Frank Costanza portrayed by someone other than Jerry Stiller?

I seem to remember that another actor, not Jerry Stiller played Frank Costanza in a few early episodes of Seinfeld. In fact, one episode that I am almost certain about was the episode in which the gang went to a shopping mall to buy an engagement present for "The Drake", parked in a handicapped spot, with George's father car, and had the car destroyed by an angry mob after a wheelchair bound woman got into an accident.To repay his father for the car, George agrees to be his butler. On a recent syndicated rebroadcast of that same episode, I gleefully announced my expertise in Seinfeld lore and declared to my friends that in this episode another actor plays George's Dad..To my astonishment, Jerry Stiller DID appear in that episode! Could it be that they retaped those scenes for syndication with Stiller because of the popularity of his version of Frank Costanza? Am I imagining that another actor played him? The thing that annoys me, is that up to a year or so ago , I had a tape of this episode with the other actor(at least I think I did) but I've probably long since taped over it. Any confirmation of my suspicions would be much appreciated.

Michael Josefson

That's exactly what happened. George's dad was first played by John Randolph (I think that's his name). He also played Roseanne's dad on an early episode of Roseanne. I've never seen the syndicated version of those episodes but apparently they did reshoot certain scenes. Very unusual, I've never heard of that happening before.

"Apology accepted, Captain Needa." -- Darth Vader to Needa's lifeless corpse.

You're right. I was watching "The Handicap Spot" on Saturday, and I was astonished, too. I have a tape from when that episode originally aired, and a different actor, John Randolph, does play Frank Costanza.

Brian Fimoff