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0:33

Everything was going along so great. She

0:35

was laughing, I was funny. I kept

0:38

saying to myself, keep it up, don't blow it, you're

0:40

doing great.

0:41

It's all in your head. All she knows

0:43

is she had a good time. I think you should call her.

0:46

I can't call her now, it's too soon. I'm planning

0:48

a Wednesday call. Why?

0:51

I love it when guys call me the next day. Of

0:53

course you do, but you're

0:54

imagining a guy you like, not a guy who goes,

0:57

oh no, I don't drink cotton lady, no.

1:00

If I call her now, she's going to think I'm too needy.

1:03

Women don't want to see need. They want

1:05

to take charge guy, a colonel, a kaiser,

1:07

a czar.

1:09

All she'll think is that you

1:11

like her. That's exactly what I'm trying

1:13

to avoid. She wants you to

1:15

like her. Yes, she wants me to like her

1:18

if she likes me, but

1:19

she doesn't like me. I

1:22

don't know what your parents did to you.

1:29

Hey, it's Ben Bailey-Smith here. And Sasha

1:31

Bates. And this of course is the pod where we

1:34

pick the brains of TV's most intriguing

1:36

fictional characters, stick them in therapy.

1:38

Sasha, tell us about the clip at the top.

1:40

That was George Costanza

1:42

after he's been on a date where

1:45

his date asked him up for coffee and

1:47

he then said, oh no, it'll stop me from sleeping

1:49

and then spent the rest of the few

1:52

days spiraling out of control with how

1:54

stupid he could have been for not understanding that coffee

1:56

didn't actually mean coffee. So

1:58

it is of course Seinfeld.

1:59

a hugely influential comedy.

2:02

It began back in 1989, can you believe? And

2:06

yeah, around for nine seasons. The

2:09

finale, which was recorded 25 years ago, was

2:13

watched by an incredible 80

2:14

million people.

2:16

Anything's topped that. I know, it's hard to believe

2:18

nowadays, isn't it? All at one go as

2:21

well. Back then it would have been. And

2:23

there was even those huge screens, they're

2:25

called Jumbotrons, I think. Oh,

2:27

the big

2:27

screens in Times Square. They put

2:30

them up so that people could like, communally

2:33

watch that finale. I wonder how many people

2:35

got robbed during that 23 minutes. That's

2:37

what I'm talking about. 80 billion people

2:39

glued to the screen. What a show

2:42

though. I know. I mean, kind of the

2:45

archetype for the

2:48

modern, kind of carefree comedy,

2:50

I guess. Oh, I used to just

2:53

love it. It was a highlight of my week,

2:55

really. And I think that unlike a lot

2:57

of the shows we've looked at, there's no mobsters

3:00

or millionaires or none of

3:02

the major characters die. There's

3:04

no mystery to solve it. It's

3:05

just- It's the odd two-parter, but no sort

3:08

of story really that runs. No,

3:10

no sort of through line. It's just sort of people

3:12

like us coping with the mundanity

3:15

of life and the irritations of doing

3:17

your laundry and people being annoying

3:20

and just sort of having to exist alongside

3:23

each other. Yeah,

3:24

those social faux pas. It

3:27

is kind of phenomenal. It

3:29

is. How consistently funny it is.

3:32

Every single one is hilarious. And the setups,

3:34

the A story, the B story, involving

3:37

all four of them to different extents.

3:39

It's like a master's in comic

3:42

writing. How to keep

3:44

things light, but give it weight. How to make

3:46

things exciting. And how to be economic.

3:49

Because there's no episode that's longer

3:51

than 22, 23 minutes.

3:54

I suppose I should say, in our

3:56

last show, we did promise to give everyone

3:58

our top Georgia- Costanza

4:00

episodes across all series of

4:02

Seinfeld and true to our word we

4:04

will be either making reference to or playing

4:07

clips from all of those throughout

4:08

this podcast and we've put a

4:11

sort of top ten list in the

4:13

show notes of this episode

4:15

and I'm sure you'll have differing opinions but

4:18

I reckon there's going to be four or five in there that

4:20

you just cannot disagree with. It's

4:22

absolute George Classics. So

4:24

coming up we're going to find out what an anxious

4:27

ruminator is. We're going to find out what

4:29

happens when self-loathing is allowed to run free

4:31

and how stationary can kill you and

4:33

we're not talking paper cuts. Yeah. All

4:36

right.

4:36

So welcome to Shrink

4:40

the Box. This

4:42

is actually nice Sush. It's not like setting up the

4:44

wire or something. You

4:46

need to do a massive recap

4:49

here. All you need to know really

4:51

Seinfeld is set in Manhattan and

4:53

we're focused on four friends. Jerry, who's

4:56

Jerry Seinfeld. He's a stand-up comedian like

4:58

he's in real life. He's not

4:59

as successful I would say as

5:02

he is in real life at the time.

5:04

He's still in the grind. George Costanza,

5:07

his best friend from school, Jason Alexander,

5:10

his ex-girlfriend, which a lot of people forget

5:12

I think as the series goes on, Elaine

5:15

Benes, who's played by Julia Louis

5:17

Dreyfus, brilliantly, and

5:20

his crazy neighbor Cosmo Cramer,

5:23

always referred to as Cramer really, never

5:25

Cosmo, played by Michael Richards. Sush,

5:28

tell us a bit about this week's client.

5:31

Well, when we first meet George, he is 31, going

5:33

on 80. Yeah.

5:36

I mean, he looks and dresses like a middle-aged

5:39

man, right? And has the mindset of somebody

5:41

who's very world-weary and has been

5:44

on this earth too long really. He

5:46

grew up and went to school in Brooklyn,

5:49

New York, which is where he met Jerry, his best

5:51

friend. It's also where he was famously

5:53

tormented by a gym teacher who would deliberately

5:56

mispronounce his last name as Constanjia.

6:00

and George holds a grudge about this, but

6:02

what I think is interesting is the person who really can't

6:04

stand George is George himself. And

6:07

at one point he says the greatest accomplishment of his

6:09

life is having got a high score on a Frogger

6:11

video game in a pizza parlor. He's

6:14

not, no he's not a man

6:16

with a great view of himself or

6:19

society around him really. Yeah

6:21

and his parents are very overwhelming

6:24

and still very much in his life. I'm sure we'll dig

6:26

into that. I just wanted to say how

6:29

brilliant the casting is of his parents because

6:31

they're all the same size, all three of them. They're

6:34

all tiny. They all look about

6:36

5'2". George's mum just looks like

6:38

a female George

6:41

and his dad's all three

6:43

actors have a brilliant way of

6:45

ramping up the volume in their voices.

6:48

His dad is Jerry Stiller who

6:50

I, you know, rest

6:53

in peace, an unbelievably good

6:55

comic actor and comedian

6:58

and of course the father of another very funny

7:00

small man in Ben Stiller.

7:03

Oh is he Ben Stiller's dad?

7:05

I did not know that. Yeah it's just funny bones throughout

7:08

this series. So

7:10

many guest stars in Seinfeld are

7:12

actually sort of kind of comic geniuses in their

7:14

own right.

7:15

They absolutely are. And Jerry Stiller

7:17

definitely is. Yeah, what a cast list.

7:19

I do take issue with one thing you've just said. Was that oh

7:22

about small people. Yes 5'2 is not small.

7:24

You know my wife is

7:26

5'2 and she'll be like, you

7:28

know, snapping her iPhone in half.

7:31

Yes well me too. Prince was

7:33

5'2, Prince was 5'2 and he could dunk.

7:37

Sorry. All right so listen George

7:39

has a very, let's

7:41

say, there to be kind of a particular

7:43

way of viewing the world. You

7:46

know what do you think is happening under

7:48

that shiny bons.

7:51

The word that I just couldn't get out of my

7:54

mind when it comes to George is neurotic

7:56

and it's a word we often bandy

7:59

about words in

7:59

in kind of real life that

8:02

means something slightly differently, therapeutically.

8:04

So I thought what I would do is I would go and actually look up

8:06

what the definition of neurotic

8:09

is and it said that just to remind

8:11

myself, it said it was a tendency towards negative

8:13

emotions including anxiety,

8:16

chronic worrying, self-consciousness, self-doubt,

8:19

interpreting mutual situations as threatening,

8:22

overreacting to perceived threats,

8:24

viewing minor problems as overwhelming,

8:27

fear, guilt over minor things, anger,

8:29

irritability, frustration, complaining, moody,

8:32

jealous and envious. It's

8:34

like in the character description for the

8:36

actor going to audition for George Costanza.

8:38

It's just all of that written out. Absolutely.

8:40

I know. He

8:42

just embodies it. It's like they went through that

8:44

list themselves and thought, okay, right, here we go. Let's give him a situation

8:46

that he can manifest all of these traits.

8:50

And I mean, he really does just find life

8:52

so disappointing. He's constantly

8:55

feeling like he's done wrong or the world's done

8:57

wrong and he imagines the worst in every

8:59

situation. I mean, the very first time we meet him, he's

9:01

in the coffee shop panicking

9:04

that the waitress will give him the wrong coffee

9:06

because she hasn't got the normal label on the

9:08

decaf and he's worrying that he'll get the the

9:10

calf, not the decaf. And he sort

9:12

of spirals up from worrying about something

9:14

so small to there's a situation

9:17

later in the series where he

9:19

says, I might never have sex again. I can't imagine

9:21

any circumstances under which that could occur.

9:25

And another time he says, what's the difference? He'll all be

9:27

dead soon. I mean, it's like he worries from like

9:29

coffee to dying and everything in between.

9:32

And this is sort of an

9:34

early example of catastrophizing that coffee

9:37

thing. The first time we we see him, as you

9:39

say, he is doing some relatively

9:42

mild catastrophizing. He's worrying

9:44

about

9:45

something. And correct me if I'm wrong

9:47

here in

9:49

talking about catastrophizing, but he's he's worrying

9:51

about something

9:53

terrible that hasn't actually happened

9:55

yet and may not happen at all. That's

9:57

just what catastrophizing is. It's going

9:59

from some

9:59

tiny little thing, missing out all the millions

10:02

of things that would have to happen in between and going

10:04

straight to, oh well, we'll all be dead soon anyway, or

10:07

I'll never have sex again. It's just going

10:09

to the worst case scenario immediately.

10:12

I can't see a situation

10:15

wherein that would possibly happen. That's what

10:17

he says. He literally is saying, there's

10:19

no way anything good can ever happen to me

10:21

because this is my script, you

10:23

know, this is who George is. And

10:26

you can see him snowballing all the time. There's an episode

10:28

where a guy makes a joke at his expense

10:31

in a meeting

10:32

and he's really pissed off that he never

10:34

said anything. So he engineers

10:37

a rematch in order to say

10:40

the thing that he didn't get say,

10:42

it's absolutely ridiculous. Take a little listen to

10:44

that. Happy Shoppes, there's some shrimp. I brought it

10:46

up for everybody. Let's see how many I can fit in my mouth.

10:48

You

10:51

know, George, the

10:54

ocean called. They're running out

10:56

of shrimp. Oh

10:59

yeah, right. Well

11:04

the jerk star called,

11:06

they're running out of you. What's

11:09

the difference? You're the all time best seller.

11:14

Yeah? Well

11:17

I had sex with your wife.

11:36

His wife is in a coma. The

11:41

pregnant pause is so good there. That

11:44

was from the comeback season

11:46

eight, episode 13 of Seinfeld starring

11:48

Jason Alexander as George, Joel

11:51

Polis, as Riley and Charles Carlinburg

11:53

as Fred. It was written by Larry David and

11:56

Jerry Seinfeld, Greg Cavett and

11:58

Andy Robin, directed by D.

11:59

trainer will give you the full credits for all

12:02

the clips used at the end of this show. Now

12:05

he works himself into a frenzy

12:07

so regularly. What

12:10

is behind this? Why? Why would you bother? It

12:12

seems so exhausting. He can't

12:15

seem to just accept anything without micro

12:17

analyzing it within an inch of his life.

12:20

I mean, particularly in regards to women, I

12:22

think he will go on a date and

12:24

then he will go through everything he said, everything

12:27

he did, everything she said, everything she did to kind

12:29

of try and work out at what point

12:31

it went wrong. There's one episode

12:33

where a bit of floss falls out of

12:35

his pocket and he goes on and on

12:38

and on about this piece of floss. As though the piece of

12:40

floss falling out of his pocket will be the make or break

12:42

reason as to why she wants to go out with

12:43

him or whether he will live a happy

12:46

fulfilled life. He's

12:48

sort of like the literal embodiment of can't

12:50

see the wood for the trees because he just gets fixated

12:53

on tiny little things and then sort of

12:55

anxiously ruminates over and

12:57

over and over about what might it all mean.

12:59

And so I suppose it's no surprise

13:01

he's a hypochondriac as well, right? Yeah.

13:03

I mean, the tiniest little sniffle he thinks something's

13:06

awful is going on. Even when he gets

13:08

an earworm, he goes to see Les Mis and gets

13:10

the song stuck in his head. And Jerry says,

13:13

goodnessness, why Jerry winds him up like this, but he

13:16

says, oh, somebody went mad from that. And so

13:18

George immediately thinks he's going mad.

13:20

I mean, he has a panic attack and he ends up thinking

13:22

he's having a heart attack. Everything

13:25

just gets amplified into

13:27

it being the end of the world.

13:28

I think he's very focused on

13:30

externals, like something

13:33

will save him and so

13:35

it will never be him, but something external,

13:38

like a beautiful woman, the perfect

13:40

job, something will come along from

13:43

outside that will make his world better

13:45

and everything will be okay. And of course,

13:48

because he's not really doing anything about

13:50

himself to make that happen, it doesn't happen

13:53

and he fulfills his prophecy about him

13:55

being a loser or, you know, being this problematic

13:58

person.

13:59

of that about?

14:00

Well, you know what, I don't think it's

14:03

that dissimilar from Tanya McQuad

14:05

from White Lotus, who he talks about a few weeks

14:07

ago, in that she's got nothing

14:09

inside to help her deal

14:11

with reality, so she lives in a sort of fantasy

14:14

bubble. And George does as well, he's

14:16

like, if I could just get the world to conform

14:18

to being

14:19

perfectly flawless, where none of my

14:21

girlfriends have a nose which is too big, which

14:23

is what happens in one episode, and I'm

14:26

never gonna fall out with my

14:28

boss because he thinks I'm brilliant at everything I do, but

14:30

instead he just gets

14:33

constantly frustrated and angry because the

14:35

world won't give him this fantasy life that

14:37

he thinks, well I don't have to do any work.

14:39

And he really stands out, doesn't

14:41

he George? Because amongst the other

14:44

three friends, you've got

14:47

Jerry who is

14:48

very sort of, he's very steady and

14:51

he's very smart, and

14:53

he has empathy, so you can sort of get

14:55

by. Elaine, similarly,

14:58

she's a bit of a mess but she's very

15:00

self-aware, she

15:03

knows exactly who she is and

15:05

what her shortcomings are and how to make the

15:07

most of them. And Kramer

15:09

is insane, but very

15:12

self-confident, he's got absolute

15:14

confidence in himself, even if he's doing completely

15:17

the wrong thing. He has all belief

15:19

that he's getting it right and he's

15:21

a great guy, you know, for better or for worse.

15:24

And George just doesn't have any of those tools.

15:26

No, he believes that he's

15:28

always getting it wrong. And

15:31

like with Tanya from White Lotus, it

15:33

all stems from having no sense of self, from never

15:35

having been told that he is worthwhile.

15:38

And it means that he swings from feeling

15:40

like, oh I'm useless, I'm to blame, to blaming

15:43

the world and saying you're useless, you're to blame.

15:46

And it makes him very, again, more neurotic traits,

15:48

he's very cynical, he's very pessimistic.

15:51

And all of those things, all

15:53

neuroticism really, is a defence against

15:56

the unbearable feelings of anxiety. Because

15:59

if you allow yourself...

15:59

to hope you risk

16:02

being disappointed. So if you are

16:04

cynical about everything, it's always all going to go to shit

16:06

anyway, then in a way you can tell yourself, oh look

16:08

how clever I am, I know how it's going to go

16:11

and you don't ever have to risk

16:12

hoping that it'll be different because you

16:14

haven't got the capacity, he doesn't have the capacity

16:17

to manage the feelings around

16:19

it not going that way. So it's easy to just say,

16:21

well it's never going to happen and be pessimistic and cynical

16:24

because then he doesn't have to be

16:26

hurt.

16:26

And that's a, it creates a

16:29

really difficult lifestyle

16:31

for him, like going out into

16:33

the world with those attitudes,

16:36

you know, and with those character traits, you

16:38

know, being a neurotic,

16:40

cynical, pessimistic, hypochondriac

16:43

who catastrophizes about everything, you're

16:46

going to struggle out there in the world. Now there's

16:48

a phrase that

16:51

you have emotional dysregulation

16:53

that I've never heard before.

16:55

Can you talk a bit

16:57

about that and where George fits in? So

17:00

Catherine Keward in Happy Valley, who he looked

17:02

at a couple of weeks ago, went

17:04

through a lot of really difficult

17:06

scenarios.

17:07

Her daughter killed herself, her colleague

17:10

Kirsten, who was a sort of surrogate daughter,

17:12

she was murdered and Catherine

17:14

managed to stay quite calm

17:16

throughout most of these things because she

17:18

had a really solid sense of self, she had lots of resources

17:21

and so really big stressors didn't

17:23

push her over into dysregulation.

17:26

George on the other hand, he has tiny little

17:28

stressors like not being able to get ketchup

17:30

out of a bottle or worrying that he's going

17:32

to be given caffeinated coffee, not decaf,

17:35

and he spirals, he goes off into huge

17:37

unregulated rage or panic.

17:40

How you manage a stressor is all to do with

17:42

kind of like your own ability to stay

17:45

calm and he just cannot stay calm.

17:47

And again it comes

17:49

from not having a solid sense of self, he's

17:51

never been taught to manage those emotions

17:54

and what should happen is that

17:57

a parent with an infant they learn, they sort of, they learn.

17:59

sort of digest those overwhelming

18:02

emotions for a child, and then they hand them back

18:04

to them in a way that they can

18:07

manage. But if that's never happened,

18:09

and in fact, I think with George's parents, the opposite

18:12

has happened. Not only have they not helped him manage

18:14

his own, but they've taken their

18:16

own and put them, projected them into

18:18

him.

18:19

I was just gonna say there's a lot of mirroring going on,

18:21

because whenever you meet one or both of them,

18:24

there's very similar patterns

18:26

of behavior that go on. And

18:28

one of them, which is always funny, is

18:31

the way they go from zero to 100. I

18:34

was just rewatching the contest, my favorite

18:36

ever episode,

18:37

and George goes to visit his

18:39

mom for like a third time in a row, but

18:41

only because there's an attractive nurse and attractive

18:44

patient doing a sponge bath in

18:46

the bed next door. And she's so

18:48

like, oh, it's so nice for you to come

18:50

again, George, you didn't need to do this. Maybe

18:53

you could pick me up a sandwich.

18:55

And because he's come in perfect timing for

18:57

the sponge bath, he's like, I'll do it

18:59

later. And she's just like, I don't even know why you come

19:02

here. It hurts me that you're here,

19:04

she says. And

19:06

that escalation, if you grew

19:09

up with that,

19:09

and we see him do it every

19:12

day. Yeah, but I mean, he also, the other

19:14

thing that I think is really interesting is that they all

19:16

are a product of the society.

19:18

It's not just like the family that is showing him,

19:21

it's okay to just think about yourself. But

19:24

this is coming out of the 80s, which was

19:27

the whole decade of greed is

19:29

good, and look out for number one, and

19:31

Thatcher saying there's no such thing

19:33

as society. And what we see, I think in

19:35

the Seinfeld cast

19:38

is the conclusion, the logical conclusion

19:41

of that sort of attitude run

19:43

riot. It's okay to only think of yourself

19:46

and what you get, you get four sort of big babies

19:48

who just prioritize themselves all

19:50

the time. So it's not just what

19:53

his family have failed to do. It's

19:55

also what society I think have told him it's

19:57

okay to do, it's, you know, you.

19:59

worry about you and don't do anything

20:02

for anybody else. And he takes that to the

20:04

nth degree because whilst worrying about

20:06

himself, he gets himself,

20:09

you can see it, he gets himself in a

20:11

state and he over thinks

20:14

very small things as if that's

20:16

the only way he can solve a problem. He's got

20:18

to like analyze it to a point where it just stops

20:21

becoming normal like the shrimp situation.

20:24

Yeah.

20:24

Oh, there's no spontaneity at all. No, no. And

20:27

a really good example of that is when he's trying to pluck

20:29

up the courage to ask somebody out

20:31

and he has to plan it in every little detail.

20:33

So he plans when he's going to call and then

20:35

he plans that he's going to eat an apple

20:38

whilst he does it because chewing make

20:40

it all make him sound casual. And then if

20:42

he doesn't, he has to get the question in early because

20:44

he can't have too long to build up to it. And then if he

20:46

doesn't get an enthusiastic high, then

20:49

the whole thing's, you know, called, he calls a halt

20:51

to it all. So even just like ringing somebody

20:53

up and saying, do you want to go

20:54

out? He micromanages in

20:56

such tiny detail.

20:57

And is that because of a fear

21:00

of failure? Because

21:03

he can't manage his emotions. I think he's worried

21:05

that he will fly off the handle or

21:08

that he will just be so crushed by

21:10

rejection. So it's almost like he's kind

21:12

of just controlling the situation so that

21:14

he can almost then try and control what she says

21:16

back to him.

21:17

And there's there's one episode where George

21:20

does the opposite of

21:22

what he'd normally do in a sort of almost

21:24

like a desperate bid to just do

21:26

anything to make himself feel like

21:28

he's not this mess of a person. And

21:31

in doing the opposite,

21:32

he actually does start to become

21:34

really successful. Let's

21:37

take a little listen to that now. George,

21:40

you know, that woman just looked at you. So

21:44

what what am I supposed to do? Go talk

21:46

to her. Elaine bald

21:49

men with no jobs and no money

21:51

who live with their parents don't

21:54

approach strange women. Well,

21:57

here's your chance to try the opposite. Instead of tuna salad

21:59

and beer.

21:59

intimidated by women, chicken salad,

22:02

and going right up to him. Yeah, I

22:04

should do the opposite. If every

22:06

instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite

22:09

would have to be right. Yes. I

22:16

will do the opposite. I

22:18

used to sit here and do nothing and regret

22:20

it for the rest of the day. So now I will do the

22:22

opposite and I will do something. Excuse

22:25

me, uh, I couldn't help but notice

22:27

that you were looking in my direction.

22:29

Oh, yes I was. You just

22:31

ordered the same exact lunch as me. My

22:35

name is George. I'm unemployed

22:38

and I live with my parents. I'm

22:43

from Australia,

22:47

huh? So

22:50

many of the best episodes, uh,

22:53

where George's normal modes of behaviour

22:56

are turned upside down. We get

22:58

to learn

22:59

more about him when he's acting out

23:01

of character either by choice or

23:03

because he just can't. I mean, there's

23:05

episodes which we'll get onto where

23:07

he can't have sex, he can't lie, takes

23:10

a bet not to masturbate. Like, why

23:12

can't he just be himself?

23:15

Because he was told that himself

23:17

isn't good enough. From an early age,

23:20

his parents would scream at

23:22

him for getting things wrong. He wasn't allowed to make

23:24

a mistake, which is also part

23:26

of the over-planning so that he doesn't keep

23:28

making mistakes. But as a result, he ends up making more

23:31

mistakes. So he's lost touch

23:33

with his instincts. He

23:35

thinks he can think his way through. And it's a

23:37

mistake loads of people make. They think that

23:40

if, oh, my brain is more intelligent than my body, so I will

23:42

plan it. But actually, the instinctive

23:44

sense is so much more kind of able

23:46

to be spontaneous and that's what people often relate

23:49

to better.

23:49

You mentioned before the video

23:51

game, the high score on the

23:53

arcade game being the highlight of his life.

23:56

It's been downhill from there. It's just a very

23:58

funny gag.

25:59

and you might know me from my very viral

26:02

videos of me yelling at hecklers

26:04

on TikTok But I am also the host of the award-winning

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26:33

Hi, I'm Louis Theroux

26:36

and I have a brand new podcast That's

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27:11

Oh, it's us again now sash we've

27:13

talked about George's insecurities But

27:16

we haven't mentioned that he can

27:19

be pretty selfish and

27:21

he is So cheap

27:24

at time where he wants to bring Pepsi to a dinner party.

27:26

I mean In

27:28

one episode he chooses the cheapest envelope

27:31

He can find like a brand of envelopes

27:33

for his wedding invitations. Let's

27:36

check this out So She's

27:40

dead Yes,

27:45

huh Let

27:48

me ask you have she been exposed

27:51

to any kind of inexpensive

27:54

glue Why

27:58

we

27:59

We found traces of a certain toxic

28:02

adhesive, commonly found in

28:04

very low priced envelopes. Well,

28:09

she was sending out our wedding invitations. That's

28:13

probably what did it. We

28:16

were expecting about 200 people. Well,

28:19

thank you. He's

28:28

essentially guilty of manslaughter.

28:29

Through a cheapness.

28:32

Yeah, through being such a cheap,

28:35

cheap guy. And it's brutal, but

28:37

we don't hate him somehow.

28:40

But how?

28:41

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I

28:44

want to hear what you like about him. I think what I like

28:46

about him is that you do

28:48

get a little bit of a sense of the person he could have

28:51

been occasionally when he does let himself

28:54

hope that a woman's going to be interested in. You

28:56

get a little sort of sense of this sweet little boy

28:58

thinking, oh, maybe, but it

29:01

doesn't happen very often. But why do you like him?

29:03

I love him because he is a part

29:06

of me. I think there's

29:08

a little George in all of us trying to get out and

29:11

we fight against it a little

29:13

bit. And we're more in tune

29:15

with ourselves. We're able to let ourselves

29:17

go and look silly

29:20

sometimes and laugh at ourselves or whatever.

29:22

But I think we all have a bit of George in

29:24

us.

29:26

When I got into curb your enthusiasm

29:30

and started to learn more about Larry

29:32

David, who before then was just

29:34

a name I saw at the start of Seinfeld.

29:37

I never thought about it any deeper than that. And

29:40

I started realizing that he wrote George

29:43

as the sort of embodiment of him. This guy

29:45

with glasses, bald, neurotic.

29:49

George was Larry, turned

29:52

up to 11.

29:53

And learning that and

29:55

getting into what

29:57

season it was of curb your enthusiasm. There's

30:00

one DVD I bought for one season, I remember.

30:03

The cover was Larry at

30:05

the front of a massive crowd, walking

30:08

down an American street, just people

30:10

walking along, men and women,

30:12

old, young, black, white, but they all had

30:14

Larry David's face. And

30:17

the tagline said,

30:18

deep down, you know, you're

30:21

him. And

30:23

I just, I thought about that and I thought, oh my God, that's why

30:26

I love Curb because it is, I spend

30:28

every day not letting my inner Larry

30:30

out, you know?

30:31

When someone is an asshole

30:34

and you just think, well, I'll

30:36

talk about it, like, you know, I'll get home and I'll tell

30:38

my wife, oh my God, this guy was such an

30:40

asshole, you know, whereas Larry just

30:42

says it. And then that made me sort

30:44

of retrofit and go back thinking about

30:47

Seinfeld. If George

30:49

is Larry and Larry is us,

30:51

then we are George.

30:52

Yes. Yeah,

30:55

yeah, because he's so unfiltered in

30:57

the sort of rage and the disappointment. And

30:59

yeah, he doesn't conform

31:02

to the social niceties really of

31:04

how we try and mask that with politeness.

31:07

And yes, no, it's all fine, really.

31:09

When actually we want to be George screaming

31:11

in fury. I mean, he screams

31:13

in fury at completely the wrong

31:15

people. I mean, he screams in fury at his boss

31:18

and ends up resigning and then having to like crawl

31:20

back and try and get his job back. I mean,

31:22

even when he does try and go into therapy,

31:25

he even ends up screaming at his therapist because

31:27

she doesn't like the script that

31:29

he's asked her to read. Because he can't, again,

31:32

he can't bear criticism. But that

31:34

bit reminded me again of Tanya McQuad

31:36

who asks a clairvoyant what

31:38

her future is going to be like. And then when the clairvoyant

31:40

says, oh, it's not looking good, she screams

31:43

at her in fury. And George

31:45

is the same thing. The therapist says, you

31:47

know, it's not that funny. And he's like, this is what I'm paying

31:50

you for. You're the one that stinks.

31:52

He can't, he doesn't

31:54

want to know anything

31:56

bad because he lives in a whole

31:58

kind of mist of badness.

31:59

it's everybody's gonna tell him all the time that it's gonna

32:02

be okay. Yeah, but I don't feel like

32:04

he gives his parents both barrels

32:06

in the same way. I feel like

32:09

most of the time you see him with his parents,

32:11

he physically shrinks and

32:13

he looks like a child, or sometimes

32:15

you'd be wearing that ridiculous baseball cap. He

32:18

definitely is infantilized by

32:20

them and they tend to do all

32:22

the screaming and he becomes very like,

32:24

okay.

32:25

And I think it ends up with

32:28

him blaming himself

32:30

a little bit. I don't know that he

32:32

often turns the spotlight onto them.

32:35

He blames himself for most things. And there's even

32:37

an episode where, it's a sort of convoluted

32:39

story where he'd broken a favorite statue of his

32:41

mom as a child and she'd never forgiven him.

32:43

And then this statue turns up

32:46

bizarrely. And so he says to his mom, oh my goodness, I

32:48

found the statue. Then gets broken

32:50

and he has to say, oh, actually the statue is broken. And again,

32:53

it's like, why are you blaming me? I

32:55

haven't even had the statue for the last 30 years.

32:58

I thought I'd found it, but somehow he's

33:00

still to blame. He's always to blame.

33:02

And there's that

33:05

episode that I mentioned before, my favorite ever

33:08

Seinfeld episodes, season four, episode 10,

33:10

the contest, which begins with

33:12

George, he walks into the cafe and he

33:14

says, I was at my mom's, she caught me. Caught

33:18

you doing what? You know.

33:24

I was alone. You

33:28

mean? Never. She caught

33:30

you? Where? I

33:33

stopped by the house to drop the car off

33:35

and I went inside for a few minutes. Nobody

33:37

was there, they're supposed to be working. My

33:40

mother had a glamour magazine, I started

33:42

leaving for you. Glamour?

33:47

So one thing led to another. So

33:50

what did she do? First she screams, George,

33:52

what are you doing? My God! And

33:56

it looked like she was gonna faint. She started clutching

33:58

the wall, trying to hang up. I

34:01

didn't know whether to try and keep up from falling or zip

34:03

up. And so what happens is Jerry,

34:05

Elaine, Kramer and George have a

34:07

bet to see you can go the longest without

34:10

wanking basically and it is

34:13

just

34:14

superb and surprising and

34:17

hilarious. Anyway, George's

34:19

mom falls in the

34:22

shock of catching him. She obviously

34:25

blames him, ends up in hospital and

34:27

wants to send him to a psychiatrist for

34:30

the problem.

34:30

She's shamed him for everything he's

34:33

ever done. Absolutely. And as funny

34:35

as the episode is, it's also a great window

34:38

into what might be going on with

34:40

him. Is

34:43

this constant shame the cause

34:45

of his or the creation of the

34:47

origin story of his low self esteem?

34:49

Oh yeah, completely. I mean, she shames him

34:52

for everything. And again, that'll show why he's

34:54

so out of touch with his body and his feelings

34:56

because she makes him feel ashamed

34:58

to even have a body or to have any instincts

35:01

or feelings. So it does go right from, you

35:03

know, literally physical feelings to any

35:05

emotional feeling that he's not really

35:07

allowed to have. And the problem is if you

35:09

kind of damp down your all the

35:11

negative feelings, if you say, okay, feelings

35:14

are too much for me. I can't cope. I've got no

35:16

regulatory skills to

35:18

cope with the pain and the anger

35:21

and the sadness. So if you're suppressing,

35:23

if you've learned to suppress all the negative feelings

35:25

like the anger and the pain and the sadness,

35:27

you're also learning to suppress all the positive

35:30

ones. So he can't actually feel happiness

35:33

and joy and positivity

35:35

and optimism.

35:35

Most parents would

35:37

used to say that if you can't say anything nice,

35:39

don't say anything at all. Whereas

35:41

George just started to say he can't say anything

35:44

nice. So he just says horrible things. And

35:47

maybe that's a way that

35:49

helps him self soothe. Do you know what

35:51

I mean? Blaming the world, blaming strangers,

35:54

blaming other people's behavior for

35:56

his life going wrong.

35:59

He can't bear to be blamed for anything else, so he has

36:02

to

36:02

project it outwards.

36:03

So look, if there is a bit of George inside

36:06

us all, how do we overcome this? If

36:08

George is still alive now, which I like to think he is,

36:10

George stands as the character,

36:12

can he ever find contentment?

36:14

Well, he doesn't seem to have any capacity

36:16

to want to change. And I think I've said this

36:18

before, it's got to start with you, you've got to want

36:20

to change. But I think it's

36:22

too terrifying for him. He finds

36:25

comfort in the rage somehow.

36:28

There's nine seasons, some of them are like 22 episodes. And

36:31

he never changes. And in fact, I think... It

36:33

just wouldn't be funny if he did that.

36:35

Well, no, that's the problem. So it seems very

36:37

hard to envisage. But even

36:39

in the final episode, that one that was watched

36:42

by so many people and is often said

36:44

to be one of the best, one of the top five greatest

36:47

TV moments ever, the whole

36:49

series comes to a climax of them being

36:52

put on trial for having been

36:54

bystanders and not helping

36:56

a fellow human, which again,

36:59

is that sort of logical conclusion of if

37:01

you spend your whole life just mocking

37:03

and looking for revenge and getting angry at everybody

37:06

else, eventually it is going to catch up

37:08

with you. And people are going to say, well, you

37:10

know, you don't, if you don't want to be part of this

37:12

society, don't be part of this society. And

37:15

it is something that I think a lot of people come to

37:17

therapy to try

37:20

and understand that balance between

37:23

autonomy and being an individual and living

37:25

amongst others and living in a society. And

37:27

a lot of people do agonize over where that line

37:30

between selfishness and

37:32

being part of something.

37:33

I guess what you're saying is George really,

37:36

he needs to seek out a shrink that

37:38

challenges him because he's so pigheaded and

37:41

stubborn. He needs someone to get under

37:43

his skin in a way that challenges him

37:46

to challenge himself. Yeah.

37:48

But when she does, the therapist

37:50

he sees, she does challenge him and he

37:52

can't bear it. With a spoon. George,

37:55

you're going to be in a creative field. You're going to have to learn

37:57

how to deal with criticism.

37:59

How's this for criticism? You

38:03

stink. How do you like that criticism? You

38:06

know what's funny to me? That diploma

38:08

up on the wall. That is my idea

38:11

of comedy. You sitting

38:13

here telling people what to do. I

38:15

think you better go. Oh, I'm going, baby, I'm going.

38:20

And again, I think that's another sort of myth

38:22

that people think, oh, I go into therapy

38:24

to have a therapist say, oh, no, you're all right, really,

38:27

and you know, pat you on the head and give you lots of sympathy and

38:29

say, the end of the world is as horrible as you

38:31

said, and poor you, which I think is

38:33

what George wants. But of course, it's

38:35

not about that. It's about having a mirror held

38:38

up to what's your part in this.

38:40

And she's basically saying that, well, what are you bringing

38:42

to him? He flies off into a fury. It's like,

38:44

no, no, no, you're meant to bolster me up.

38:47

And when she doesn't, he storms out.

38:49

So yes, of course that therapist could have helped him

38:51

if he was able to- It has to start

38:54

with him. Yeah. So, you know,

38:56

if your inner George is taking over,

38:58

guys, it has to begin with

39:00

you and your desire to change. So it

39:02

starts with you guys. Thank you for listening

39:05

as always. And thank you for

39:07

your emails. Keep sending in your character

39:10

suggestions and

39:12

your own theories on these behavioral

39:14

patterns that we deep dive into

39:16

every week. Here's one of my faves

39:19

this time around. It's from Michelle

39:21

Barczowski. She says, hello.

39:24

It's Michelle from Somerville, Massachusetts here. I

39:27

think we were voted the hippest town in America a

39:29

few years ago. She says, I still

39:31

don't see it. I'd definitely like to visit if that's the

39:33

case. But she says, it may

39:35

explain why it's so expensive to live here.

39:37

Yeah, I know how that goes, Michelle. We're about

39:39

a mile as the crow flies from Boston.

39:42

Just found your show and love it. I started

39:44

with Omar, one of my all time favorite characters. It'd

39:47

be interesting to do actors who have played different

39:49

roles and how they play upon or divert

39:51

altogether from previous characters. Like

39:54

I just finished your honor, she says, with

39:56

Bryan Cranston, who plays judge

39:58

Michael Desiato. And now I

40:00

think about it, Michael K Williams played a fascinating

40:02

character on Boardwalk Empire named

40:05

Chalky White. Yes, he did. Barry

40:07

on HBO, she keeps getting recommended

40:09

to me. I started it, I'm enjoying

40:11

it. Okay, I need to do the same. In

40:13

his final few episodes and the female

40:15

protagonist Sally is worth taking a look at because

40:17

she plays an aspiring actress who

40:20

ultimately ends up being an accomplice to

40:22

Barry, her boyfriend and wanted

40:24

assassin. And she weaves in and out of

40:26

compartmentalization. Lastly,

40:28

Hulu's character

40:29

Carmen in The Bear, played

40:32

by Jeremy Allen White, is another

40:35

great find. Season two is in

40:37

the works and his character is yet to develop as

40:39

he comes upon a stash of money, his

40:41

drug-addled brother who died left for him in

40:43

cans of tomato sauce.

40:45

Yes, The Bear could be a

40:47

good one. Yeah, might be one to dig into. All

40:50

the best from Michelle. Thank you, Michelle. And

40:52

this is who Rose is from Anna

40:55

Jeffries. She says, hey, I'm loving the podcast.

40:57

I was listening today and thinking about people on

40:59

TV that I would love you to talk about. And

41:02

Motherland came to mind. Fantastic

41:04

series. She says as a mother of a five-year-old

41:07

who's just suddenly been plunged into the world

41:09

of kids parties and drop off hellos,

41:12

any insight into the way these people's minds work

41:14

would be enlightening. But the two characters

41:16

that came to mind were Julia and

41:18

Amanda. Thanks, Anna.

41:20

Yeah, Motherland's a great, great series, not

41:22

one I think we've discussed even off air. So

41:24

have you seen it? I haven't seen it. It's really good.

41:27

OK. Yeah, you definitely know. Give it a go. So,

41:29

guys, yes, thank you as ever. And

41:32

keep your support coming. Follow us on Apple Podcasts

41:34

or any of the others. Spotify, Stitcher,

41:37

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How have you prefer? Thank you to our

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Box is a Sony music entertainment

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production. So there.

42:39

Now Sasha, this is the bit where I normally say who's

42:42

on the couch next week, but we're all

42:44

on a couch next week. It's very exciting,

42:46

isn't it? It is exciting slash terrifying

42:48

in my opinion because we are going to be doing our first

42:51

live episode in front

42:53

of an audience because we're going to

42:55

be at the Porco show in London

42:58

and we're going to be talking about this. I'm a

43:01

solicitor

43:01

and I'm calling to inform you that you

43:03

have in fact inherited a house.

43:05

This is it. It's all ours.

43:07

What did that girl just say?

43:10

She must be related to you. This

43:12

is going to make one incredible hotel.

43:16

We could always try haunting.

43:20

Get out, get out. Get out, get

43:23

out. Get out, get out, get out. This

43:27

is all happening so fast.

43:30

Is he casting haunted house? Nothing

43:33

to be scared of, is there? Hmm.

43:37

Of course that is the brilliant

43:39

ghosts. So we're going to be digging

43:42

into a bunch of different spirits.

43:44

You might have to dig into a

43:46

couple of different spirits before we go on stage. I think I'm

43:48

going to have to. Yeah, no,

43:50

absolutely. I guess part of the main

43:52

reason we're going to do ghosts is because even

43:54

more excitingly we're going to have our first ever shrink

43:57

the box guest in the shape of Kyle

43:59

Smith Byno.

43:59

who's not only a good friend of mine,

44:02

he's an unbelievably great

44:05

comic actor and he plays Mike,

44:07

the husband of Alison, who inherits this haunted

44:10

house. So we're trying to

44:13

squeeze some analysis out of him about various

44:16

ghostly-goolly goings on. Yeah

44:18

I mean it's such a good show. It is a great

44:20

show. Yeah it's on iPlayer,

44:22

it's one of the BBC's most successful comedies

44:24

of the last few years and Justifiably so

44:27

and yeah I'm really looking forward to talking

44:30

to Cael about his character Mike

44:32

but mainly what it was like recording

44:35

with a bunch of dead people who he

44:37

has to spend the entire show not being able

44:39

to see so that must be interesting as an

44:41

actor and yeah I'd

44:44

really like to look at all those needy ghosts as

44:46

well see what they will see what each of them were

44:48

up to. How do you get a ghost on a couch?

44:50

I mean that sounds like a setup for

44:52

a joke, I'll come up with a punchline hopefully

44:55

on the day. It's gonna be tricky. Listen

44:57

if you've got any questions you want to put forward

45:00

for Cael I can read them out

45:03

on our special podcast show

45:05

in showbiz north London so

45:07

do email us your thoughts or questions

45:10

to shrink the box at Sony music.com

45:13

and as Sash said you can catch up

45:15

on episodes of ghosts easy

45:18

on the BBC

45:18

iPlayer and do so because

45:20

it's great I'm gonna do so as well to get ready

45:23

for next week and Sash is off to

45:25

Waitrose to get some sweet

45:28

fruity flavored

45:31

something to

45:33

get me on stage. You might

45:36

have to help me off then. No problem. I'll

45:39

be there you'll be there it's gonna be great we'll

45:41

see you then.

45:41

See you then.

45:53

Okay as promised credits for Seinfeld

45:55

the creators and writers for all episodes are Larry David

45:57

and Jerry Seinfeld the clip at the top

45:59

is the

45:59

Phone Message, Season 2, Episode 4,

46:02

with Jason and Alexandra as George and Julia

46:04

Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine, directed

46:07

by Tom Cheronis. When

46:09

George is experimenting with not being himself, that's

46:11

the opposite, Season 5, Episode 22,

46:13

although it's Episode 21

46:16

on Netflix. Also starring Jerry Seinfeld,

46:18

of course, Additional Writing by Andy Cowan, and

46:20

directed by Tom Cheronis again. The

46:22

clip where George's fiancé dies from

46:25

licking envelopes is The Invitation, Season 7,

46:28

Episode 24, Doctor is Played by

46:30

Victor Rader Wexler, and is directed

46:33

by Andy Ackerman. You've also

46:35

heard tiny snippets of the contest, Season 4, Episode 10,

46:37

directed by Andy Ackerman. Plus The Shoes,

46:40

Season 4, Episode 16, 15 on

46:43

Netflix. Also starring Gina Hecht

46:45

as Therapist Dana Foley, directed

46:47

by Tom Cheronis. Thanks

46:50

for listening, and we'll see you

46:51

next week.