The Long-Running Seinfeld Gags You Didn't Know Were Introduced In Season 1

First seasons are notoriously difficult to nail down. Creators and networks often have conflicting visions, shows need to introduce new casts and scenarios to the audience, and all this happens while the creators are trying to secure a follow-up season. As such, even classic sitcoms like "Seinfeld" are known for having shaky early seasons in which the cast hasn't fully clicked with one another and major recurring themes have yet to land. Breaking new ground in the sitcom formula isn't easy, and for "Seinfeld," that meant an abbreviated Season 1 that very easily could have gone the way of the dodo. As we know, the series went on to become one of the best-known sitcoms of all time, but that legacy was anything but obvious in the show's earliest days.

Still, the first season of "Seinfeld" is incredibly funny despite it all, and seeing the cast find their legs as their dynamic begins to click remains a delight, especially with the knowledge of all that was to come. What's more, plenty of the show's best jokes are first seen in that five-episode outing, making it an important era for solidifying the concepts that made the show so successful. From Kramer's wild personality to Elaine's disgust with humanity to George's compulsive lying and, of course, Jerry's irreverent stand-up observations, Season 1 of "Seinfeld" had all the pieces it needed to make comedy gold.

As one of the pillars of the series, it always feels a little odd that Elaine Benes doesn't appear in the pilot episode and is instead introduced in Episode 2, "The Stake Out." Though it's true that Season 1 didn't always seem to fully know what to do with Elaine and it took a bit of time for her character to emerge, there are still some classic Elaine moments in that first outing. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of comedy's greatest stars, having long since solidified an expressive and physical style of humor based on a general distaste for humanity that has carried her into series like "The New Adventures of Old Christine," "Veep" and even into the MCU. Though it took a few episodes, she ultimately became a "Seinfeld" fan favorite.

Still, there's no denying that Season 1 Elaine has her moments. A pescetarian who chides Jerry for ordering the tuna due to its environmental cost, Elaine isn't always that understanding of the animal kingdom herself. In "The Stock Tip," she explains that she's dating a man with two cats, asking what it would cost to have a cat "rubbed out." Jerry guesses $14, to which she replies, "Wanna make $28?" This general theme of Elaine vs. pets shows up several times in the series, notably in the Season 5 episode "The Glasses," in which she is bitten by a dog but finds herself nervously asking her friend group about getting a rabies shot. In every instance, when it's Elaine vs. pets, the win goes to the pets.

Jerry's mysterious neighbor Kramer is initially known almost exclusively for being the most brazenly obtrusive man on the planet. While he would later reveal a more complicated past, with a wild lifetime of bizarre interactions and acquaintances which led to the creation of the man we meet in Season 1. Still, for all the back story and off-handed references to people from his past as he makes throughout the series, he remains perhaps best known for making the kind of entrances that can't help but completely disrupt and refocus a scene. The series often uses him to transition from one scene to the next, and it grows to rely on his zany subplots to help throw some extra layers into an episode's format.

Though we come to know a lot more about this strange guy later and after he experiences a name change from Kessler to Kramer, his first appearance gives us some foundational information on what to expect from him. Though he knocks instead of sliding through the doorway, he also immediately gives away who won the night's Mets game, which causes Jerry to cry out in despair as he was hoping to watch it on VHS later that day. Kramer shrugs, "I thought you knew!" before pulling two slices of bread out of his pocket and holding them out. "Got any meat?" he asks. Jerry, still distraught, waves him toward the fridge. "Go! Hunt!" he cries. This is a bare-bones version of what would go on to be one of the strongest dynamics of the series.

The line, "It's not you, it's me," is often used to diffuse hurt feelings during a necessary breakup, but as with so many everyday sayings, it truly took on a life of its own on "Seinfeld." Perhaps best remembered for appearing in the Season 5 episode "The Lip Reader" when George's girlfriend Gwen breaks up with him, assuring him that, "It's not you, it's me." The usage of the line infuriates George, who claims to have invented the saying, insisting, "If it's anyone, it's me!" Naturally, this leads to a series of mishaps throughout the rest of the episode as the vain George attempts to get to the bottom of why Gwen broke up with him, assuming that it was because she saw a video of him messily eating ice cream.

This quote made its first appearance in the Season 1 episode "Male Unbonding." When Jerry is beset by requests to hang out from a friend from childhood named Joel, who doesn't listen, has no shared interests with Jerry, and distresses him through his treatment of others, he attempts to arrange for a breakup. The moment he begins the speech, Joel immediately overreacts, assuring him that he can change and things will be different. Jerry even tries to tell him, "It's not you, it's me," but Joel bursts into tears, leading Jerry to grudgingly reinstate their friendship by giving George's tickets to a game they were planning to attend to Joel.

Another solid running joke throughout "Seinfeld" is the tendency of characters to misuse or make up words, most often characterized by Elaine. Though generally regarded as a bit sharper than the other three main cast members, that doesn't mean she's perfect, and she often mispronounces things to comedic effect. For one, in the Season 3 episode "The Alternate Side" she seems to believe a popular misconception that a vomitorium is a room where people hang out and vomit, rather than its practical application as an exit in a Roman amphitheater. When she asks if someone could die of a bad smell in a vomitorium while sitting next to George, George asks, "Do I smell?"

While this is a running theme, it makes its first appearance in "The Stake Out." While Jerry sits in his apartment with his visiting parents playing Scrabble, he is distracted, which allows Kramer to come in and attempt to "help" Jerry's mother win the game by suggesting the word "quone." This irritates Jerry, who insists that it's not a real word. When he says he will have to challenge it and picks up a dictionary, Kramer argues, "No, you don't have to challenge that, that's a definite word!" When Jerry flips open the dictionary, Kramer yells, "Quone! To quone something!" while Jerry's mother shakes her head, saying, "I'm not playing with you anymore." Jerry's dad — here played by Phil Bruns — is cleaning his shoe on the couch and yells, "Quone's not a word!"