The Calzone (season 7, episode 20)

written by Alec Berg & Jeff Schaffer, directed by Andy Ackerman
original airdate: April 25, 1996

George introduces Steinbrenner to calzones but gets banned from the restaurant when he’s caught with his hand in the tip jar. Jerry points out that Elaine’s boyfriend is dating her without technically asking her out. Kramer enjoys wearing clothes fresh out of the oven.

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The Improv

Jerry’s Apartment
Jerry tells Elaine that Todd Gack is exploiting a “dating loophole” to keep seeing Elaine. Kramer decides he will only wear clothes straight out of the dryer, and later starts using Jerry’s oven. Kramer suggests Newman as the solution for George’s calzone ban.

Monk’s Café
George asks Jerry for his counsel on tip jar etiquette at Paisano’s. Todd Gack scores a date with Nicki by using his dating loophole, betting that the “M” in Richard M. Nixon stood for “Moe.”

Yankee Stadium
George gets the duty of getting Steinbrenner a calzone every day, but then runs into a problem when he is banned from the calzone place. Mr. Steinbrenner tears George’s office apart looking for calzones…and then decides to heat players’ uniforms in pizza ovens before games “to keep those muscles loosey-goosey!”

Criterion Center Stage Right (NOW CLOSED)
1530 Broadway, New York, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: Times Square – 42nd Street (1,2,3,7,N,Q,R,S)
An establishing shot of Jerry and Elaine at the theatre shows this theatre in Times Square…even though it is almost forty blocks north of the Loews Paragon Theater, where the group is seeing their movies.

Loews Paragon Theater (now AMC Loews 84th Street 6)
2310 Broadway, New York, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: 86th Street (1)
Nicki gets Jerry tickets to a sold out show, leaving Elaine and Todd Gack to wait and see a different movie.

Montreal, Quebec, CANADA (map)
Todd Gack mentions he’s going to Montreal, and offers to buy Jerry authentic Cuban cigars for George’s wedding present, which end up being knockoff cigars from Peru.

JAPAN (map)
Jerry proclaims his new girlfriend’s power to make her like “a beautiful Godzilla,” to which George adds “without thousands of fleeing Japanese.”

Elaine’s Apartment
Elaine mentions that Todd walked her home, constituting that as an official date according to Jerry.

Paisano’s Pizza (actually Joe’s Pizza)
7 Carmine St., New York, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: West 4th Street (A,C,E,B,D,F,M)
George buys himself and Mr. Steinbrenner daily calzones, but is banned from the store after being caught emptying the tip jar (so he could refill it). George hires Newman to pick up the calzones on his route, but that plan backfires as well due to Newman’s refusal to follow the USPS creed. Kramer is eventually hired, but starts a fight with the owner after they refuse to take pennies for payment, and after they burn his jacket and shirt in their pizza oven. The store was named after a real restaurant in Hermosa Beach, CA, and filmed with a changed sign in Greenwich Village, despite supposed to having been in the Bronx. Thanks to Robert Egan for pointing that out!

PERU (map)
The cigars Todd Gack gets for Jerry from Montreal are actually a “Producto de Peru,” not from Cuba. Jerry’s reaction: “I paid 300 bucks for these! I could’ve got a house in Peru for 300 bucks!”

CUBA (map)
Nicki tells Jerry he should expect his cigars he received from Todd Gack to be from Cuba if that’s what he paid for.

NETHERLANDS (map)
Kramer guesses that Elaine’s boyfriend’s last name, “Gack,” is Dutch.

Newman’s Apartment
George hires Newman to deliver Mr. Steinbrenner’s calzones on his behalf, but is later left scrambling when Newman does not go to work because it is raining.

O’Neals (NOW CLOSED)
49 W. 64th St., New York, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: 66th Street – Lincoln Center (1)
Todd Gack drags Elaine out to dinner with his parents, while arguing that it still technically not a date.

Kramer’s Apartment
George is forced to hire Kramer to pick up the calzones, as Newman is “sick” due to the rain.

second calzone place (NOT REAL)
Jerome Ave., Bronx, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: 161st Street – Yankee Stadium (4)
George tries fooling Mr. Steinbrenner with a non-Paisano’s calzone from a nearby pizza place on Jerome Ave.

Todd’s apartment
New York, NEW YORK
Kramer pays Todd Gack on Jerry’s behalf for his Peruvian cigars…all in spare change.