Cosmo Kramer
Cosmo Kramer, usually referred to simply by his surname, is a fictional character in the American television sitcom Seinfeld (1989–1998) played by Michael Richards.
Cosmo Kramer
"The Seinfeld Chronicles" (1989)
"Seinfeld" (2009)
Kessler
H. E. Pennypacker
Professor van Nostrand
Dr. Martin van Nostrand
Male
Babs Kramer (mother)
The character is loosely based on comedian Kenny Kramer, Larry David's ex-neighbor across the hall. Kramer is the neighbor of the series' main character, Jerry Seinfeld, and is friends with George Costanza and Elaine Benes. 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 character is that of a lovable rogue with his trademarks being his upright hairstyle, vintage wardrobe, impractical business ideas and eccentric personality, whose combination led Elaine to characterize him as a "hipster doofus".[1] He is obsessed with high-quality fresh fruit and occasionally smokes pipes and Cuban cigars. He is also known for his habit of bursting through Jerry's apartment door without knocking. His antics include frequent pratfalls and a penchant for noisy, percussive outbursts to indicate skepticism, agreement, irritation and a variety of other feelings. He has been described as "an extraordinary cross between Eraserhead and Herman Munster".[2]
Kramer appears in all but two episodes: "The Chinese Restaurant" and "The Pen", in the second and third seasons, respectively. For the pilot episode, Kramer was named "Kessler" to avoid potential legal issues; Kenny Kramer later authorized the use of his name.[3]
Background and family[edit]
In "The Trip", Kramer says a man in a park exposed himself to him when he was a young boy. In "The Big Salad" Kramer reveals to Jerry that he grew up in a strict household where he had to be in bed every night by 9:00PM.
Kramer never completed high school; in "The Barber", it is revealed that Kramer has a GED.
Kramer was estranged for a long period from his mother, Babs Kramer, who works as a restroom matron at an upscale restaurant. Unlike George and Jerry, Kramer's character does not have a well-developed network of family members shown in the sitcom. He is the only main character on the show whose father never makes an appearance; in "The Chinese Woman", Kramer mentions that he is the last male member of his family, implying that his father had died. He also mentions in "The Lip Reader" that he has or had a deaf cousin, from whom he learned fluent American Sign Language. Like the other main characters, he has no children.
In "The Strong Box", it is revealed that Kramer spent a brief time in the Army, although info about this time is "classified". In "The Implant", he says he lived in Los Angeles for three months.
Employment[edit]
Despite the failure of the majority of his schemes and his unwillingness to even apply for a normal job, Kramer always seems to have money when he needs it. In "The Visa", George makes a comment about Kramer going to a fantasy camp, and how Kramer's "whole life is 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."
As a younger man, Kramer had several jobs. In the episode "The Strong Box", Kramer says he was briefly in the army, and claims the reason for his discharge is classified. In the episode "The Muffin Tops", Kramer mentions shaving his chest when he was a lifeguard. His long term unemployed status is explained in "The Strike", when he goes back to work at H&H Bagels after being on strike since 1985. He is fired by the end of the episode.
In the episode "The Bizarro Jerry", Kramer accidentally begins working for a company called Brandt-Leland. Later in the episode, he is "fired" (without actually having ever been employed) when his "work" is assessed and found to be completely meaningless.
He is a compulsive gambler who successfully avoids gambling for several years until "The Diplomat's Club", in which he bets with a wealthy Texan on the arrival and departure times of flights going into New York's LaGuardia Airport.
A struggling (and terrible)[7] actor, Kramer's first gig was a one-line part in a Woody Allen movie in "The Alternate Side" (his line, "These pretzels are making me thirsty", becomes the show's first catchphrase). Although he is fired before completing his scene, he says he "caught the bug" because of it, and briefly moves to Los Angeles to pursue a career in Hollywood, where, in "The Keys", he appeared on Murphy Brown as Steven Snell, Murphy Brown's secretary. After returning to New York, Kramer auditions for the role of "Kramer" in the pilot of a new sitcom called Jerry, using his stage name of Martin van Nostrand ("The Pilot"). He is unable to complete the audition due to an intestinal problem. Kramer later works as a stand-in on a soap opera with his friend Mickey Abbott in "The Stand In" and various other low-paying or non-paying theater projects, such as acting out illnesses at a medical school in "The Burning".
Physical moments[edit]
Kramer's physical eccentricities are a frequent source of humor. His entrance is a recurring gag. He frequently 'slides' into Jerry's apartment, often resulting in applause, as in "The Virgin". In "The Revenge", Kramer clumsily carries a dry sack of cement powder to the washing machine. In "The Foundation", he takes on a group of kids at a karate school, and in "The Van Buren Boys", after giving his stories to Elaine to write, he slips up on the golf balls and lands on the floor. In "The Subway", Kramer fights to get a seat with several people on a subway. He falls a couple times and ends up not getting a seat.[9] Kramer and Newman had been playing the game Risk for a while. When they were done, Kramer drops the game off at Jerry's apartment. Before he puts it onto the table, he clears the table with his leg with papers flying off. When Kramer and Jerry were going to see a movie, Kramer hid his coffee under his shirt due to him not being allowed to bring it in. Kramer then spills the coffee on himself when he was about to sit down, burning himself in the process. Kramer became a model for Calvin Klein when he went to their office. He showed off his buttocks in white underwear in front of a few Calvin Klein executives. Just before they wanted to take him in to their studio, Kramer has a pratfall in the underwear.[10]
Pseudonyms[edit]
Like the other three characters, Kramer has pseudonyms he uses in various schemes.
Under the name H.E. Pennypacker in "The Puerto Rican Day", Kramer poses as a prospective buyer interested in an elegant apartment in order to use its bathroom. Kramer also appears as Pennypacker to help Elaine get revenge on a Mayan clothing store, "Putumayo", by repricing all the merchandise in the store with a pricing gun in "The Millennium", though due to a mishap with the pricing gun, Pennypacker instead removes the desiccants from clothes in the store in order to render them "noticeably musty in five years". In this latter capacity, he claims Pennypacker is "a wealthy American industrialist".
In "The Nose Job", Kramer uses the pseudonym Professor Peter Von Nostrand to pose as the betrothed son-in-law of an incarcerated man who once stole his jacket in order to retrieve it from the man's apartment; Kramer's jacket, to which he attributes at least some of his amorous success, is a minor plot point in other episodes until, in "The Cheever Letters", he trades it to a Cuban embassy official for several boxes of authentic Cuban cigars. Later on, he more famously adopts a similarly named alter-ego, Dr. Martin van Nostrand (in addition to "von" instead of "Van", "Nostrand" is also pronounced differently in this alias). As Dr. van Nostrand, Kramer tries to get hold of Elaine's medical chart to erase the negative comments her doctor has made in "The Package". He also uses the van Nostrand alias in the episode "The Slicer", posing as a "Juilliard-trained dermatologist" for a cancer screening at George's company, Kruger Industrial Smoothing. Mr. Kruger later recognizes him as Dr. van Nostrand in "The Strike". Kramer uses the name Martin van Nostrand (without the "doctor" title) while auditioning for the role of himself on the show Jerry in "The Pilot, Part 1".
Kramer is also occasionally called "the K-Man" ("The Barber", "The Bizarro Jerry", "The Busboy", "The Note", "The Hamptons", "The Scofflaw" and "The Soup Nazi").
A derogatory designation for Kramer has been "hipster doofus", a moniker 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 The Atlantic Monthly review of Seinfeld.[11]
Reception[edit]
Ken Tucker wrote in a 1992 review in Entertainment Weekly that Kramer is "the most cartoonish, least-defined person in Seinfeld. Kramer is an earnest dope whose long, gangly body always seems to surprise his mind — he's always running, stumbling, bumping into things; he doesn't enter Jerry's apartment so much as he explodes into it."[12] In 1999, TV Guide ranked him number 36 on its '50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time' list.[13]
In popular culture[edit]
Paul Buchman, one of the main characters in NBC's Mad About You, apparently sublets his apartment to the Kramer character. Paul and Kramer have a conversation about it in Mad About You episode "The Apartment" (Season 1, Episode 8).
Alternative hip hop group Das Racist indirectly reference Kramer by referring to the show Seinfeld and the actor Michael Richards who portrays him in the song "Rapping 2 U". Justin Roiland voices a parody of Kramer known as "Kramer Guy" (originally known as "Kessler Guy") in the animated series Solar Opposites.[14]