Some of the reviewers seem angry that the events of this episode don't seem like reality. Have you seen any of this show. The whole thing is based on outrageous actions. So you don't think Jerry would shave his chest. Yes he would. He's Jerry Seinfeld and it leads to a plot. Kramer finds out that Peterman is finally releasing a book that includes stories made up by Kramer. This, he feels, allows him to profit from the book. He ends up driving a bus, doing tours of characters that never existed. Elaine, who only eats muffin tops, gets a guy interested in opening a place that only sells muffin tops--not the bottoms, but the bottoms must be gotten rid of. And George makes a huge mistake in trying to impress a beautiful young woman by telling her his from Little Rock. Lots of funny stuff. But, no, it's not realistic. Of course, most TV isn't.
7 Reviews
Three of Four plots are quite funny
FlushingCaps21 January 2015
Warning: Spoilers
The Muffin Tops has many hilarious moments and a few that stretch things too far and seem kind of dumb.
It opens with George being asked on the street by a total stranger to watch his bag for "a minute." The man never comes back, so George keeps "watching it" by wearing the man's clothes. This, coupled with him checking a map while walking on the sidewalk, gets him mistaken for a tourist by a nice-looking female in the NY Tourist bureau, who, of course, George decides to date because there won't be any risk of her wanting a permanent relationship with someone who will soon be returning home. George's story to her is that he is an executive with the Tyler Chicken Company in Little Rock, Arkansas. He explains his lack of an Arkansas accent in that, while his parents have one, "it sometimes skips a generation." When the girl wants to break up because of the very reason that George liked this relationship, he decides to tell her he is moving to the city. He pretends to be moving into the very apartment he lives in and to have gotten a job with the Yankees, but, of course, this just leads him into trouble when Steinbrenner hears one of his lies to the girlfriend.
Meanwhile Elaine reveals to Kramer that she used the life stories he once sold to Mr. Peterman to embellish the autobiography that has just been published. Kramer goes to the bookstore to co-sign the books with Peterman. He then comes up with an idea which for the writers of this episode was inspired by the real-life Kenny Kramer, who for nearly 20 years has been running his Kramer reality tour in New York, showing places where he and Larry David lived and visited before he became a character in David's new sitcom Seinfeld. Kramer gets an old school bus and runs a Peterman Reality Tour, showing them places he inhabits.
At the book signing, Elaine encounters her old boss, Mr. Lippman and inspires him via her odd eating habit, to open a bakery that only serves Muffin Tops. The idea is to throw away the "stumps" because only the top is tasty. It turns out that nobody wants the stumps, not even garbage dumps, for reasons that only work in the Seinfeld universe.
All three of these plots are quite funny. Fans of the Bob Newhart Show will smile as they see Mr. Carlin (Jack Riley) as one of Kramer's passengers on his bus. The one plot that makes no sense is Jerry's. He is shaving one day and decides his chest hair isn't "even." He tries to shave it even and winds up shaving it all off. On learning his girlfriend likes him that way, he decides to try to fool her by shaving all the time, but when it just begins to grow back, he basically turns into a werewolf like man, scratching his itchy chest in the full moon. I can see others thinking this plot was so wild it was tremendous but to me it just went beyond funny to dumb.
That still leaves ¾ of the plots as funny, letting me happily rate it as a 7 overall. That might make it less funny than most Seinfelds, but a 7 out of 10 is still far better than your average sitcom episode.
I wanted to write this review because the IMDb site has only one other review of this episode, one with which I totally disagree. That reviewer thought this was the worst episode in the series, saying none of the plots were funny. He also, not knowing about the real Kramer reality tour, claims "nobody would pay $37.50 to see the life of a nobody." They have for almost two decades in New York City.
It opens with George being asked on the street by a total stranger to watch his bag for "a minute." The man never comes back, so George keeps "watching it" by wearing the man's clothes. This, coupled with him checking a map while walking on the sidewalk, gets him mistaken for a tourist by a nice-looking female in the NY Tourist bureau, who, of course, George decides to date because there won't be any risk of her wanting a permanent relationship with someone who will soon be returning home. George's story to her is that he is an executive with the Tyler Chicken Company in Little Rock, Arkansas. He explains his lack of an Arkansas accent in that, while his parents have one, "it sometimes skips a generation." When the girl wants to break up because of the very reason that George liked this relationship, he decides to tell her he is moving to the city. He pretends to be moving into the very apartment he lives in and to have gotten a job with the Yankees, but, of course, this just leads him into trouble when Steinbrenner hears one of his lies to the girlfriend.
Meanwhile Elaine reveals to Kramer that she used the life stories he once sold to Mr. Peterman to embellish the autobiography that has just been published. Kramer goes to the bookstore to co-sign the books with Peterman. He then comes up with an idea which for the writers of this episode was inspired by the real-life Kenny Kramer, who for nearly 20 years has been running his Kramer reality tour in New York, showing places where he and Larry David lived and visited before he became a character in David's new sitcom Seinfeld. Kramer gets an old school bus and runs a Peterman Reality Tour, showing them places he inhabits.
At the book signing, Elaine encounters her old boss, Mr. Lippman and inspires him via her odd eating habit, to open a bakery that only serves Muffin Tops. The idea is to throw away the "stumps" because only the top is tasty. It turns out that nobody wants the stumps, not even garbage dumps, for reasons that only work in the Seinfeld universe.
All three of these plots are quite funny. Fans of the Bob Newhart Show will smile as they see Mr. Carlin (Jack Riley) as one of Kramer's passengers on his bus. The one plot that makes no sense is Jerry's. He is shaving one day and decides his chest hair isn't "even." He tries to shave it even and winds up shaving it all off. On learning his girlfriend likes him that way, he decides to try to fool her by shaving all the time, but when it just begins to grow back, he basically turns into a werewolf like man, scratching his itchy chest in the full moon. I can see others thinking this plot was so wild it was tremendous but to me it just went beyond funny to dumb.
That still leaves ¾ of the plots as funny, letting me happily rate it as a 7 overall. That might make it less funny than most Seinfelds, but a 7 out of 10 is still far better than your average sitcom episode.
I wanted to write this review because the IMDb site has only one other review of this episode, one with which I totally disagree. That reviewer thought this was the worst episode in the series, saying none of the plots were funny. He also, not knowing about the real Kramer reality tour, claims "nobody would pay $37.50 to see the life of a nobody." They have for almost two decades in New York City.
Sonya Eddy as Rebecca DeMornay
safenoe3 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Sonya Eddy guest stars as Rebecca DeMornay, and she would later return in the same role in a season nine episode. Anyway, I wondered if there was some sort of connection to the actress Rebecca De Mornay, and the podcast This Podcast is Making Me Thirsty (The Seinfeld Podcast) has an interview with Sonya Eddy (just a year before her passing) and she explained that the producers tried to get the real Rebecca De Mornay to appear, but she couldn't, so Sonya Eddy was cast. The J. Peterman bus tour is art imitating life, based on the real-life Kenny Kramer bus tour around the Seinfeld sites in New York City.
Some Good... Some Bad
Samuel-Shovel7 May 2019
Warning: Spoilers
In "The Muffin Tops", Elaine comes up with an idea for a bakery that just sells the tops of muffins, only for it to be stolen by her former boss Lippman. Kramer starts a bus tour showing off the real Peterman memoirs experience. Jerry accidentally shaves his chest hair off and becomes self-conscious of it. George dates a girl who mistakes him for a tourist. He creates an elaborate ruse to keep their relationship going.
Jerry's werewolf bit is one of Seinfeld's all-time lows. What even was that? I cringe just thinking back to it.
Kramer's subplot also gets a big shrug from me. There's just not much going on here.
Elaine's idea is pretty good and I enjoy George the tourist but it's just not enough to salvage this one for me. It all adds up to a particularly mediocre episode.
Jerry's werewolf bit is one of Seinfeld's all-time lows. What even was that? I cringe just thinking back to it.
Kramer's subplot also gets a big shrug from me. There's just not much going on here.
Elaine's idea is pretty good and I enjoy George the tourist but it's just not enough to salvage this one for me. It all adds up to a particularly mediocre episode.
Worst episode of a great show
snelling8 November 2012
I give this episode a try every now and then, and it still stinks as badly as the first time it aired. Every story was a loser. Jerry shaving his chest hair? It makes no sense that he would do that and then hide it from a woman he will obviously be in bed with, so she will see him naked eventually and see the stubble of new chest hair growing. Kramer has a bus for tours of the city? Nobody would pay $37.50 to see the life of a nobody. Even Peterman himself wasn't that well-known to warrant a tour. And Kramer sure got a lot of paying customers rather quickly. Elaine spends the show trying to dispose of muffin stumps? Lippman wants a Muffin Top shop so he has one up and running the next day. I don't even have to say that it's stupid and impossible that all the dumps near Manhattan would (or could) refuse them as garbage. Kramer could have tossed them on the side of any road he was on. George pretends he's an NYC tourist to get a girlfriend? So preposterous and unfunny, even before he gets traded to a chicken company in Little Rock, Arkansas for some fermented chicken drink. Ugh. The whole thing would be laughable if it wasn't so virtually free of actual laughs.
Cupcake tops
ThunderKing617 March 2023
One of the worse episodes. Only clever aspect is the muffin tops.
March 17 2023
What is this episode about?: it's really rusty. Bicycle chain rust.
Kramer drivers a boring bus
Elaine deals with muffin. Stumps.
Jerry shaves.
George is new to the big Apple. And simps for a 7.
Story and production: Rusty. It was vastly unfunny hash.
I like the muffin tops segment but it wasn't funny. I like it because I eat the muffin tops by itself and pour sweet Canadian maple on top and it tastes so good. I also eat the stumps too.
Kramer's bus thing was garbage. Though it's based on a true story.
Overall a rustfest episode.
Highlight:Jerry wanting to be the extras friend.
Laugh meter: 0
Girl attractiveness level: georges girl was a 7. Jerry's girl was a hotdamn 9.
What can be learned?: Nothing.
Verdict: this episode needs to be driven into a river.
March 17 2023
What is this episode about?: it's really rusty. Bicycle chain rust.
Kramer drivers a boring bus
Elaine deals with muffin. Stumps.
Jerry shaves.
George is new to the big Apple. And simps for a 7.
Story and production: Rusty. It was vastly unfunny hash.
I like the muffin tops segment but it wasn't funny. I like it because I eat the muffin tops by itself and pour sweet Canadian maple on top and it tastes so good. I also eat the stumps too.
Kramer's bus thing was garbage. Though it's based on a true story.
Overall a rustfest episode.
Highlight:Jerry wanting to be the extras friend.
Laugh meter: 0
Girl attractiveness level: georges girl was a 7. Jerry's girl was a hotdamn 9.
What can be learned?: Nothing.
Verdict: this episode needs to be driven into a river.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
