This Seinfeld Episode Is So Offensive That It’s Out of Syndication (2024)

Jerry Seinfeld and his morally ambiguous friends engage in a series of controversial storylines throughout Seinfeld, but one banned episode went overboard. There are numerous episodes of Seinfeld that people claim couldn't be made today, but Season 9, Episode 20, "The Puerto Rican Day" continues to stir controversy to this day: the episode features Kramer accidentally burning and stomping on the Puerto Rican Flag.

Changing tastes and sensitivities will always make certain things that came before seem crass and offensive by new standards, and comedy is almost always the canon fodder on the front lines. Many Seinfeld episodes have been brought up recently in this vein—the show is in heavy syndication across cable and broadcast as well as one of the best-performing titles on Netflix. Heavy protests and open letters were held against "The Puerto Rican Day" and the episode was taken out of syndication for a while, but do the complaints still hold up?

Updated on August 20, 2024, by Arthur Goyaz: It's been almost 30 years since Seinfeld ended, and it still holds up as one of the most influential sitcoms of all time. As a product of its time, many storylines haven't aged well and come down as blatantly offensive. "The Puerto Rican Day" is the best example of Seinfeld crossing the line, but it also works as a reminder of the morally ambiguous characters fans have been following all along. This article was updated to add more relevant information about Seinfeld and meet CBR's current standards in formatting.

What's Seinfeld's "The Puerto Rican Day" About?

The Episode Revolves Around The Puerto Rican Day Parade

Seinfeld's Highest-Rated Episodes, According to IMDb:

As its name suggests, "The Puerto Rican Day" deals with the characters in Seinfeld as they go through New York trying to avoid the traffic provoked by the Puerto Rican Day Parade, an iconic parade that celebrates Puerto Rican heritage in the United States. The episode shows the characters as they struggle to get to their home after they leave a Mets game.

In typical Seinfeld fashion, the episode never peaks, as the characters simply go around the city getting into absurd situations. George, Elaine, Kramer, and George get in a fight with a driver; George initiates a rivalry with a man constantly holding a laser pointer to his eyes; and Kramer, George, and Jerry end up creating fake identities to get into an apartment that's for sale. Seinfeld's "The Puerto Rican Day" also features the return of Art Vandelay, George's hilarious alter ego.

"The Puerto Rican Day" Seinfeld episode is considered offensive from beginning to end since the parade is only highlighted as an inconvenience to the main characters of Seinfeld. However, the scene that garnered the most criticism was at the end of the episode. When leaving the on-sale apartment, Kramer encounters a Puerto Rican flag, accidentally sets it on fire, and begins stomping on it, which drives a mob of people to run toward Kramer.

NBC Publicly Apologized for "The Puerto Rican Day" Episode

The Episode Has Since Been Exorcised From TV Packages

Airing on May 7, 1998, "The Puerto Rican Day" became Seinfeld's second most-watched episode, with 38.8 million viewers tuning in on a Thursday night. It was also the last episode before the finale, not counting a clip show that had aired between the two. Several jokes in the Seinfeld episode certainly could be deemed offensive, but the bit that caused the most outrage was Kramer burning and stomping on a Puerto Rican flag. The reaction was immediate. Letters were written and protests were held at NBC. Consequently, NBC apologized and banned this Seinfeld episode. Despite quietly putting it back into syndication in 2002, it has since been exorcised from TV packages.

This Seinfeld controversy began before the episode even aired just based on its title. On the Season 9 DVD commentary, the episode's writers, Steve Koren and David Mandel, claimed that "The Puerto Rican Day" had nothing to do with Puerto Ricans and could have been rewritten for any of the myriad ethnic and cultural parades that New York City hosts without changing the story or dialogue. On the other hand, many protesters disagreed. The offending sequence of Kramer vandalizing the flag followed by an angry mob trashing Jerry's car ends with Kramer saying, "It's like this every day in Puerto Rico." As bad as it was at the time, luckily for the show, this was still a good eight years before Michael Richards' notorious onstage racist tirade.

Seinfeld's Most Controversial Episode Is Full Of Show References

Unfortunately, The Potshot Lobbed At Puerto Rico Still Has Fans Rankled

The irony of Seinfeld's "The Puerto Rican Day" being out of syndication is that it may be, likely due to it being the penultimate non-clip show episode, the most Easter egg-rich of the series. Jerry uses the alias Kel Varnson from Season 3, Episode 17, "The Boyfriend;" Kramer uses the alias H.E. Pennypacker from Season 8, Episode 20, "The Millenium;" and George uses Art Vandelay, a name he'd been using since the very first season. There's also the 10th and final reference to Kramer's friend Bob Sacamano; Bob and Cedric, the couple that intimidates and attacks Kramer return for a final turnaround; and the episode ends with "Remember where we parked," referencing Season 3, Episode 6, "The Parking Garage."

The Easter eggs and references to movies like The Poseidon Adventure are the best parts of the episode, as overall it's not among the series' best, just from a comedy perspective. It probably exists somewhere in the middle of the series spectrum; better than some, but not at the level of "The Soup Nazi" or "The Chinese Restaurant," despite both titles feeling more potentially controversial in 21st-century cadence. There is plenty in the run of Seinfeld for present-day sensitivities to balk at, but the burning and stomping followed by a dig at Puerto Rico itself has solidified "The Puerto Rican Day" as Seinfeld's most controversial episode. Frankly, fans of the show should be glad only one episode has been banished, as there is much in the series that could have sparked protests from innumerable diasporas.

Seinfeld Has Always Been About Horrible People

"The Puerto Rican Day" Is Not The Only Problematic Seinfeld Episode

Other Problematic Seinfeld Episodes:

Although not nearly as offensive as "The Puerto Rican Day," several other Seinfeld episodes have been singled out as problematic or controversial. In "The Café," Jerry goes to a new café in his neighborhood, hoping to inspire others to visit as well. He tells Babu, the owner and a Pakistani immigrant, that he should start serving Pakistani dishes if he wants more guests. The plan backfires spectacularly, leaving the poor immigrant with heavy financial losses. Another episode of Seinfeld, "The Visa," shows Jerry getting Babu deported by accident, a storyline that was played for laughs. Meanwhile, "The Shoes" and "The Chinese Woman" both managed to escape backlash, despite having misogynistic scenes.

However, different from other shows of the time, Seinfeld has always been about horrible people. From the get-go, there was no sentimentality attached to the main cast. Seinfeld's unique sense of humor comes from the main cast's propensity to cultivate their bad habits throughout 9 seasons. The show only gets away with making many controversial jokes because the characters are never rewarded for their problematic actions. Instead, they often find themselves stuck in reverse.

There's a reason why "The Puerto Rican Day" aired right before the Seinfeld finale: the banned episode works as an effective reminder of what kind of morally degenerate characters they've been following all along. When Seinfeld's final episode kicks in to send these people to jail, Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer finally contemplate how their tiny unprincipled actions led to the doom of pretty much everyone around them: Jerry's incessant nitpicking made him unable to have lasting relationships, George is a sitcom character who wasted his life in an endless circle of self-sabotage, Elaine's navel-gazing led her to a dead-end alley, and Kramer lived his entire life at the expense of others.

There's no denying Seinfeld's influence on comedy television: it changed the sitcom genre as everyone knows it today. Even though the show features many politically incorrect jokes — many of them racist, queerphobic, and misogynistic — the self-awareness that drives Seinfeld's sense of humor leans more on satire than offense. The backlash around "The Puerto Rican Day" may have something to do with it being the show's second most-watched episode, losing only to the finale. More people watched it, and consequently, more people joined the boycott. As a product of its time, the episode undoubtedly crossed the line.

The fact that Sony Pictures Television included "The Puerto Rican Day" back in syndication in 2002 and Netflix made it available with the whole Seinfeld pack shows maturity. Time has passed, and "The Puerto Rican Day" isn't any less insulting. However, studios understand that audiences may finally be able to perceive the episode differently; not as an offensive joke but rather as a final reminder that the Seinfeld quartet are the worst people in the world.

Seinfeld's Offensive Tone is Nothing Compared to Larry David's Other Show

Curb Your Enthusiasm is a Spiritual Sequel to Seinfeld

Earlier in 2024, Jerry Seinfeld went public to address his thoughts on how political correctness might be killing comedy. He blamed the decline of TV sitcoms on studios' persistent fear of offending anyone, sparking a relevant debate that indirectly encircles the entire "The Puerto Rican Day" situation. Seinfeld's statement implies that many Seinfeld episodes simply wouldn't have been made today, but his words lose their meaning when shows like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Curb Your Enthusiasm still define the current state of American humor.

The latter is a show that Seinfeld took part in. Although the comedian is the face of Seinfeld, there was another brilliant mind behind the show's success: Larry David, the show's co-writer and co-creator. Although David was barely present in Seinfeld's final season — he returned in Season 9 only to write the infamous finale — he was responsible for ensuring the show's irreverent humor and the vexing tone of the jokes. David wrote many of Seinfeld's best episodes and, to this day, he's determined to use today's standards of political correctness as a vehicle to craft even more controversial punch lines.

For those who watched HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, a hit comedy show developed by Larry David, Seinfeld's banned episode looks like a children's cartoon. The fact that Curb ran for 12 seasons for 24 years makes Seinfeld's take seem meaningless, which is ironic because the comedian appeared on David's show many times, including in a full season devoted to a Seinfeld reunion and in the series finale, which aired in April of this year. Naturally, Curb Your Enthusiasm's freedom to offend virtually anything or anyone has something to do with HBO, a network that often targets niche audiences and more mature content.

However, the show's biggest strength is how it defies political correctness without dismissing its impact and relevance in modern society. Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus responded to Seinfeld's comments, stating, "I believe being aware of certain sensitivities is not a bad thing.” Awareness is the key word to understanding how Curb Your Enthusiasm works today, despite continuing Seinfeld's trend to follow horrible people.

Just like Jerry in Seinfeld, Larry plays a semi-fictionalized version of himself in Curb, and he openly rants about all the trivialities that annoy him in the modern world. The show's bite lies in Larry's refusal to leave the confines of his privileges, making his days worse by making other people's days worse. It's a slice-of-life satire like no other. With brilliant self-awareness, David understands that comedy will thrive as long as self-deprecating humor and controversial jokes walk with hands held tight, instead of focusing on just one side of the matter.

Banned episodes aside, Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm complement each other through their offensive humor. Fortunately, no matter how much time has passed between one show and the other, the message is the same. Those who followed Jerry and the original group being sent to jail in the Seinfeld finale will have a surprise waiting for them in Curb Your Enthusiasm's final episode: as long as there are no lessons learned, some things will never change.

Seinfeld

TV-PG

The continuing misadventures of neurotic New York City stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld and his equally neurotic New York City friends.

Release Date

July 5, 1989

Cast

Jerry Seinfeld , Julia Louis-Dreyfus , Michael Richards , Jason Alexander

Main Genre

Comedy

Seasons

9