"Jerry wrote several monologues for each of these early episodes." "Often, he preceded the planned monologues with jokes on areas he was still developing." "An example is this routine about "getting the finger."" "It was not prepared for any particular episode." "The success of the material led to its replacing the planned opening." ""The Robbery" was written by Matt Goldman." "It is the first episode of Seinfeld to be written by someone other than Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld." "Goldman also helped to write the second season episode "The Stranded."" "He went on to write for other shows such as Ellen, DiResta, Three Sisters and Luis." "In the season eight episode "The English Patient" Elaine remarks that sex in a bathtub "doesn't work."" "Elaine's thespian roommate Tina was a recurring character for the show's first three seasons." "She is referred to several times before finally appearing in the last episode of the second season, "The Deal."" "A Chorus Line opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theater on July 25, 197 5." "It closed on April 28, 1990 making it one of the longest running shows in Broadway history." ""The Robbery" was first run on NBC less than two months later on June 7, 1990." "It received a Nielsen rating of 13.6 and an audience share of 24." "During that summer, Seinfeld aired on Thursdays between repeats of Cheers and L.A. Law." "Its ratings that summer were considered decent though by today's standards, it would be a top five show." "In an interview to promote his series, Jerry acknowledged NBC's role in allowing him relatively free reign over the type of show he would make." ""NBC is letting me walk out on this limb and I really have to give them a lot of credit." "I wanted that kind of support and I don't think I would have found it elsewhere."" "Iceland is the northernmost country in the world, followed closely by Finland." "Iceland's average high temperature in July is 50 degrees." "In Finland, it is 64 degrees." "There were 18 episodes of Seinfeld produced during its first two seasons." "Though it is unusual for a star to be so involved in the writing of a sitcom Jerry Seinfeld co-wrote 11 of those 18 episodes." "Three other episodes were written by Larry Charles." "Matt Goldman wrote or co-wrote two episodes." "Peter Mehlman wrote one episode." "And 13 of those 18 were written or co-written by Larry David." "1990 was a particularly bad year for crime in New York City." "A record 2,245 people were murdered." "By 1998, the final year Seinfeld aired, there were only 633 murders." "No direct link has been proven, but it is possible that Seinfeld was partly responsible for this sharp decline." "KRAMER ENTRANCE COUNTER: #6" "Michael Richards (Kramer) was born in Los Angeles on July 24, 1949." "Richards spent his childhood in Culver City and the San Fernando Valley where he regularly used physical comedy to make his friends laugh." "After serving in the Army during the Vietnam War Richards attended the California Institute of Arts near Los Angeles." "In 1979, unable to find work in film or TV he began doing stand-up comedy." "This led to his first break in Hollywood performing on The Billy Crystal Special." "A year later, Richards was cast on Fridays ABC's late-night show in the vein of Saturday Night Live." "Larry David was another Fridays cast member." "The series lasted two and a half seasons." "Following Fridays, Richards worked sporadically in movies like Problem Child and Young Doctors in Love while appearing on TV in Miami Vice and Night Court." "In 1988, Richards auditioned for the part of Kramer." "In one of his three auditions Richards performed his scene while standing on his head." "Because of, or possibly in spite of, this behavior, Richards won the part." "Rick Rockwell also auditioned for the part of the cop." "Rockwell later gained fame as the eligible bachelor on Fox TV's Who Wants To Marry a Millionaire?" "Jerry was the victim of a robbery in real life." "The burglars actually broke through the wall to get his stuff." "He said afterward, "It was like being robbed by Superman."" "George's folding of the arms is a reference to the magical TV genie played by Barbara Eden on the '60s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie." "Ethel Merman was a 20th century singer famous for her ability to "belt out" standards in her own idiosyncratic way." "All material for this episode, including Jerry's monologues was filmed on March 6, 1990." "At the time Seinfeld began, Jerry was performing an average of 300 shows a year at comedy clubs across the country." "His observational style was unusual at a time when many comics relied on hooks or gimmicks." ""There's nothing physically odd about me" he said in one interview at the time." ""No screaming or profanity, no props, no strange clothes nothing ethnic, and my name isn't catchy either." "If I don't have the jokes, I'm dead."" "Rents for two bedroom apartments in uptown Manhattan range from 3 to $6000 per month." "Jerry's address in the show is later revealed to be 129 West 81st Street so this new place would have only been a few blocks away." "Jerry and Larry established the approach to writing Seinfeld episodes from the earliest days." "Most important was to draw material from actual events." ""It's not a character, it's just me," Jerry told one reporter..." ""These are things that happened to either me or one of the writers." "It's a docu-comedy."" "In television the people who make the major creative and financial decisions are called executive producers." "Though accountable to the studio and network that pays their salary executive producers are generally considered to be the ultimate authority on how best to put together a sitcom." "Because Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld were relatively inexperienced when it came to writing sitcoms NBC and Castle Rock brought in Fred Barron to executive produce the four-episode first season." "Barron's previous credits included Kate and Allie." "It quickly became apparent that David would be more than capable of working through his inexperience and Barron left the show prior to the second season." "Though Seinfeld was no ratings smash in the summer of 1990 it did perform well with key audience demographics particularly young men." "This is a notoriously difficult audience for advertisers to reach." "Seinfeld' s survival through some of its early, low-rated seasons was certainly aided by its being a hit in that key demographic." "During the first three seasons of Seinfeld the show only used three cameras to record the scenes as they were performed." "This required director Tom Cherones to spend considerable time doing "pick-ups."" "Pick-ups are additional takes that are required to pick-up a reaction or angle that could not be shot during the normal filming of a scene." "Once the show reached its fourth season a fourth camera was added allowing Cherones to get more material in fewer takes." "KRAMER ENTRANCE COUNTER: #7" "This is the first of Kramer's sliding entrances." "According to Richards, the shtick of making wacky entrances was discovered by accident." "He was late on a cue to enter so he compensated by coming in very fast." "When everyone laughed, he began to develop the entrances and worked hard to make each one unique." "According to an early draft of the script the English guy's name is Berbick." "Jerry Seinfeld knew at an early age that he would grow up to be a comedian of some sort." "In an interview, he remembered that as a child:" ""One time I made a friend laugh so hard that he sprayed a mouthful of cookies and milk all over me." "I liked it."" "Fortunately, he was referring to the friend's laughter and not having food spit on himself." "Robert Wagner is a movie and TV actor best known for playing suave and gallant playboys." "At the time this episode aired he was best known for playing Jonathan Hart on the ABC crime drama Hart to Hart." "Wagner later appeared on Seinfeld in the eighth season episode The Yada Yada." "Jerry's managers, George Shapiro and Howard West were also executive producers of Seinfeld." "Shapiro and West are childhood friends from the Bronx, New York." "The pair started in the mailroom at the prestigious William Morris Agency in New York." "They quickly became agents and then opened their own management company in Los Angeles." "Shapiro/West's client roster includes Carl Reiner, Peter Bonerz and the late Andy Kauffman." "Danny DeVito portrayed Shapiro in Man on the Moon a film about Andy Kauffman's life that starred Jim Carrey." "Carousel is a 1945 musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein." "Carousel includes the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" which Jerry Lewis later sang at the end of his annual Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy telethon." "The waitress' name is Carolyn and her husband's name is Larry." "These are also the names of Jerry's real-life sister and brother-in-law." "In the original script Elaine asks Jerry what happened to Kramer and the English guy." "Jerry replies, "Kramer stayed there three hours." "They're like best friends now."" "Over the course of the first six seasons David Blackwood (man #1) appeared as seven different characters." "His next appearance is as Stan in season two's "The Apartment.""