B&W Cookie Error

Did anyone else notice how the black and white cookie kept reversing itself? It seems like they would be careful to get identical cookies for the different takes. I know I wasn't mistaking things, but every time I tried to point out this discrepancy to my husband, he missed it (so no witnesses yet). Anyone else?

Lisa

The cookie was being rotated in Jerry's hands, not switched. This has already been heavily debated on this newsgroup.

I know this has been discussed to death, but those of you who think the cookie was being rotated need to look at the tape again. The changes take place in split second intervals that it has to be a different cookie that was used to do numerous takes. There is one part in which the white is on one side then instantly on the other. Please, look to the cookie, again!

Louis

This weekend when I went to a local Bagel bakery in Dallas, I was amazed to see that they had black and white cookies. Well of course, I had to buy one -they were a really good deal at 95c for a huge cookie. They aren't cookies in the classical sense, but they are more like a thin cake. Only one side is "painted" with a super-rich fudge and a gooey vanilla frosting. They are most excellent cookies. However, it's easy to see that you could get sick if you ate the whole thing, because they are soooooooo rich :-)

Thus, if the cookies sides were switched, it must have been a different cookie -
as if it really mattered, anyway. :-)
Look to the cookie!!
---
_____________________________________________________________
Michael G. Margolis            |      "A phosphorescent wave
   [email]     |    On a tropical sea
      "Cold Fire", Rush       --> Is a Cold Fire ..."

In article , Mike Margolis wrote:

                           ^^^^^^^^^

maybe you meant to say: there must have been a SECOND cookie!

There must have been a second cookie. If you look closey you can see the second cookie hiding in the background waiting to "take out" the first cookie and take its place. Look very closely, next to the cinnamon bobkas. Can we really look to the cookie? I think not. We the jury find the second cookie guilty as charged.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but things don't happen in real time on tv. There could be minutes, hours, days, etc between one camera shot and another. My opinion is that there was probably a minute or two, in which time Jerry simply turned the cookie in his hands. So maybe you should look at the tape again, this time with a better understanding of video editing.

In [email] (Thomas Reynolds) writes:

all the more reason to believe that they switched cookies!

It was a definite error. The cookie had different levels of bites in it. This happens all the time on a live-studio-audience show, because they screw up lines and have to do a shot over.

Also, if he was rotating the cookie, how come we never saw him do it, not even once? And (this is conclusive proof, IMHO) don't you think Jerry would MENTION the fact that he was rotating the cookie, as part of his enjoyment of the cookie? If he was so obsessed with the cookie, I think he would mention to Elaine that he was rotating the f*cking cookie!

Dave Platt [email]
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Oh, and I almost forgot one thing, fellow babies... BOOGER!

You would not have seen him turn the cookie for the same reason you didn't see him switch it, if that is what he did. That footage, whatever the truth may be, was edited out. Jerry didn't mention the turning of the cookie because it wouldn't have fit in at all with the metaphor that he was building around the cookie.

In [email] (Thomas Reynolds) writes:

Weak. Jerry analyzes EVERYTHING, and I think he would analyze the way he ate his cookie (at least Elaine would mention it). Besides, it does fit in with the metaphor: any way you look at it, black and white are essentially the same. All the [circumstantial, admittedly] evidence points to the notion that they switched cookies, and didn't keep up the continuity.

Dave Platt [email]
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Oh, and I almost forgot, fellow babies... BOOGER!

[email]

Read the message you were responding to again. You misunderstood what the poster was saying.

My question to you is, how does the fact that the switching of the icing position had to have happened between takes prove that it was rotated instead of substituted? If it happened between takes (which it obviously did, as I counted 6 instantaneous changes) there is _no way_ to tell if it was rotated or substituted.

My feeling is that it was substituted. This is because the shots where the white is on the left all seem to have been taken together (possibly even in one take which was then broken up during editing). The shots where the black is on the left were then placed in between. I think it unlikely that when it came time to do the takes that ended up reversed, Jerry took the same cookie he had been using, noticed that the bite marks were on the top when the white was on the left, but decided it wouldn't hurt anything to rotate it and start in on the bottom. I think he was given a new cookie, one with no bitemarks to indicate which way was up, and chose the wrong way to hold it by accident. (and because he likely doesn't care about it as much as we seem to)

This is just my theory, as there's no definitive way to tell from just the video tape, but it makes more sense to me than what others have come up with.

Either way, it was an error, and whether it was switched or rotated doesn't change the fact that I'll never watch the show again because of it.

If he was turning the cookie, what would the error have been? The camera wasn't always on him...was he supposed to be frozen while elaine had the camera? Nothing proves that it was rotated or switched. My opinion is that it was rotated, because this most likely took place quickly, while the camera was on elaine. There would have been no reason to actually switch the cookie.

In [email] (Thomas Reynolds) writes:

If you watch shows that, like Seinfeld, are filmed before a live studio audience, you will notice that shots don't always match up. This is because they are not neccessarily completed in the sequence they're shown. The time between shots could have been several minutes, during which the cookie was matched with another. It _may_ have been rotated, but not because Jerry (the CHARACTER) was rotating it. Do you see my point? On the show, Jerry was not rotating the cookie. In "real life", he might have been, but this was not meant to be part of the plot at all.

Dave Platt [email]
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Oh, and I almost forgot, fellow babies... BOOGER!

[email]

Do you have the episode on tape? If so, watch it again. There are points where the camera changes angle in mid-sentence, and with it the cookie sides change. Unless we got a 'Seconds Later...' message across the bottom of the screen, the cookie somehow magically switched sides, without having time to do so. This only proves that whatever happened to the cookie happened _between takes_ and therefore disturbs the continuity and realism of the episode (albeit to very little degree). I personally don't care that they made a mistake, I'm just trying to prove that they did.

In article Allan Hudgins writes:

I think the cookie was substituted. I believe that there is a definitive way to tell from the video tape. As the switching was going on, I studied the width of the fudge and vanilla sides of the cookie. When the fudge side was on the viewer's left, it is clearly wider than the fudge when it was on the viewer's right. Granted, it might not be a very large difference, but I noticed it. I personally don't have that episode taped but I would like to see if someone has a good tape (no pun intended) measure and check to see if this theory is correct.

Just my 2/100 of a $,

Rob

[email] (LeBlanc Louis E) writes:

Actually, it was a flying saucer carrying a race of miniature beings bent upon destruction of all that is good (i.e., Seinfeld).

In [email] (LeBlanc Louis E) writes:

Not to mention the fact that it had different levels of bites in the cuts. It's not uncommon for a taped-live show to have such continuity errors, because they screw up shots, which results in great laughter, which requires a whole new setup. Watch any episode of Happy Days to see what I mean.

Dave Platt [email]
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Oh, and I almost forgot one thing, fellow babies... BOOGER!

[email]

I hate to continue it, but I just want to repeat:

What difference does it make whether it was rotated or switched, when clearly whatever happened wasn't done in real time anyway? Isn't that the main argument? Whether or not you could tell that there were edits in the film by which way the cookie was facing? Like I said, if you look closely, in mid-sentence the cookie sides switch, without time to be rotated, so obviously there were edits made.

(sorry to bring it up again, it just seemed to me that everyone was missing the point)

Who cares about the fucking cookie?

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While I may indeed listen to the cookie, I feel no need to watch the cookie; at least not _THAT_ closely. Heck, I had one today, and while it said nothing interesting enough to listen to, I did not watch it. And you know what? All is well, and my streak is intact.

Adam

In article , [email] writes:

-- Of course it didn't _say_ anything- it's a cookie for pete's sake.

You're supposed to .... (all together now...):

"_LOOK_ TO THE COOKIE, ELAINE ! ! LOOK TO THE COOKIE ! ! ! "

--Hope this helps

--AlexJB