The ‘Seinfeld’ Fandom Mourns the Lost of John Capodice, New York’s Most Noble Laundromat Owner
Prolific character actor John Capodice passed away this week at the age of 83. But that’s no excuse for anybody to pour out a bag of cement into a washing machine in his honor.
In his nearly five decades working in film and on television, Capodice accrued an absolute laundry list of credits that includes so many all-time classics like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Boy Meets World, Speed, Independence Day and, of course, Seinfeld, on which he played the honest laundromat owner Vic whom Jerry and Kramer victimize because they don’t understand how liability works. In the classic Seinfeld Season Two episode “The Revenge,” the noxious neighbors commit an act of commercial terror, destroying one of Vic’s washing machines after falsely accusing him of theft.
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Today, film and TV fans across America pay their respects to Capodice’s immense body of work, with his loss felt as dearly by the Seinfeld subreddit as was the disappearance of Kramer’s cash by the washer war-criminals.
In a thread titled “RIP John Capodice” that hit the front page of the 750,000-strong Seinfeld fan forum, mourners celebrated his brief but memorable performance in the series, with one writing of Capodice’s performance as President Vic, “He owned that role.”
“One of the better character choices. He wasn’t an actor, he was a guy that ran a laundry in NY. RIP,” another added of the unamused and unblemished laundry baron.
Plenty more wanted to talk about Capodice’s performance as the gruff Sergreant Aguado in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, with the top commenter writing, “(stomps on cockroach) Homicide, Ventura. How ya gonna solve that one?”
Though his face rarely appeared on movie posters or bus ads for endless syndicated reruns, Capodice was one of those hard-working, constantly booked character actors who are the glue that hold together so many immense comedy institutions like Ace Ventura or Seinfeld. With 159 credits on screens large and small (and counting — the late actor has two more projects coming down the pipeline, according to IMDb), Capodice’s fingerprints are all over our entertainment culture, and, after his passing, we should all properly pay our respects.
And, for those who are prone to accusing honest businessmen of theft and whose retribution comes with concrete, that respect should be paid in $1,500 cash.