Seinfeld: How A Karen Lynn Scott Gaffe Actually Became Gold In 'The Bottle Deposit'
"The Bottle Deposit," a particularly notable two-part episode from Season 7 of "Seinfeld," has to rank as one of the show's wackiest installments. As the title alludes to, the episode sees Kramer (Michael Richards) and Newman (Wayne Knight) hatch an elaborate and impossible scheme to transfer a truckload of discarded soda bottles across the Michigan border in order to turn them in for the state's relatively high 10-cent return deposit.
One of the show's most memorable moments comes late in the installment after Newman becomes stranded somewhere in the rural countryside over the course of his doomed mission. The postal carrier has an affair with Susie (Karen Lynn Scott), the daughter of a farmer (Rance Howard), and in typical famer's daughter joke fashion, he ends up running away from the house with the angry father shooting after him. As Newman flees, Susie yells out a romantic farewell: "Goodbye, Norman, goodbye!"
The humor of this woman getting Newman's name wrong as she calls out to him is something special, and some "Seinfeld" fans may be surprised to learn it wasn't part of the script. As show director Andy Ackerman revealed in a featurette for the "Seinfeld" DVD set (which has since been uploaded to YouTube), the "Norman" moment came about because Karen Lynn Scott flubbed the line, saying "Norman" instead of "Newman" by mistake.
Karen Lynn Scott retired from acting not long after her memorable Seinfeld appearance
It's rare that a flubbed line from an actor would be so funny that it stays in an episode of a network sitcom, particularly one with such a high caliber of writing as "Seinfeld." But in the context of the episode, the simple mix-up of changing Newman to "Norman" is pure comedy gold.
The line is also probably the best known of Karen Lynn Scott's entire career, which the actor might have mixed feelings about. That's just speculation though, because she doesn't appear to have given any public remarks or commentary on her accidental comedy alchemy. It would also appear that we're unlikely to hear anything about it from her in the future, as her credits on IMDb show that she hasn't even done any acting since 2002 when she appeared in an episode of the sitcom "Hidden Hills.".
But, no matter how long it's been since she's been on TV, fans of "Seinfeld," much like Newman himself, will never forget this farmer's daughter for as long as they live.