article

Cosmo Kramer is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Seinfeld (1989–1998), played by Michael Richards. Kramer is the wacky neighbor of main character Jerry Seinfeld. Of the series' four central characters only Kramer has no visible means of support; what few jobs he holds seem to be nothing more than larks. His trademarks include his humourous upright bouffant hairstyle and vintage wardrobe, the combination of which led to his categorization as a 'hipster doofus'; his violent bursts through Jerry's apartment door; and his penchant for non-sensical, percussive bursts of noise to indicate skepticism, agreement, annoyance, and a variety of other inexplicable responses.

Name

Cosmo was known only as "Kramer" during the show's first five seasons (from 1990 to 1994), although in the first (pilot) episode his name was actually Kessler. It was George who found out his unusual first name through an encounter with Kramer's long estranged mother, Babs (played by Sheree North), on the season six episode, "The Switch." Despite this, most characters continued to call him Kramer for the remainder of the show's run although many minor characters did begin referring to him as "Cosmo".

The real-life Kramer

Kramer is based on the real-life Kenny Kramer, a neighbor of co-creator Larry David. At the time of the shooting of the original Seinfeld pilot called "The Seinfeld Chronicles," Kenny Kramer had not yet given consent to use his name, and so Kramer's character was originally "Kessler".

David was hesitant to use Kenny Kramer's real name because he suspected that Kramer would take advantage of this. David's suspicion turned out to be correct – Kramer created the "Kramer Reality Tour," a New York City bus tour that points out actual locations of events or places featured in Seinfeld. The "Kramer Reality Tour" is itself spoofed on Seinfeld in "The Muffin Tops" – when Cosmo receives money from catalog sales company owner J. Peterman for the use of his various stories in Peterman's biography; he develops a reality bus tour and touts himself as "The Real J. Peterman." Kenny Kramer also made both monetary and non-monetary demands on Castle-Rock Entertainment – all of which were met.

In the "backwards episode" of Seinfeld, "The Betrayal," it is explained (in an example of retcon) that Kramer's original name given in the pilot, "Kessler", is just a misspelling on his mailbox.

Life and family

Perhaps Kramer's first scheme was running away from home at age 17 and stowing away aboard a steamer headed for Sweden, as he tells two art patrons in "The Letter." It is unknown how he returned to the United States from Sweden, however - or whether the story is even intended to be true.

Kramer was estranged for a long period from his mother, Babs Kramer. Unlike George Costanza and Jerry Seinfeld, Kramer's character does not have a well-developed network of family members shown in the sitcom.

Character

Kramer has many conflicting personality traits. Described in "The Letter" by an art patron as "a loathsome, offensive brute," he is often shallow, callous, and indifferent. On the other hand, he is often caring and friendly, going out of his way to get his friends to help others and to do the right thing even when they don't want to. Kramer is known for his extreme honesty and, correspondingly, his lack of tact; in "The Nose Job", he tells George's girlfriend that she "needs a nose job". Instead of being horrified, many characters end up thanking Kramer for his candor. Kramer never gets into trouble for it, but his friends often do. He also gets his friends into trouble by talking them into things such as parking illegally in a handicapped space ("The Handicap Spot") or urinating in a parking garage ("The Parking Garage").

Kramer is known for appropriating items from Jerry, most notably food. Jerry's apartment is Kramer's second home; he has his own key to the apartment, rarely bothers to knock, and even begins to receive phone calls there in "The Pilot, Part 1". It is revealed in "The Betrayal" that this may be due to Jerry's offer upon moving into the building, telling Kramer "We are neighbors. What's mine is yours."

Kramer's own apartment is sub-let from documentary filmmaker Paul Buchman from Mad About You. Kramer's apartment is the subject of numerous radical experiments in interior design, including "levels" (no furniture) in "The Pony Remark", and a reconstruction of the set of The Merv Griffin Show in "The Merv Griffin Show".

Kramer's signature on the show is entering a room sliding in, much like Art Carney's character in The Honeymooners. This reportedly first became a recurring gag when Richards was late for a cue; trying to save the scene, he burst into the room, much to the delight of the audience. His initial bursts into Jerry's apartment were fairly conventional, and became somewhat more flamboyant or physically comedic as the series progressed.

George Costanza once commented, upon hearing that Kramer had gone to a baseball fantasy camp, that Kramer's whole life was a fantasy camp: "People should plunk down two thousand dollars to live like him for a week: Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors, and have sex without dating! That's a fantasy camp!" ("The Visa").

Friends

Kramer is perhaps the most social of the four main characters, and seems to have more friends and associates than any of the others, some of whom are just as eccentric, if not more so, than himself. Kramer has a slew of never-seen friends, most notably Bob Sacamano, as well as Lomez, Jay Reimenschneider, Corky Ramirez, Len Nicademo, and Specter. In "The Frogger," Kramer's multitude of mysterious friends is joked about, with Jerry asking, "You sure have a lot of friends; how come I never see any of these people?", and Kramer responding, "They want to know why they never see you."

Kramer is also good friends with Newman, played by Wayne Knight, and Mickey Abbott, played by Danny Woodburn. Although they seem to get into many fights, Newman often participates in many of Kramer's inventions and money-making ideas.

Kramer is popular with both George's and Jerry's parents. It is revealed in "The Blood" that he calls the Seinfelds once a week (as he explains to Jerry, "If you called them more often, I wouldn't have to!"), and he even briefly lives in the same retirement community in Florida as they do.

Bizarre beliefs and philosophies

Kramer was known to embrace opposite and reverse philosophies and rejected acceptable social behaviors or established facts. For example, he insisted in "The Jimmy" that you have to eat before undergoing surgery because "you need your strength," even though patients are told not to eat before being operated on for safety reasons.

In "The Opera," Kramer wears casual clothes to an upscale opera, commenting that "People do up when they go to the opera; I don't."

In "The Opera" Kramer admits that he suffers from coulrophobia (fear of clowns).

Employment

The only known steady job Kramer is known to have had was in "The Strike," where he went back to work at H&H Bagels after being on strike for over a decade. His union finally settled the strike when the minimum wage of New York was raised to the same hourly rate Kramer was demanding from his employer (Kramer still felt the strike was a success), and he was reemployed. He only worked there during that one episode before he was fired. During the time he was working at the bagel shop, he went on strike again because of having to work on Festivus, a holiday fabricated by Frank Costanza.

Kramer has engaged in a variety of short-lived jobs. He worked part-time as a department store Santa before being fired for spreading Communist propaganda to young children. In "The Bizarro Jerry," he works at an office where he is not actually employed, describing his daily activities to Jerry as "T.C.B. You know, takin' care of business." His "boss" eventually "fires" him, commenting that his reports resemble work by someone with "no business training at all." In "The Beard," he was paid to be a decoy in a police lineup. A story arc of the fifth season included Kramer's idea for a coffee table book about coffee tables, which is eventually published in "The Fire."

He is a compulsive gambler who successfully avoided gambling for several years until "The Diplomat's Club", where he bet with a Texan on the arrival and departure times of flights going into New York's LaGuardia Airport.

A struggling (and untalented) actor, Kramer briefly lived in Los Angeles, where his only accomplishments were accosting Fred Savage, appearing in a cameo on Murphy Brown in the episode "The Keys." , and being suspected as a serial killer. Back in New York Kramer worked as a stand-in on a daytime television soap opera with his friend Mickey in "The Stand In", and was given a one-line part in a Woody Allen movie in "The Alternate Side," but he is fired before completing his scene. Kramer has worked in various other theater projects, such as acting out illnesses at a medical school in "The Burning."

Inventions, entrepreneurship, and lawsuits

Kramer showed an entreprenurial bent with "Kramerica Industries," for which he devised plans for a pizza place where customers made their own pizza ("Male Unbonding"), a bladder system for tankers that would "put an end to maritime oil spills" ("The Voice"), and a product that would put ketchup and mustard in the same bottle.

He also came up with the idea of a beach-scented cologne in "The Pez Dispenser," but a marketing executive for Calvin Klein informed him that the idea was senseless. However, in "The Pick," it is revealed that Klein has produced a cologne called Ocean based on the same idea. When Kramer confronts him about this, his interaction with a Klein executive lands him a photo shoot in connection with the cologne as an underwear model.

In "The Dinner Party", Kramer and Frank Costanza co-develop a prototype for a brassiere for men called the "bro" or the "mansiere."

In "The Muffin Tops", Kramer cries foul after failing to receive due credit for J. Peterman's book success which was unduly based on Kramer's misadventures. He then confronts Peterman during a book signing, and is kicked out of the event. Kramer then declares himself to be "The Real Peterman" and initiates The Real Peterman Reality Bus Tour, charging customers $37.50 for a tour of his life.

Kramer also hatched a scheme to smuggle actual Cubans to the United States to make his beloved outlawed Cuban cigars, only to learn the Cubans are actually Dominicans ("The English Patient").

He participates in lawsuits against various people and companies, represented by Jackie Chiles, a parody of Johnnie Cochran. In "The Maestro," he settled one such suit (though he received no monetary compensation) against a coffee company whose beverages were too hot (a reference to the McDonald's coffee case). In "The Abstinence," Kramer sues a tobacco company for the damage its products caused to his appearance, and in "The Caddy," he sued Sue Ellen Mischke for causing a traffic accident that ruined his chances at becoming a professional golfer.

Others of Kramer's inventions and ideas

  • A coffee table book about coffee tables. While on Regis and Kathie Lee promoting the book, he spits out his coffee and he is no longer allowed to tour ("The Opposite").
  • PB & J's, a restaurant that only sells peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Nothing becomes of it ("The Friars Club").
  • Ketchup and mustard in the same bottle ("The Voice").
  • Eliminating all the pieces of furniture in his house and replacing them with levels ("The Pony Remark").
  • Installing a garbage disposal as the drain in his shower, so that he could prepare vegetables while showering ("The Apology").
  • A roll-out tie dispenser ("The Stock Tip").
  • Redoing his entire apartment in wood ("The Junior Mint").
  • Redecorating his apartment with the set of The Merv Griffin Show ("The Merv Griffin Show").
  • Adding a screen door outside his apartment front door ("The Serenity Now").
  • Using the homeless to pull rickshaws in New York City ("The Bookstore").
  • Reversing the peephole in his apartment front door ("The Reverse Peephole").
  • Owning his own chicken to obtain fresh eggs. He later discovers that the chicken is really a rooster and trains him to become a cockfighter ("The Little Jerry").
  • Saving all his blood in a refrigerator ("The Blood").
  • Using Newman and his mail truck to take cans to a Michigan recycling plant, where the bottle deposit return is worth 10¢, as opposed to New York's 5¢ ("The Bottle Deposit, Part 1" and "Part 2").
  • Getting rid of his refrigerator so that he would only eat fresh food.

Pseudonyms

Like the other three characters, Kramer has pseudonyms he uses in various schemes; H. E. Pennypacker, Dr. Martin von Nostrand, and Peter von Nostrand are the most popular.

Under the name "H. E. Pennypacker" in "The Puerto Rican Day", Kramer poses as a buyer interested in an apartment in order to use its bathroom. Kramer also appeared as H. E. Pennypacker to help Elaine get revenge on a store, Putumayo, by repricing all the merchandise in the store with a pricing gun ("The Millennium").

As Dr. Martin von Nostrand, Kramer tried to get Elaine's medical chart to erase the negative comments her doctor had made in "The Package." He also used the von Nostrand alias in the episode "The Slicer", posing as a dermatologist for a cancer screening at Kruger. Kramer used the name Martin von Nostrand (without the "doctor" prefix) while auditioning for the role of himself on the show Jerry in "The Pilot, Part 1". Kramer posed as Professor Peter von Nostrand in "The Nose Job" in order to retrieve his jacket from another man's apartment.

Kramer was also referred to as "Assman" in reference to the license plate the state of New York accidentally gave him in "The Fusilli Jerry." Occasionally, he is called "Krame" ("The Parking Space," "The Stranded") or "the K-Man."

A derogatory nickname for Kramer has been "hipster doofus", a moniker once assigned to him by a woman in a wheelchair he once dated in the episode "The Handicap Spot," and occasionally directed at him by Elaine, as in "The Glasses." The nickname was first used in a newspaper review of Seinfeld. There have been some interpretations of the term "hipster doofus" that suggest Kramer to be "a flamboyant and sophisticated unfortunate," "a person who is learned on the ways of the world, but not learned or aware of his own physicality," as well as "the world's roughest prototype of the metrosexual male."

External links

References

Seinfeld characters | Fictional actors | Fictional eccentrics | Promiscuous fictional characters

קוזמו קריימר | Cosmo Kramer

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Cosmo Kramer".

Home Page • arts • business • computers • games • health • hospitals • home • kids & teens • news • physicians • recreation• reference • regional • science • shopping • society • sports • world