There was no movement. No audio. It was just frozen there on my television, as you see it here. A scene where Jerry and George appear to be talking.
I looked around. Was I the only one who could see this? Was Larry David trying to send me a signal? Was my TV set even on? Was this my second bowl of Apple Jacks, or third? Maybe, just maybe, this was my "if you build it, they will come" moment that I had waited on for ten years since the series finale.
After about ten or forty-five minutes, it became apparent they weren't going to play the rest of the episode, so I changed channels. The event gradually and quietly slipped into the dark recesses of my brain. Until the next day.
I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but something told me to check channel 8 again on Saturday. So I did. And I found the exact same scene. Still there. Still frozen. Like a hidden treasure waiting for me to kiss it and turn it into a beautiful princess.
By that time, I was certain this was no random occurrence. Someone was trying to tell me something. But what? And then it hit me. If I could somehow figure out which episode the frozen scene was from, I would thereby solve the mystery of the riddle and surely know what Larry was trying to tell me.
I began to analyze the scene. It appeared fairly generic, but I noticed a couple of things. They weren't in Jerry's apartment. They appeared to be in some sort of office. Also, George was older, so I was thinking Season 8 or 9. Within about fifteen seconds, I had my guess: The Bizarro Jerry.
The only thing left to do now was to check to see if I was right. Well, that and take a picture of the TV screen for blog purposes. Since I don't yet have Seasons 8 or 9 on DVD (hint hint), I had to dig thru my library of Seinfeld VHS tapes. This task was made slightly more difficult by the fact that before I knew the names of each episode--or that the episodes even had names--I would label the tapes with my own descriptions.
For example, instead of The Fire, I wrote "Jerry heckles a heckler." Instead of The Pie, I had "A mannequin looks like Elaine." Instead of The Rye, I put "Accidentally recorded Caroline In The City." Anyway, you get my drift. I finally found the episode I was looking for and fast forwarded to the scene. Booyah! I was right!
I'm still not really sure what this all means, other than I know a really really lot about Seinfeld. It's either very exciting or very very sad. Since this is my blog, we're gonna go with exciting. Surely there must be a need somewhere for my uncommon ability, a place at Larry David Enterprises for me.
I turned back to channel 8 later in the day Saturday, and they had resumed regular programming. Of course they had. But not before and until I had solved the mystery of the frozen scene.
It's all in a day's work. My name is Bone. This is what I do.
"Now for ten years we've been on our own. And moss grows fat on a rollin' stone. But that's not how it used to be..."
