"Jerry Seinfeld has his own ideas on what makes comedians so popular." "He shared a few of them in an early interview to promote the show." ""There's a rhythm of your own sense of humor that you have to follow." "Once you get the audience into your rhythm, you just ride it." "When you fall in love with a comedian everything he says is funny." "When I like a comedian I can watch the same material over and over again and laugh at it." "You don't even know what they're doing that's funny."" ""The Baby Shower" is the first of many Seinfeld episodes written by Larry Charles." "Charles had performed stand-up comedy in the 1970s before shifting into television writing for the ABC late-night sketch show Fridays." "It was at Fridays that he first worked with Larry David and Michael Richards who were both members of the show's ensemble cast." "In June 1969, Ted Kennedy was driving home from a party with a young Washington secretary who was not his wife." "The car went off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts." "Kennedy escaped unharmed, but the passenger drowned." "Suspicions were intensified by the fact that Kennedy did not report the accident until eight hours later." "Ayatollah Khomeini was the fundamentalist Islamic leader of Iran following the fall of that country's ruling shah in 1979." "GEORGE GIRLFRIEND COUNTER:" "#3 – Leslie, the performance artist" "Larry Charles was writing for The Arsenio Hall Show during the production of Seinfeld' s first season." "In an interview about the way Seinfeld was written Charles remarked, "We have no experience doing this." "It is very hard for an outside person with or without experience to come into this situation." "One of the main reasons is that we don't know what we're doing."" "WHERE'S NORMAN?" "Look closely, he's at the far end of the counter at Monk's." "Maria Shriver, TV journalist and first lady of California, is also a Kennedy." ""Ich bin ein sucker" roughly translates from German into "I am a sucker."" "This is a joke on " Ich bin ein Berliner," the famous phrase uttered by President John F. Kennedy during the Cold War with the Soviet Union." "Spoken in Berlin in June 1963, the line got some snickers from the locals because the exact translation is "I am a jelly donut."" "What he should have said was, "Ich bin Berliner."" "Kennedy was using it to show that he stood alongside the West Berliners in their struggle to oppose the Communist regime to the East." "It is unlikely he thought he was a jelly donut." "Rosemary's Baby is the name of a 1968 film about a baby fathered by Satan." "Elaine's roommate is named Tina." "She will appear later in the second season in the "The Deal."" "Lyme disease is a tick-borne disease that usually causes a bulls-eye rash." "Epstein-Barr and Lyme disease often have non-specific symptoms such as fatigue, headaches and muscle and joint aches." "Hair is a Vietnam War era musical about hippies that challenged many aspects of Western society." "The counterculture production featured male and female nudity." "In an early draft, this was the first scene in the show." "In it, Kramer claimed that Ben Franklin would have wanted free cable." "And that it would be in the Constitution as an inalienable right if the Founding Fathers had known about it." "Jerry's fashion style remained consistent for most of the show's nine seasons." ""I would call it New York immature." "A guy in his 30s who refuses to give up jeans and sneakers from his 20s."" "He told Betty Goodwin of the L.A. Times that his fashion idol was "Bill Cosby on I Spy in Adidas." "I flipped out."" "Andrei Sakharov was a nuclear physicist in the communist Soviet Union." "Sakharov became an outspoken critic of Soviet repression until he was exiled to Gorky for six years." "Slugs are illegal counterfeit coins that can fool subway turnstiles and payphones into believing that money or a legal token has been inserted." ""Hammer time" is a reference to the very bright but short-lived career of rapper MC Hammer." "His career was at its peak around the time this episode was produced." "The cast first read "The Baby Shower" on Wednesday, November 14, 1990." "The bulk of the episode was filmed on Tuesday, November 20." "Vic Polizos (Tabachnick the Russian) may be a familiar face to fans of shows like St. Elsewhere and Party of Five." "He has also appeared in several films including Eraser and Brubaker." "Jerry has to adjust his sleeping habits when working as a stand-up." ""I can sleep anywhere, any time." "It's a skill I've developed through the years." "Exhaustion helps." "You want to go out between shows but if you do, you end up looking like (Rolling Stone) Keith Richards."" "George Simms (man on plane) played the speaker of the house in the film Legally Blonde 2.:" "Red, White and Blonde." "Jerry Seinfeld thinks that the appeal of a stand-up is hard to pin down." ""Comedy is a seductive thing." "When a comedian has an audience where he wants them everyone gets caught up." "You actually stop thinking which is why people will come out of a comedy performance and will say:" "'He was so funny, but I can't remember any of the jokes." '" "The "airport run" is discussed in the one-hour season three episode "The Boyfriend."" "In that show, the airport run and helping somebody move are the two major favors of male friendship." "Bosco, the chocolate syrup that Leslie throws on George features heavily in the seventh season episode "The Secret Code."" ""Bosco" turns out to be the secret code George uses to access his ATM account." "In December 1984, Bernard Goetz, a.k.a. "The Subway Vigilante" shot four men who he claimed were threatening him and trying to rob him." "New Yorkers were divided in their reaction to the incident." "Some found Goetz to be acting on racial prejudices while others applauded his taking action due to the rising number of violent muggings." "An early exchange was cut from "The Baby Shower."" "In it, one party guest mentions that it's easy to turn off men by simply telling them that it's "that time of the month."" "Elaine chips in, "Men will flock to an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie buckets of blood splattered everywhere but show them a little stain and they head for the hills."" "Sears is a United States retailer of home, apparel and automotive products and services." "KRAMER ENTRANCE COUNTER: #17" "Richard W. Sears founded Sears in 1886 as a Minnesota watch store." "The department store chain now has nearly 900 locations and employs roughly 250,000 employees in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada." "Originally, George ended his rant by saying that Leslie doesn't deserve happiness or joy and that he hopes she goes into labor and stays that way permanently." "Jerry doesn't believe George will ever say this to Leslie in person." "George says, "Watch me."" "Jerry, seeing the potential for amusement says, "All right, two minutes."" "As he gets closer to Jerry's building, George loses his nerve but Jerry makes him confront Leslie because George "has a date with destiny."" "Here, Jerry is referring to celebrated American poet Robert Frost (187 4-1963)." "Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" ends with the line:" "Two roads diverged in a wood And I" "I took the one less traveled by And that has made all the difference" "The character of Mary Cantarti wasn't originally part of this episode." "Her character was added during rehearsal week to get Jerry more involved in the baby shower scenes." "Margaret Reed (Mary) is probably best known for playing Shannon O'Hara McKechnie in the daytime drama As the World Turns." "Her training for soap opera melodrama was put to good use in this memorable scene." "Reed has also appeared in Law and Order  Knots Landing and Star Trek.:" "The Next Generation." "JERRY GIRLFRIEND COUNTER:" "#4 – Mary Cantarti" "In the script's first draft, Jerry and Elaine realize ahead of time that the cable installation and baby shower were happening at the same time." "It was soon realized that the coincidence was better left as a surprise." "Christine Dunford (Leslie) later appeared in season five playing a snooty saleswoman in "The Pie."" "Larry Charles once explained how Seinfeld was written:" ""A lot of shows have Bibles with the characters and the storylines all laid out." "We don't have that." "We don't know what we're going to do from week to week." "We just try and do the best show."" "During Seinfeld' s struggling years Jerry described his show's small numbers of fans as connoisseurs of comedy." ""It's not something that bowls you over the first time you see it." "And then after three or four episodes, you say:" "'Oh, they're doing something special here." '" "During a typical episode shoot each scene is shot at least twice for the studio audience." "The best parts of each take are then combined to make the final version for NBC." "According to the ninth season episode, "The Puerto Rican Day" Elaine attended Tufts University." "It was her "safety school."" "Though "The Busboy" pioneered the practice "The Baby Shower" was the first episode to dovetail stories for all four characters." "Elaine does get to meet JFK Jr." "in the fourth season." "She and Kennedy are in the same aerobics class in the classic episode "The Contest."" "KRAMER ENTRANCE COUNTER: #18" "Dr. Zhivago was a 1965 film based upon the book by Boris Pasternak." "It starred Omar Sharif and Julie Christie." "Sharif played a Russian doctor who found love and hardship amidst the Russian Bolshevik Revolution." ""The Baby Shower" first aired on NBC on May 16, 1991." "It received a rating of 12.4 and an audience share of 21."