The Results of a Real Election Nearly Ruined a Classic ‘Seinfeld’ Character

Seinfeld isn’t exactly known for being the most political show, with the possible exception of Kramer’s brief stint as a socialist Santa Claus, and Jerry’s exclusively pastry-based calls for racial unity. But, oddly enough, one episode went to great lengths to incorporate the results of a real-life election at the last minute.

Season Five’s “The Non-Fat Yogurt” found Elaine dating Lloyd Braun, an aide to New York Mayor David Dinkins, during an election. Dinkins ultimately lost to Rudy Giuliani, and in the reality of the show, this was mostly thanks to Jerry’s tip that an allegedly fat-free frozen yogurt brand had been misleading customers, which Giuliani pledged to investigate

You can tell that his cameo was filmed a long time ago, because Giuliani is seen giving his press conference in some kind of wood paneled office, not a ramshackle landscaping business that happens to share its name with a chain of luxury hotels. 

But when they were shooting the episode, the election had yet to be decided. So the Seinfeld cast and crew had to film two versions of most scenes. In the version we saw, Braun works for Dinkins. But in alternate takes, he worked for Giuliani. While Giuliani vowed to crack down on falsified yogurt claims in the final cut, there were also plans to have Dinkins make a similar promise. 

The Seinfeld gang cut things pretty close. The election was decided on the same week that the episode was scheduled to first air. So Giuliani won the mayorship on Tuesday, then shot his Seinfeld scene the following morning, which aired on Thursday night. Prior to election night, the show was hoping to have Dinkins on stand-by for a potential cameo, but were met with “resistance” from his camp. 

So instead they had “Philip Trout,” a fictional aide to Dinkins, similarly address the non-fat yogurt issue during a press conference. Who did they cast to play Trout? This guy:

Yup, actor Phil Morris, who later played Kramer’s attorney Jackie Chiles, was cast as Dinkins’ aide. But, of course, he ended up on the cutting room floor due to Giuliani’s win. “Unfortunately for me, fortunately for Rudy, he won the election, and I was out,” Morris recalled. 

But in retrospect, the show totally dodged a bullet. As Jerry Seinfeld once explained, had New Yorkers’ voted differently that day, we would have been robbed of Morris’ performance as Jackie Chiles. If “David Dinkins had won, we would have used Phil Morris, and he never would have played Jackie Chiles, (who) was one of our greatest characters,” Seinfeld reasoned, adding that they really should have called the show Dumb Luck instead of Seinfeld. 

Plus it gave Rudy Giuliani his greatest on-screen cameo — until Borat 2 that is.

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