The Seinfeld Scene Jerry Seinfeld Struggled To Film Without Laughing
At this point, there's no question that NBC's "Seinfeld "is one of the most iconic and revered television series of all time. The so-called "show about nothing" heralded a new era of sitcoms, which would focus on neurotic, self-centered characters who are hard to empathize with but easy to laugh at.
For "Seinfeld," this includes the notoriously sarcastic Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the lazy and eccentric Kramer (Michael Richards), and the hilariously insecure George Costanza (Jason Alexander) — each of whom often finds themselves in varying amounts of trouble due to their numerous idiosyncrasies. Jerry Seinfeld plays a fictionalized version of himself who primarily serves as the straight man to these outlandish adjacent personalities, and as such, Seinfeld was often required to have a straight face during some of the most hysterical scenes you could possibly imagine.
In fact, there's one particular scene from Season 3 which Seinfeld says was the hardest scene to film in the entire series — simply because he could not stop laughing, as per "Ask a Comedian."
Seinfeld says he could not stop laughing while being interviewed by Lieutenant Bookman
During an episode of Netflix Is a Joke, "Ask a Comedian," Jerry Seinfeld revealed that the hardest scene for him to film without laughing was a scene from Season 3, Episode "The Library," (via IMDb) in which Jerry is interrogated by the so-called "library cop" — Lieutenant Joe Bookman, played by the late Philip Baker Hall. "The scene I had the hardest time filming without laughing was when Bookman the library cop came and interrogated me in my apartment," Seinfeld explained in the clip. "It was just so ridiculous that he was interrogating me in my own apartment about a book. I just kept cracking up."
The scene with Lieutenant Bookman is undeniably one of the funniest moments of that episode, as the rigid library cop presses Jerry about a book he took out all the way back in 1971 without an ounce of humor in his voice (per IMDb). Although it's obvious that Seinfeld did eventually get over his laughter and film the scene in its entirety, it's quite funny to know that he was unable to keep a straight face with Lieutenant Bookman, considering the numerous absurd characters he shares screen time with in nearly every episode. In any case, the fact that Seinfeld still remembers this scene so fondly makes it clear that Philip Baker Hall's Seinfeld appearance was one for the ages.