Master Episodes of ‘Seinfeld’ Domain

Narrowing nine seasons of “Seinfeld” to a Top 10 is as easy as choosing favorite blades of grass in your lawn. But someone has to volunteer for these lousy jobs.

In compiling this list, most of the calls were so close that it came down to picking a crowd of finalists, then throwing up my hands in frustration and blindly pinning the tail on the donkey. Many of those omitted just as easily could have made the list. Maybe they should have made the list. M’God, why didn’t they make the list?

I haven’t finished writing this, and already I’m second-guessing myself.

How could I have excluded George finding himself about to address a rally of neo-Nazis? A college reporter assuming Jerry and George are lovers? Jerry dating someone whose name rhymes with a female body part, and he has no clue? Jerry wearing that puffy pirate shirt on the “Today” program? Contraceptive-hoarding Elaine sleeping only with men who are “sponge-worthy”? George converting to Latvian Orthodoxy in hopes of keeping his girlfriend? George being chastised for urinating in the health club shower? Kramer taking a sperm test and worrying about the status of his “boys”? Kramer inventing a coffee table book that is not only about coffee tables but can be converted into one? Kramer creating a male bra he calls the “Bro”? Elaine’s clashing with that braless hussy Sue Ellen Mischke? Elaine sabotaged by a goofy rabbi who publicly blabs all the secrets she confides to him? George discovering the value of yada yada, and “antidentite” joining the show’s lexicon when Jerry believes his dentist friend converted to Judaism for the ethnic jokes?

I don’t know why I left them out. What was I thinking?

One thing that I discovered while doing this was that my “Seinfeld” tastes tilt toward 1995-1997 rather than more-heralded earlier “Seinfeld.” For me, its last season has been by far its leanest creatively (despite huge ratings), perhaps because as these characters have grown older, the emptiness of their lives and their commitment to trivia have become less tolerable and harder to justify. Then again, perhaps every viewer/show relationship ultimately wears thin.

Meanwhile, an admission: I suffer from ... gaps. Terrible, terrible gaps. Label me a fanatic lite, for I have seen perhaps only 90% of “Seinfeld.” The unseen episodes include the last several from this season, of course, plus the much-discussed hour finale.

Nonetheless, here are the best (although I’m not positive about this) of the multitudes I have seen, listed chronologically.

* “The Keys.” May 6, 1992. Written by Larry Charles, this episode ended the third season by sending Kramer to Hollywood for his guest shot on “Murphy Brown,” beginning an arc of L.A.-oriented shows during which he is mistaken for a serial killer. Yet Kramer’s thoughts turn westward only after he abuses his covenant of the keys with Jerry. The collapse of this pact to exchange sets of keys triggers key chaos.

* “The Contest.” Nov. 18, 1992. More than just prime time’s only sitcom episode about masturbation, thanks to the landmark writing of Larry David it’s also the only one that somehow never mentions the topic that it’s about. After George’s mother catches him “doing it” in the bathroom, he, Jerry, Kramer and Elaine agree to have a contest to see who can remain the “master of their domain” the longest. A real knockout.

* “The Airport.” Nov. 25, 1992. Writer Charles is on to something here that most jet passengers can relate to. Jerry and Elaine share a flight back to New York. Sort of. Jerry is in euphoric heaven while comfortably sipping wine with a gorgeous model in first class, while Elaine is miserable, crammed uncomfortably into coach. The ultimate hell: When Elaine opens the door to the lavoratory, she’s nearly overcome by the stench.

* “The Gum.” Dec. 14, 1995. In his role as an obsessed eccentric for all seasons, Kramer is committed to restoring both an old movie theater and a gum-chewing friend who has had a nervous breakdown. Meanwhile, George’s behavior convinces an old acquaintance that he also is coming apart mentally (not an unreasonable assumption to make about George on any day). Writers Tom Gammill and Max Pross pull it all together, typically from left field, by having Jerry sit in the passenger seat of a car while wearing a borrowed pair of spectacles so thick that he can’t see.

* “The Rye.” Jan. 4, 1996. Written by Carol Leifer, this is one of those “Seinfeld” episodes with everything, including oral sex, having disastrous results for Elaine’s boyfriend, a sax player. The most famous scene has Jerry attacking an elderly woman on the street for a loaf of marble rye that he and George hope to slip into the apartment of the parents of George’s fiancee, Susan. It’s a magnificent scheme that naturally goes awry. But the real gasser, you might say, is Kramer driving a hansom cab whose horse he feeds so much Beef-a-Reeno that the animal’s flatulence nearly asphyxiates his passengers, who just happen to be ... Susan’s parents.

* “The Invitations.” May 16, 1996. David’s script has an enraptured Jerry finally discovering the love of his life--someone exactly like him--only to learn ultimately that he can’t tolerate being around someone exactly like him. It’s a stunning revelation, but the darkest humor comes elsewhere when Susan, whom George has been desperately trying to dump almost since they began dating, dies from poisoning after licking the cheap, toxic wedding-invitation envelopes they bought because he was too chintzy to spring for classier ones. Naturally George is distraught by this unexpected development, and after the appropriate mourning period (about 10 seconds) contemplates asking out actress Marisa Tomei.

* “The Bizarro Jerry.” Oct. 3, 1996. Jerry’s Superman fixation drives much of this episode by David Mandel. Its delights include Jerry nagging Kramer like a spouse when Kramer (“You know it’s my crazy time of the year!”) spends too much time at the office after getting a faux job as a corporate business executive. In the bizarro world, meanwhile, Elaine becomes enamored of three sweet, sensitive, intelligent new friends who look like but are the exact opposites of Jerry, George and Kramer, the piece de resistance coming when these two sets of opposites meet on the street and George pleadingly asks Elaine if he can join the new group. “I’m sorry,” she replies. “We already have a George.”

* “The Package.” Oct. 17, 1996. No matter how hard she tries to clear her record, Elaine keeps getting in deeper and deeper when her medical chart and its mysterious notations follow her from doctor to doctor. In addition, writer Jennifer Crittenden has Jerry being investigated for mail fraud by his snarling nemisis, Newman, who tries to sweat a confession from Jerry. Meanwhile, Jerry cooly sips a soda while his merciless inquistor goes to pieces under his own hot light.

* “The Abstinence.” Nov. 21, 1996. The script by Steve Koren has Jerry getting booked by his ditzy agent for an appearance at an assembly at his former junior high school, only to get bumped. Returning another day, he loses out to a fire drill. Meanwhile, more “Seinfeld” role switching results when both George and Elaine are forced into temporary celibacy. George becomes inexplicably brilliant, Elaine a dullard.

* “The Comeback.” Jan. 30, 1997. Another eclectic episode that imaginatively goes off in all directions only to boomerang back. Influenced by a movie video, Kramer decides he simply must have a living will. Elaine is swept off her feet by an anonymous video store critic who turns out to be a pimply 15-year-old. Jerry reluctantly agrees to be humiliated on the tennis court by an uncoordinated pro shop manager named Milos who wants to impress his wife. And George is haunted by never having the right comeback when insulted at lunch meetings by a New York Yankees colleague. Somehow, writers Gregg Kavet and Andy Robin have all this coming together with Kramer awakening in a hospital bed after being repeatedly beaned by a tennis ball machine that, like the characters of this series, misfires wildly.

Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer dysfunctional? Nahhhh.

Thursday at 8 p.m., a “best-of” clips show precedes the “Seinfeld” series finale on NBC.