Housing Seinfeld Characters

Because you've put your favorite TV characters into Hogwarts Houses. We know you have.

This series is often regarded as the pinnacle of the 30-minute sitcom genre - not sure if we’d go that far, but it does have a well-seated place in our hearts.

Given this show’s legacy and still-adamant following, I know I felt a bit of pressure at the idea of weighing in on what Hogwarts houses I think the Sorting Hat would file Jerry, George, Elaine, and good ol’ reliably eccentric Kramer.

But honestly, this is a show about a bunch of Slytherins and one wild, neurotic Gryffindor/something-or-another that somehow ended up in their circle

These aren't the Slytherins that you read about in Harry Potter books - they aren't outright evil, just sort of passive-aggressively assholish. They're self-serving, but they make cursory attempts at decency and even charity. (Until it becomes inconvenient, then nahhh.) They're not particularly glamorous or cloak-and-dagger. They're like, the background Slytherins. The ones complaining "what's the deal with the talking paintings - shouldn't the dead stay dead?" at the dinner table and conniving ways to get an "A" in Divination by making minor things they predicted come true.

Not sold? Don't worry - we'll break it down for you.

Jerry.

Let me cut-and-paste this description of Jerry as provided by Wikipedia, and then you tell me if we’re making the right call here: “Jerry is generally completely indifferent to what goes on in his friends' lives, seeing their misery as merely an entertaining distraction, as well as an opportunity for joke material.” Yeah, that’s pretty on-point Wikipedia; I can see why everyone blindly trusts you on just about any given subject. This is also the guy who has dumped women for having “man hands” and eating peas one by one. If you can’t picture him doing stand-up at Malfoy Manor before a Death Eater meeting and totally killing the crowd, you’re imagining SOMETHING wrong

Jerry’s definitely a Slytherin, but as noted in the description, he’s not the actively malevolent kind. He’s more the kind who’d convince a girlfriend that she was a vampire in order to avoid seeing her during the day. I can definitely imagine 7 years worth of relatively boring but nonetheless (vaguely) evil attempts to avoid women through the use of magic. In fact, I can imagine a whole new slew of problems, including “cheating on” the Slytherin portrait with a portrait in the Transfiguration classroom and being denied access to the dorm for days on end. Oh, Jerry...99 problems but a witch ain’t one!

George.

Remember the time he killed his fiancee because he didn’t want to buy more expensive wedding invitations and she died from licking the cheap glue on the envelopes? Then after George was given the news in the hospital, he does a “huh” and sighs “well, let’s go get some coffee”. Then in the coda calls up other women to let them know he’s single. (“I’ve got the funeral of course… but then my weekend’s wide open!”) Voldemort’s right-hand-man #1 after Petey Pettigrew bit it, you could trust. (“So this evil cult of yours… what are the health benefits like?” Omg I actually feel like that might had really been an episode…)

George is the type of Slytherin who overcompensates for his physical appearance by trying-- and failing-- to be really, really good at something else. Here is but a short list of some of George’s antics while at Hogwarts:

* Attempting to befriend the Giant Squid (“Big girls need love too, Jerry!”)

* Feeling inferior when his Patronus turns out to be a donkey; he had expected a
panther.

* Trying to be better at Herbology than Neville Longbottom, because “that putz can’t have a plant monopoly!”

* Becoming jealous of the success of the Half Blood Prince and trying to vandalize textbooks with his own ridiculous “study hints.” He would use the penname Partial Plasma Royalty, or PPR.

* Sneaking into the girls’ dorm, not to actually see girls, but to better understand/steal their hair care products. He is later discovered when Draco becomes attracted to him because he smells like Pansy Parkinson.

* Becoming insecure when his parents send him love notes instead of Howlers (“Everyone can SEE a Howler! A Howler means you’ve done something worth howling over! What the hell am I supposed to do with “Keep up the good work!”??”). Then attempting to get various females (Hermione, McGonagall, etc.) to send him a Howler while pretending to be his mother.

Elaine.

Elaine was my favorite, but yeah, totally another asshole.

Elaine is the type of Slytherin who lacks the ability to be particularly good at anything, but still feels the need to pretend she is. Aaaand enter Draco Malfoy, her love interest. Or rather, the man she thinks is her love interest. She’s probably spend the majority of the books either elaborating upon or completely inventing interactions with him. I can see it now...Jerry, Elaine and George are all sitting in the Slytherin dungeon, and somehow Kramer has materialized by the fireplace to loudly eat his free food in front of them. Elaine turns to the group and says, “Ya know, Drake and I...we really understand each other, like, on a deeper level! We don’t need things like words to communicate! All he has to do is give me a look, and I immediately understand that I’m supposed to take his test for him! We just have a deeper bond!” Then of course Draco will enter the room, stare at Elaine, sniff loudly and say, “Who farted?”

Yes, Elaine’s devotion to “Drake” is the type of love that would last for several books. Or until she realizes that his mom has “skunk hair,” and that she can’t risk passing that to her children. Either way, Elaine can join her Slytherin sisters in the dungeons.

Nothing about this is even remotely uncorrect. I think she would have gone through a few Quidditch players as well, when she was on the “outs” with Draco, including an entirely physical relationship with Blaise Zabini in spite of (or fueled by?) palpable feelings of mutual hatred.

Kramer.

Kramer’s character’s function in the narrative is to serve as the group’s outlier, the “wild card”; he is hilarious for his Other-ness. So I think it comes as no surprise that he’s a Gryffindor. I think he gives off a Fred-and-Georgeish vibe - like he could be their crazed, estranged uncle, supplying them with various legal and illegal contraptions and concoctions for their joke shop. I also think that out of everyone in the group, oddly, he’s the one with the most genuine intentions to do what’s good and right - his methods of going about doing what he perceives as “good” and “right” are just often extremely...questionable.

I honestly feel like Kramer isn’t in any house at all. He’d probably sit on the Sorting Hat stool and loudly shout “HOUSE ELF!” before the hat could make any comments. At this point, he’d promptly strip and don a potato sack garment (“I came prepared!”) before whistling away to the kitchens with a jaunt in his step.

Later on, we’d see him stuffing his face with pumpkin pasties, sagely that noting his friends in Slytherin are just “throwing their money away,” because “this school has an untapped market in slave labor!” I also envision some veiled references to house elf relations, including, “You gotta see that Winky, man...oh boy, does she EVER know how to put food on that table!” Can’t say I disagree with you there, Krames.

So there it is - our verdict on the Seinfeld cast. Ugh, now we’re filled with ideas for Harry Potter-themed Seinfeld episodes and no where to go! Why can’t there be more of a market for this?!