Contest

Who won the Contest?

Taff wrote:

1. In The Contest, Kramer is out in 5 minutes, Elaine is out after she meets JFK Jr. and it is then not really clear as Jerry and George both sleep soundly at the end.

2. In The Puffy Shirt, George says he "won a contest" involving masturbation.

• In The Finale, George admits he "cheated" in the contest.

The News Guy(Mike) wrote in message news:[email]...

It has always seemed clear to me that Georgie won; I mean, we don't SEE any of them losing control of their domains, but when Marla walks out, and Jerry shrugs and goes over to the window, it's pretty obvious what follows. Presumably, since George held out the longest, and won, his place as King of the County was assured, and he no longer had to defend it. So, a good night's sleep for all!

martin (making nothing explicit).

I agree with the fact that at the end of The Contest it seemed very UNCLEAR who had won. The fact that both Jerry & George were shown sleeping soundly in the final scene after showing them tossing and turning when the contest was in progress indicates to me that both characters had succumed to their urges. Furthermore, in my opion, the writers did not want to cause any problems between Jerry and Jason; so they left the winner unclear. I base this on the fact that in an interview at some point before the start of the ninth season, Jerry expressed his unhappiness (not mad but annoyed) with the fact that Jason (through George) had declared himself the winner of the contest. In fact Jerry point out that the winner was never offically established and made the statement to the effect that at some furture point in the series this matter would be resolved- thus the part in the Final show where Jerry got his"revenge" on Jason.

DFrank1068 wrote in message news:[email]...

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I think you might be right that Jerry and George both succumbed but who first? Wasn't Jerry cheating by dating Marla? I'm surprised George didn't complain. George said he cheated. Did he violate himself? Or was he dating someone? But so was Jerry. Maybe George visited a prostitute. But that could cut seriously into his winnings with no guarantee he would win. In the Puffy Shirt George said he won a contest, but George is a big liar. Paul

paul d valenti wrote in message ...

I think since it was not specifically outlawed when the bet was made, that sex with someone else was acceptable within the rules. (Although I'm still surprised George didn't complain as well :))

Brian

I think you both miss the point of Jerry's date at the time. MARLA THE
VIRGIN!!!!
Jerry & Marla WERE DATING BUT NOT HAVING SEX.
  Marla edged toward letting Jerry have sex with her & in fact right near the
end the plot was set for them to go to the next level with their relationship
when she found out about the contest and was repulsed.
   JFK jr was later presented as Marla's first sexual encounter in a different
episode.
  My point about the winner of the contest was that there was not going to be a
clear cut winner presented at the end of the episode so we are never shown who
(between Jerry & George) was the last one "OUT".
   However, George tried to set himself up as the winner by claiming he had won
the contest a few episodes later.
 By the way HOW did Jerry know George claimed to have won the contest???? If I
recall correctly, George made the claim on the set of his hand model shoot and
JERRY WAS NOT THERE to hear George's boast?????.

DFrank1068 wrote in message news:[email]...

I agree. That point is crucial.

If I

and

Presumably, the next day when they settled up. In any case, at some point not shown in an episode, it would have been mentioned (the shows don't cover every second of their lives - Jerry, Elaine, Kramer and george are real, living, breathing people, who have lives outside the shows - only Newman is a fictional character). It is clear that they all masturbate eventually, rather than one of them never doing it again, so there must have been a mass debate about it at some stage...

martin

DFrank1068 wrote in message ...

the

relationship

I don't think I'm missing the point at all. I'm very familiar with the episode. I'm talking about the *rules* of the contest; examining hypotheticals as well as actual events. By dating Marla, Jerry brought into play the issue that regular sexual intercourse would make winning the contest a relative breeze. If you like the question is: if Jerry *had* had sex with Marla would that have ruled him out of the contest? And not just Jerry - if *anybody* had regular sex would they still have been "in"? Jerry was obviously *aiming* to have sex with Marla, was he therefore *aiming* to cheat? My contention is that although the advantage would be unfair, because it wasn't specifically outlawed, it would not render the participant "out"

Brian

Well Jerry seemed to interpret the "rules" as though he was not allowed to have sex with Marla or he would be out! This set up a big conflict for him that was resolved when Marla found out aboutthe contest and fled.

DFrank1068 wrote in message ...

have

was

You know I really don't take that interpretation from it at all. What evidence is there of this conflict? To me Jerry seems pretty much single-minded about wanting to get Marla into bed, I don't see ambivalence on that point at all. And everyone else is fully aware of his intent, and yet no-one mentions to him that he'll invalidate himself. I really don't think there was any mutual understanding that intercourse was a breach of conditions at all.

Brian

No, I don't think that's how he interpretted things. He was frustrated because: 1) he was dating a virgin and wasn't doing anything with her (if you know what I mean); and 2) he was in the contest, so he couldn't do anything (if you know what I mean) to help ease the frustration of being with a virgin. So he said, "Something's got to give!" Least that's the way I see it...

DFrank1068 wrote:

At one point in the episode- I think it was when Jerry wanted to go over to the nudist girl's place to tell her to "PUT THOSE SHADES DOWN!!", Jerry was saying something about how he can't take it anymore, it went something like: "Blah blah blah, meanwhile I'm dating a virgin, I'm in this contest, something's gotta give!"- What this means is that if he were dating someone he could have sex with, he wouldn't be on the verge of succumbing to the higher power (or impulse). Thus, having sex IS NOT cheating!

The defense rests...

In article , "Brian" wrote:

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[email] wrote in message ...

Good point. I wouldn't go so far as to say we have it water-tight but I definitely think the onus is now on the prosecution to show that sex meant disqualification :). I watched the whole episode again specifically looking for evidence that Jerry was going through any kind of "have sex OR win contest" dilemma and came up with nada.

Brian

DFrank1068 wrote in message news:[email]...

UNCLEAR who

the

start

of

point in

where

I was trying to say, albeit euphemistically, that they both got a good night's sleep, because AFTER he had won the contest, George could then masturbate* with impunity. That's what came across to me when I first saw the episode, so it didn't seem like a big deal when George talked about winning the contest a while later - I didn't think that it was an ambiguity that was cleared up only then. So, whether George ACTUALLY won or not, I believe we are supposed to THINK he did. According to what you say about the finale (I am in the UK, and so I will not see it until 2025 - thanks for ruining it for me! ;)), he didn't win, so fair enough, the result is presented ambiguously enough to allow that, but I still say it is meant to sway our opinions towards George.

martin (*being totally explicit, and uncharacteristically using CAPS for clarity).

Jerry did. Kramer was out first (nude woman in apt across the street), Elaine was out second (JFK). George claimed to have won for years and it was generally accepted. But in the final episode (The Finale) while the plane was going down George confessed that he had lied about winning the contest, thus making Jerry the winner.

Jeff

JW3045 wrote:

Strangely, in The Finale, he did not use the words, "I lied" in the contest, he said "I cheated". Now cheating in a contest means he did something that was against the rules in order to win. The mind boggles at the possibilities.

The News Guy(Mike) wrote in message ...

contest, he

was

I don't know. I don't think there were really enough rules to give much scope for abuse. But feel free to post any of your mind-boggling possibilities. :) Anything he could have done to in some way dampen his libido, I think, would be fair enough. An outright lie (which since they were going by the honour system could be construed as "cheating") is pretty much the only possibility I can come up with. (NB I haven't seen the finale myself)

Brian

George won the contest. But he lied. In the final episode as the plane is going to crash, George admits that he cheated. Jerry says "Great, I won." Very funny scene.

Taff wrote:

George won, but he cheated.

Jerry did!

Taff wrote: