"Jerry Seinfeld has had his share of bad nights when performing comedy." ""The toughest nights were opening for these real old-time Italian singers." "I'm like Grace Jones to them." "'T his guy is nuts, talking about socks!" "Where's the wife jokes?" "Where's the fat jokes?" '" "There's writer's assistant Karen Wilkie on the left in this audience shot laughing at Jerry's jokes." "KRAMER ENTRANCE COUNTER: #28" "The cast's initial reading of this episode occurred on January 23, 1991." "The second season premiered that same night at 9:30 pm." "According to an early draft of "The Statue" Jerry's grandfather is named Irving Seinfeld." "The dictionary defines anathema as "anything that is intensely disliked."" "Anathema is also a religious term for a ban or curse pronounced by a religious authority." "Jimmy Webb wrote the song "MacArthur Park" which was performed to some acclaim by both actor Richard Harris and disco diva Donna Summer." "Its absurd lyrics performed in a heartbreaking manner have led some to consider it one of the worst songs ever made." "In the original draft, George breaks the statue while performing the song "There Ain't No Cure for the Summertime Blues."" "This joke about George seeing his father naked became even funnier once Jerry Stiller was cast in the role of Frank Costanza." "Joe Friday was the name of the main character on the popular 1960s police drama Dragnet." "Friday, played by actor Jack Webb was a no-nonsense, brusque man of action with a rapid-fire manner of speaking." "While writing for the second season of Seinfeld Larry Charles admits to watching huge amounts of Dragnet reruns on local Los Angeles TV stations." "Nurit Koppel (Rava) has also appeared in the TV movies  The Odd Couple.:" "Together Again and Sweet Bird of Youth." "Koppel's TV work includes roles on Homicide.:" "Life on the Street and Hunter." "Jane Leeves also read for the part of Rava." "Leeves later appeared as the title character in the fourth season Seinfeld episode, "The Virgin."" "Following this, she joined the cast of NBC's Cheers spinoff, Frasier." "Ray's description in the script is as follows:" ""Although he carries cleaning equipment he also carries the air of a pretentious, mannerly, affected actor."" "Hank Azaria and Tony Shalhoub also auditioned to play Ray." "Jerry develops the trait of being a "neat-freak" as the series progresses." "Despite this, "The Statue" is one of the only episodes in which the cleaning of Jerry's apartment is discussed." "The cleanliness of TV-Jerry crosses over to the real guy." "Jay Leno once described Seinfeld's apartment as a "hospital room with a stereo."" "Other "stretchy" super characters include Mr. Fantastic the Elongated Man, Elastic Lad The Shape, Metamorpho and Stretch Armstrong." "This is the first mention of Elaine's boss, Mr. Lippman as the editor-in-chief at Pendant Publishing." "Lippman would appear on screen beginning in the following season's episode, "The Library."" "The delivery of the line, "There's Ray, late as usual" struck the four main actors as particularly amusing." "It became one of the early catch-phrases shared amongst the cast during production of subsequent episodes." "Julia Louis-Dreyfus recognized that the writing of Seinfeld would make it worth doing even if she could have starred in a show all her own." ""I saw two scripts when they offered me the part and in one of them, she had very little to do." "I just wanted Elaine to be real." "The writing was so natural and so realistic and that's what appealed to me about the show." "I think Elaine is sort of like myself except that she's got more edge and she's a lot more neurotic than me."" ""The Statue" was filmed in front of a studio audience on January 29, 1991." "Jerry feels that acting in front of an audience has significant differences to performing stand-up comedy." ""The hardest adjustment to make between performing live and performing on TV was realizing that they could see you and not having to scream and yell and raise your arms."" ""It can be a very subtle medium." "Our show is pretty subtle compared to most sitcoms which are pretty, you know, pie in the face." "As far as the material goes, we found that subtlety can work." "If you give people the chance to watch it, it does work."" "In the original version of this scene Ray proclaimed that pastries are named after the Norse Gods." "He then offers the platter to Jerry and says, "Have a Thor."" "Rava, we are told, is from Finland." "Finland, along with Denmark, Norway, and Sweden is a Scandinavian country." "Its capital city is Helsinki." "Other major towns include Tampere, Turku, Espoo, Vantaa and Oulu." "Many places in Finland have Swedish names as well as Finnish." "Finnish and Swedish are both the country's official languages although only about 5.7 percent of the population speaks Swedish as a first language." "Finland's terrain is mostly low and flat but in there are lakes, low hills and mountains in the extreme northwest regions." "Its natural resources include timber, copper, zinc, iron, and silver." "Finland borders Russia, Sweden and Norway." "The average life expectancy of Finnish citizens is 80 for women and 7 2 for men." "Eighty-four percent of Finnish citizens are Evangelic-Lutheran." "The flag of Finland consists of a blue Nordic cross on a white background." "Note: this is the first time the coffee shop is actually referred to as Monk's." "Finland's major exports include paper, timber, textiles, furniture metal, ships, and chemicals." "Elaine was originally in this scene." "Seated beside George, she wore a floppy hat to look inconspicuous." "She complains about the hat." ""I'm not a hat person." "I look like one of the Cowsills."" "George: "There's nothing wrong with the Cowsills." "They were good!"" "The Cowsills were a singing group whose popularity peaked in the late '60s and early '70s." "WHERE'S NORMAN?" "There he is, sitting at the counter." "He's visible when the camera is on Jerry." "While Finland's climate can be compared to New England's its winters are long lasting anywhere from 105 days to a whopping 220 days." "Portions of the country remain snow-covered for three to seven months." "This mention of wusses is a callback to the run about wusses in the first scene of "The Phone Message."" "In the first draft, George admits that he followed Ray the day before and took photos that he then hands to the struggling thespian." "George: "There you are." "A pool hall." "A bar." "Working hard, huh, Ray?" "You con artist."" "Ray says it was his day off and asks why George isn't at work." "George says that he should be actually getting back and runs out." "Larry Charles had written for Fridays along with Larry David." "His other writing pre-Seinfeld writing credits include The Arsenio Hall Show." "He also wrote for the syndicated, horror-anthology show Monsters." "In the first draft, this scene's argument begins over who is a better person, Ray or Jerry." "No coincidences were discussed." "Prior to starring in Seinfeld Julia Louis-Dreyfus had appeared on Saturday Night Live for three seasons." "She was also in the cast of the short-lived NBC sitcom Day by Day." "Day by Day also starred Courtney Thorne-Smith and Thora Birch." "Julia has mixed feelings about her time on Saturday Night Live." ""I learned an enormous amount from that show but I don't miss it." "Three years is a long time." "It was a grueling experience, a very hard job to have." "It was a big cast and there was a huge competition every week to get material on the air."" "Larry David wrote for the NBC variety show for one of Julia's three seasons." "In the entire year, David got just one sketch on the air." "In an interview, Julia Louis-Dreyfus revealed some of the pet names she and her castmates had for each other." "Jerry was called "Precious."" "Michael was "Chuckles."" "Jason was "Babycakes."" "And Julia was called "Little Yum-Yum."" "All early references to George's mother instantly became funnier after Estelle Harris was cast as Estelle Costanza." "Molotov cocktails are crude, incendiary weapons that shatter on impact when thrown at a target." "A Molotov cocktail gets its name from Vyacheslav Molotov a Soviet Union foreign minister and secretary of war." "Soldiers in Finland's army used Molotov cocktails against the Soviet Army in both the Winter War and the Continuation War." "The Finnish army even mass-produced Molotov cocktails." "The moral of "The Statue," don't mess with Finland." "Richards himself described the transformation Kramer underwent in the early days." ""In the beginning, I wasn't sure how far I could go because the acting from Jason and Julia and Jerry is very natural." "I didn't want to go too broad or too much of a caricature." "I didn't know what the parameters were but now I've gotten the sense of how far I can go."" "As mentioned before writer Larry Charles watched a lot of Dragnet while writing his earliest Seinfeld episodes." "The influence of Dragnet on his sitcom writing is most evident in this scene." "Michael Richards feels this scene was a major turning point for Kramer." "Knowing that Kramer was willing and able to pretend to be someone else gave Richards a new take on the role." "It allowed him to explore a more bizarre side of Kramer without ever leaving the reality of whom he really is." "KRAMER ENTRANCE COUNTER: #29" "KRAMER ENTRANCE COUNTER: #30" "Check out the uncharacteristic hug George gives Kramer." "Kramer is referring to the popular 1980s syndicated reality series The People's Court." "At the end of each episode host Doug Llewellyn would encourage viewers not to take the law into their own hands but instead they should take them to People's Court." ""The Statue" first aired on April 11, 1991." "Its Nielsen rating was 16. 1 with an audience share of 26." "Over 23 million people watched this episode the first time it aired on NBC." "That is four times the population of Finland." "Consider Finland for your next vacation."