The Muffin Tops

The Muffin Tops
Season	8
Episode	155
Air Date	May 8, 1997
Writer(s)	Spike Feresten
Director	Andy Ackerman
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"The Muffin Tops" is the 21st episode of the eighth season of Seinfeld, and the 155th episode overall. This episode first aired on May 8, 1997. It was written by Spike Feresten and was directed by Andy Ackerman.

Recap

A tourist asks George to look after a bag full of clothes. The man never comes back, so George starts wearing them. He later meets a woman named Mary Anne from the tourist bureau (Rena Sofer) under the impression that he's a tourist from Little Rock, Arkansas, as a hen supervisor for Tyler Chicken. To stay in character, George gets a hotel room and considers 'moving' to New York, later showing her his 'new' apartment and job with the Yankees. The Tyler Chicken job backfires when Steinbrenner calls Johnny Tyler: CEO of Tyler Chicken. They eventually agree to trade George for changing all concession stand food into chicken styled for the stadium. For example, hot dogs are replaced with chicken dogs, pretzels are replaced with chicken twists and beer is replaced with alcoholic chicken.

Jerry accidentally shaves his chest hairs, but soon realizes his girlfriend likes hairless dogs.

Elaine and Kramer join Peterman at a book signing of his autobiography. Kramer is startled to find that Elaine put his life stories into the book, so Kramer grabs a seat next to Peterman, and calls himself "The real Peterman", only to be thrown out. Elaine runs into Mr. Lippman, and tells him that she eats only the tops of muffins. Inspired, Mr. Lippman opens a muffin store called "Top of the Muffin to You!", but business isn't good, until Elaine recommends to bake a whole muffin and then throw away the stump, which helps.

To spite Peterman, Kramer acquires a school bus and starts a "Peterman Reality Tour" for $37.50 a ticket, which Jerry and his girlfriend ride frequently, despite some angry customers.

An orphanage next door to the muffin shop is angry because of the stumps in the alleyway, so Elaine asks Kramer to take out whole bagfuls of stumps to a town dump on his next run, but none of the dumps will accept the bags. Jerry's chest hair starts to grow, to his chagrin, and has to scratch behind his girlfriend's back, a la the Wolf Man.

The next morning, Elaine hires a “cleaner” (Newman, in a spoof of Pulp Fiction) to eat the muffin stumps. He enjoys them with a glass of milk.

Notes About Nothing

• Mr. Lippman's disparaging comment about the number of autobiographies from minor celebrities is a reference to Jerry Seinfeld's own autobiography, Seinlanguage.
• Tyson Chicken was to be featured. However, the company objected to the “alcoholic chicken” joke; as such, it was replaced with the fictional Tyler Chicken.
• The owner of Tyler Chicken can be seen bobbing his head and flapping his arms like a chicken.
• The same man from Jiffy Park is also the attendant at Jiffy Dump.
• The "Peterman Reality Tour" is a spoof of Kenny Kramer's "Kramer Reality Tour", a New York City bus tour that points out actual locations of events or places featured in Seinfeld. Kenny Kramer was the inspiration for Michael Richards' character.
• The dog that is seen in the park is actually a Chinese Crested and not Mexican Hairless.
• Due to George losing his job with the Yankees, this is Larry David's final "appearance" as George Steinbrenner until the series finale.