC knew women wouldnt watch if it was just men, she was added simply to make the show appealing to girls, and most of her stories are quite weak in terms of making guys laugh, alot of them are very “you go girl” sort of moments. Seinfeld in essence is really a show about George and Kramer, with Jerry being the show holder, and Elaine being a female character to get women to watch. The majority of laughs and applauded entires are for George and Kramer, they are really the reason that most people, and myself included, tune in
Thanks for your time, feel free to flame me for being a sexist bastard now

#14 Chubster45 says:
March 15th, 2010 at 5:29 am

Elaines boyfriend brett should be right up there
“haha… thats really funny, elaine told me you were somekind of comedian”

Top 30 Seinfeld Characters

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