His name is George. He’s still unemployed and in 2021, may or may not live with his parents.
When asked where George Costanza might be in the age of social distancing, Jason Alexander, who scored several Emmy nominations for the neurotic role, isn’t entirely sure the “Seinfeld” favorite would have actually reveled in the quarantine era, draping himself in velvet.
Alexander pointed to the post-“Seinfeld” addendum to his character’s arc, played out in Larry David’s later sitcom “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
“If we take the legacy of what ... Larry and [co-creator] Jerry [Seinfeld] added to the history in ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ George is broke. He lost all his money to Bernie Madoff,” Alexander, 62, told the Daily News while promoting his episode of “The Great Broadway Game Show Competition.”
For those whose devotion to the Show About Nothing rested solely with the NBC sitcom, which premiered in 1989 and wrapped after nine seasons in 1998, there’s more to the story following Jerry, George, Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and Kramer’s (Michael Richards) stint behind bars featured in the widely panned series finale.
The seventh season of HBO’s “Curb,” which sees David play a version of himself, brings back the ”Seinfeld” cast for a fictional reunion special. George developed an app to find “the nearest acceptable toilet wherever you are in the world,” before losing millions to notorious Ponzi schemer Madoff.
“So maybe his parents left him the house. ... So if he had a place to live, he might have holed up in the house [during quarantine] and I’m sure it’s kind of like Miss Havisham’s house at this point,” said Alexander. “It’s probably not doing very well.”
Alexander says it “seems unlikely” George would have ever finished his post-finale prison sentence.
“I’m not actually sure why or how George ever got out of jail,” he said, musing the character’s antics likely “compounded his problems.”
As someone who only watches the show if it pops up when flipping channels, Alexander said the fan base remembers much more about “Seinfeld” than he does.
“I was an original ‘Star Trek’ nut,” recalled Alexander, adding that when he eventually became friendly with stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, he’d ask them about the series, to which they’d say they didn’t know the answer. “But now I’m them. … For me, [the episodes] were something I did for a week, 30 years ago. And unless it was a big episode, or something really interesting was going on behind the scenes,” it won’t really stick out.”
One of those episodes include “The Contest,” about the core four’s bet regarding who can go the longest without pleasuring themselves. The episode was nominated for five Emmys, including one for Alexander.
“We were not an out-of the-gate hit. So we were finally given that beautiful slot after ‘Cheers.’ And ‘The Contest’ came on ... and it created such a tsunami of reaction that we were we were pretty much assured a job,” he said. “That was the one that changed the fortunes of our show. But it’s arguably a really audacious episode.”
———
