The Pick

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Pick
Series = Seinfeld


Caption = Jerry, caught in the act of the alleged pick.
Season = 4
Episode = 53
Airdate = December 16, 1992
Production =
Writer = Larry David
Director = Tom Cherones
Guests =
Episode list = List of "Seinfeld" episodes
Season list = Infobox Seinfeld season 4 episode list
Prev =
Next =

"The Pick" is the fifty-third episode of the sitcom "Seinfeld". It was the 13th episode of the 4th season. It aired on December 16, 1992.

Plot

Elaine is humiliated when she accidentally shows a nipple on her Christmas card photo that she has sent out to everyone she knows. Elaine earns the nickname "Nip" at her workplace. Jerry has a date with the model from the plane in "The Airport"; she later dumps Jerry after she catches him picking his nose. Jerry claims that he was only scratching his nose because there wasn't any nasal penetration, which actually was the case. The model may have been at a bad angle to determine whether or not it was a pick or a scratch. George tries to reunite with Susan but realizes it's a mistake and uses "the pick" to escape. Kramer goes to Calvin Klein to complain about "The Ocean", an idea for a fragrance they stole from him, and is asked to pose for a risqué underwear advertisement. An executive at Calvin Klein says that "His buttocks are sublime."

Trivia

* Kramer proposes the idea for a perfume that makes its wearer smell like the beach in the Season 3 episode "The Pez Dispenser." He tells the idea to an executive at Calvin Klein, who is completely dismissive of the suggestion. Fifteen years later scientists from the University of East Anglia discovered that dimethyl sulfide makes the seaside smell like the seaside. [http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/cloning-the-smell-of-the-seaside-12506.html]
* The episode alludes to Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice" in Jerry's monologue defending nose-pickers: "If we pick, do we not bleed?"
* The episode also alludes to "The Elephant Man" (1980), [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080678/quotes] when Jerry proclaims, "I am not an animal!"
* The episode also alludes to Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel "The Scarlet Letter" when Elaine blames her boyfriend for condemning her because of the photo on her Christmas card: "Because it is not me that is exposed but you. For I am seeing that nipple on your soul!"
* Newman appears in this episode for only 13 seconds when Jerry brings him in and asks if Elaine's nipple is visible in her Christmas card photo.

Quotes

George: Was there any nostril penetration?

Jerry: There may have been some incidental contact.

George: Hey, it's me.
George: I guarantee you Moses was a picker. You wander through the desert for 40 years with that dry air. You tell me you're not going to have an occasion to clean house a little?
George: I'm in up to my wrist. You should have seen the look on her face.
George: That's okay. That's good. You think Louie Pasteur and his wife had anything in common? He was in the fields all day with the cows, you know with the milk, examining the milk, delving into milk, consumed with milk. Pasteurization, Homogenization. She was in the kitchen killing cockroaches with a boot on each hand.

Susan: Why were there so many cockroaches?

George: Because. There was a lot of cake lying around the house. Just sitting there going with all the excess milk from all the experiments [grins]

Susan: And they got along?

George: Yes! Yes. You know. She didn't know about Pasteurization. He didn't know about fumigation. But they made it work!