The Horror of Seinfeld: Seinfeld Actor Horror Film Appearances - Part 1

As you can guess from this site, I'm a big Horror fan. I like Horror from all eras and subgenres, '30s Pre-Code Boris Karloff thrillers, '40s Werewolves, '50s vampires, '70s Satanic cults, '80s slashers, whatever you've got, really. In addition to horror, I also watch a great deal of Seinfeld. I've seen every episode at least four times, and I've probably seen most of the episodes even more than that. I actually subscribe to Hulu specifically for Seinfeld so that I don't have to mess with the DVDs. If I can't find something to watch, or if I want to watch a show while I eat, Seinfeld always works. I've probably cycled through the series 7 times in the past few years. I start with the first episode and end with the Puerto Rican Day episode, which is the last episode before the clip show and the divisive finale (some people thought it sucked, others thought it really sucked).

What's fun about watching the show as a horror fan is there are a ton of people who appear on this show who have also had great parts in classic horror films like The Burning or not so classic horror films like Ghoulies III or Creepshow 2. I guess that goes for a lot of older shows really, but I still really get a kick out of spotting them when I see them. So I thought it would be fun to go through and do a little list of some of my favorite Seinfeld actor horror sightings. There are so many I am probably going to have to split this into two parts, even then I'll still be missing like 50 people. They used a lot of character actors on this show. 

First up, the more prominent characters, characters who have been in more than a few episodes.

Jerry Seinfeld - Played by Jerry Seinfeld. Of the main 4 cast members, Jerry was the only one to not appear in a horror film in his career. I'm including him because I saw the Stand-Up confidential tape he made with Joel Hodgson in 1987, and I've gotta say, I actually found the skit portions to be a bit on the creepy side. Kind of "You Can't Do That on Television meets that weird ass Grandma scene from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey"...no, that's close, but that doesn't quite work. I can't describe it, see for yourself by skimming through this video:

Now, if you're still alive after witnessing that insanity, read on for the cast members with actual horror film related credits.

George Lewis Constanza - Played by Jason Alexander. George was a short, stalky, slow-witted bald man who founded The Human Fund. Jason made his cinematic acting debut (with hair) as Dave in slasher favorite The Burning (review) in 1981. Bonus points: If, for some reason, you want to see Costanza's ass, look no further than The Burning. Jason would also later go on to appear as Geary in Jacob's Ladder in 1990.

Elaine Benes - Played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Elaine was Jerry's former girlfriend turned regular friend and one-time recipient of a $182 dollar cash birthday gift. Julia appeared with Sonny Bono in the 1986 horror fantasy Troll. Fun fact: The father and son played by Michael Moriarty and Noah Hathaway are both named Harry Potter. I'm sure this has been mentioned in every movie review of Troll since Harry Potter came out, but I think Troll director John Carl Beuchler should try and sue to get a little bit of that Harry Potter money. I've never read a single page of one the books, but I hear that JK lady is pretty loaded. She probably has money enough to literally fund a few hundred thousand JC Buechler films.

Cosmo Kramer - Played by Michael Richards. Jerry's wacky high-haired hipster doofus neighbor appeared as a wacky high-haired and possibly mentally challenged butler named Fejos in the 1985 Jeff Goldblum horror/comedy Transylvania 6-5000. Note: I have heard from a very reputable source that this guy is bonkos!

Frank Costanza - Played by Jerry Stiller. Frank is George's perpetually angry father and disgraced former Army cook. Jerry has very little horror film acting experience, but he did appear in two horror tv episodes. He was a maniacal radio DJ in a 1985 Tales from the Darkside episode titled The Devil's Advocate, and a werewolf in a Monsters episode from 1990 titled One Wolf's Family. He also appeared briefly, with son Ben, in the oddball horror-road-action-comedy Highway to Hell starring Chad Lowe.

Uncle Leo - Played by Len Lesser. Uncle Leo was Jerry's weird uncle who was once slightly immolated in an oven cleaner explosion. Len was quite a prolific character actor, appearing in 175 films and TV series before his death in 2011. He played the kinda creepy/possibly rapey Tom Kredge in 1971's proto-slasher Blood and Lace, which I highly recommend. He also appeared in the 1977 film Ruby, 1989's Grandmother's House, and the unsurprisingly terrible Sorority Girls and the Creature from Hell.

Mr. Justin Pitt - Played by Ian Abercrombie. Mr. Pitt was Elaine's ink pen hating boss and one-time Woody Woodpecker float handler. I'm sure that everyone knows him as the Wiseman in Army of Darkness, but he has several other horror appearances on his resume. I think he's actually been in more horror films than Seinfeld episodes. In addition to Evil Dead 3, you can also see Ian in Blood Beach, Warlock, Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge, and the  Schwarzenegger Tales From The Crypt episode "The Switch". Bonus Seinfeld Nerd Points: Since he's a Nazi in Puppet Master III, while taking this screenshot I was able to catch him in the middle of a Heil Five.

That's all for now, but be on the lookout for The Horror of Seinfeld Part II: The End of the Trilogy, where I'll focus on some of the lesser characters like Mr. Morgan and Conrad, the contractor.

Phelpster's Custom Covers : Volume 3

I thought it was time to post a few more of my custom covers. Like last time I have linked the images to my DeviantArt pages, so if you want to see one larger just click on the link, then click on the image on DeviantArt.

First up is Child's Play. A new DVD of the first Child's Play just came out a few days ago. I think the new cover is pretty cool, but my idea was to try and design the case after the Good Guys box. If I were working for MGM and had final say in the packaging, the idea was to have there be a slip sleeve with a hole in it where Chucky appears on the front. Then put some clear plastic on the slip sleeve to make it look like Chucky was still packaged up, waiting to get out. Maybe if Universal ever gets the rights to the first movie they could make a box set using a similar design. This one, as you can see, is not complete. But until I find a scan of the back of the Good Guy dolls box I'm just keeping it incomplete.

Next up is my experimental Army of Darkness cover. You may remember a while back I posted an image of the Japanese Army of Darkness poster. I've tried to use that and work it into DVD form. The back was done by me, but I couldn't even attempt to match up the cluttered chaos of the front on the back. And I hate the Special Features box on the back, but I couldn't come up with anything better than what I have there already.

Here is my cover for The Incredible Shrinking Man. Universal released it in a Classic Sci-Fi Collection, but I found an old cover from Richard Matheson's box and just had to use it for something. So I've made Shrinking Man his own cover, based on the basic template used for a lot of Universal's classic titles like Rear Window or Vertigo.

This is from the 1968 film The Green Slime. I used a very cool poster I found for the front and kind of improvised on the back. Someone suggested I change the font color to green for the title, but I couldn't find a green I liked for it.

Someone over on the HorrorDVDs forum requested a cover for unbelievably bizarre TerrorVision (starring Bud The CHUD!), here's what I came up with. This one was kind of a pain in the ass because the front image came from a Dutch VHS, so I had to remove the tagline and do an English one over the front. I think it worked out okay, but I need to fix the spine a bit, the title looks a bit weird there.

Army of Darkness - Ashes 2 Ashes

Okay, here's the Ashes 2 Ashes series. Sorry about switching up the order there.

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On an absolutely completely unrelated note, while looking through some older files on my computer I found the Savage Streets CD cover I had made after I posted the soundtrack. So here's a look at that, if anyone needs it for whatever reason.

Army of Darkness - Shop Till You Drop Dead

Here are all 4 issues from Dynamite Comics' Army of Darkness - Shop Till You Drop Dead mini-series. Personally I think Shop Till You Drop....Dead would've been funnier. Dots equal funny.

Anyway, this series is actually a follow-up to another 4-issues series called Ashes 2 Ashes. I'll be posting that one later on today, I haven't read either yet and didn't realize the order they were supposed to go in. Ashes takes place immediately after the events of the film Army of Darkness, Drop Dead takes place immediately after Ashes. So just be sure to check out that one before you check out this one or you might be a little lost.

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