The Trip (Seinfeld)

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Trip
Series = Seinfeld


Caption = Kramer auditions for a TV commercial
Season = 4
Episode = 41- 42
Airdate = Part 1: August 12, 1992
Part 2: August 19, 1992
Production =
Writer = Larry Charles
Director = Tom Cherones
Guests = Corbin Bernsen, George Wendt, Fred Savage, Clint Howard & Elmarie Wendel
Episode list = List of "Seinfeld" episodes
Season list = Infobox Seinfeld season 4 episode list
Prev =
Next =

"The Trip" is the forty-first and forty-second two-part episode to air on NBC's popular sitcom, "Seinfeld". It was also the kickoff to season 4 of the show which aired on August 12, 1992 and August 19, 1992.

Plot

The Trip, part 1

In The Trip, Part 1, Jerry is offered two free tickets from New York to Hollywood to appear on "The Tonight Show". He offers one to George and they decide that while they are in Los Angeles they will track down Kramer, who headed to Los Angeles in the previous episode, "The Keys", to become an actor. A dead body turns up in another part of LA and Kramer's script he had given to the woman is found on her person. George thinks he has insightful conversations with the talk show guests (Corbin Bernsen and George Wendt) but they both call him "nuts". Jerry can't remember the wording for a joke and blames the hotel maid, Lupe, who threw it away while cleaning the room. As Jerry and George leave the Tonight Show, they see Kramer's picture on the news. He is the main suspect for the "Smog Strangler".

The Trip, part 2

Kramer is arrested when he is mistaken for "The Smog Strangler," a serial killer roaming the streets of Los Angeles. While also in L.A., Jerry and George try to help resolve the accusation. They use a pay phone to call the police and they say they have some important information regarding the stranglings. Two policemen in a police cruiser come to pick them up and take them back to the station. On their way, the officers see a man (Clint Howard) trying to break into a car. They arrest him and put him in the back with Jerry and George. They have to stop again when they get a police call regarding to the "Smog Strangler" and happen to be close to the scene. Jerry and George want to make sure Kramer is not imprisoned, so they open the door of the car, and, in their hurry, leave the door open. The man who was breaking into the car escapes.

Kramer is taken to the police station and is interrogated by the lieutenant. He has a nervous breakdown in the interrogation room and is reduced to hysterical sobbing, making it seem like he did the stranglings. While he is being questioned, the lieutenant receives a phone call stating that the Smog Strangler has killed another victim, and so Kramer is allowed to leave. After Kramer is exonerated, Jerry and George decide to return to New York, but Kramer opts to remain in Los Angeles. However, by the end of the episode, Kramer has returned to New York and is once again living across the hall from Jerry. He offers no explanation for his return.

It turns out that the Smog Strangler is actually the man that was in the back seat with George and Jerry, the one they accidentally let escape. It is broadcast on a news program that his whereabouts are unknown.

Trivia

*Kramer's treatment is titled "The Keys", after a related previous episode.
*The title page of Kramer's treatment, found by the police, is torn, only revealing his last name. It is not until Season 6's "The Switch" that Kramer's first name is revealed to be Cosmo.
*Elaine does not appear in either part of "The Trip", and appears only minimally in "The Pitch" and "The Ticket", due to the fact that Julia Louis-Dreyfus was on maternity leave.
*Both episodes still feature the Seinfeld opening logo that was used for Season 3 rather than Season 4.
*Jerry's hair is long again and remains that way for the entire season.
*As Jerry and George are walking through a corridor at NBC's Burbank offices, to the Tonight Show stage, they walk by posters of the network's major hit shows at the time on the walls. In the order they appear, "Quantum Leap", "Wings", "Sisters", "The Round Table", and "Law & Order".

* Clint Howard plays a serial killer named Tobias Lehigh Nagy who is accidentally freed by George and Jerry. His brother Ron Howard would later co-create and executive produce the show "Arrested Development", in which a character of similar appearance, also named Tobias, plays a major role. Mitchell Hurwitz has acknowledged his show's debt to "Seinfeld" occasionally. [http://www.avclub.com/content/node/24899/1/1] Ron and Clint's father, Rance Howard, also appeared on "Seinfeld" as a blind man in Season 5's "The Glasses", and again as a farmer in Season 7's "The Bottle Deposit".
* When George's bed ends up tucked as he disliked, he and Jerry were in the opposite beds as when they were telling the maid which one to tuck and which to untuck in "The Trip, Part 1".
* When Kramer is confronted by the police at his apartment (about 12 minutes into the episode), Larry David and episode writer Larry Charles can be seen standing in the crowd behind the officers, at the far right of the scene.
* The cop riding shotgun is the same actor that would later portray Jake Jarmel.
* The Hotel/Apartment that Kramer is staying in while in Hollywood is in the same building that was used in Pretty Woman, which Jason Alexander co-starred in.

References

*imdb episode|0697799
*imdb episode|0697800