The Race (season 6, episode 10)

story by Larry David & Sam Kass and Tom Gammill & Max Pross, teleplay by Larry David and Tom Gammill & Max Pross, directed by Andy Ackerman
original airdate: December 15, 1994

Superman superfan Jerry finally dates a woman named Lois, whose boss turns out to be his high-school nemesis. Elaine dates a Communist and George hopes to as well. Kramer works as a department store Santa with Mickey as his elf. Jerry races Duncan Meyer once more to settle their teenage score.

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The Improv

Jerry’s Apartment
Jerry and George develop a plan to act like they are strangers, to convince Duncan of Jerry’s race lie. Kramer reveals he will be a department store Santa, and George ponders about calling a woman from “The Daily Worker” personals.

Monk’s Café
Jerry and George have a “reunion” with Duncan and Lois in the coffee shop, exchanging jabs at each other’s lives and careers, before Duncan set up a rematch race.

Empire State Building
350 Fifth Ave., New York, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: 34th Street – Herald Square (B,D,F,M,N,Q,R)
Jerry’s new girlfriend Lois works in the building, working for Jerry and George’s old high school classmate Duncan Meyer.

Elaine’s Apartment
Elaine gets herself and her communist boyfriend Ned blacklisted from Hop Sing’s Chinese restaurant.

RUSSIA (fmr. SOVIET UNION) (map)
Elaine tells her communist boyfriend Ned how it must be “a bummer for you guys, with the fall of the Soviet Empire and everything.”

CHINA (map)
While lamenting the fall of the Soviet Union, Elaine’s boyfriend Ned mentions “we still got China, Cuba…but its not the same.”

CUBA (map)
While lamenting the fall of the Soviet Union, Elaine’s boyfriend Ned mentions “we still got China, Cuba…but its not the same.” Steinbrenner also asks George to head down to Cuba to check out a pitcher…”something Rodriguez,” and also to bring back cigars.

Coleman’s (NOT REAL)
151 W. 34th St., New York, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: 34th Street – Penn Station (1,2,3)
Kramer works as a department store Santa, and Mickey works as his elf…but Kramer later gets fired for spreading communist rhetoric. Ned also mentions Bloomfield’s as an different store where Santas there make double the pay, since no actual department store wanted to be affiliated with this episode. The exterior shown is actually Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square.

Yankee Stadium
George’s coworkers suspect he is a communist…”causing dissent, stirring the pot, getting people to question the whole rotten system.” George is later commended by Mr. Steinbrenner, for George’s capacity to recruit communist players from Cuba.

John F. Kennedy High School
99 Terrace View Ave., Bronx, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: Marble Hill – 225th Street (1)
Jerry mentions he, George and Duncan went to Kennedy High when pretending not to know George at Monk’s Café, which sets up a rematch race between Jerry and Duncan, with their old coach Mr. Bevilacqua officiating.

Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave., New York, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: 86th Street (4,5,6)
George tells Lois he is the architect that created the new addition to the Guggenheim.

Hop Sing’s (NOT REAL)
New York, NEW YORK
Ned mentions his blacklisted father used to sit there every day with his friends trying to figure out how to survive, since people he trusted “named names,” as Elaine later does, which gets both her and Ned blacklisted from Hop Sing’s.

TAIWAN (map)
As a department store Santa, Kramer convinces a kid not to want a racing car set, since it’s assembled by kids like him in Taiwan, sold at triple the cost by “these Coleman pigs.”

United Nations Permanent Mission Of Cuba In New York
315 Lexington Ave., New York, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: Grand Central – 42nd Street (7)
In a deleted scene, Kramer returns to the Mission with George, to use his contacts to get George a visa to visit Cuba and recruit Yankee players. However, with the Mission closed, Kramer is forced to use the “secret” after-hours entrance…coming through the chimney, still in his Coleman’s Santa suit.

Angelo’s Shoe Repair
228 Columbus Ave., New York, NEW YORK (map)
nearest subway: 72nd Street (B,C)
Jerry picks up Lois from here, where she tells him her job is on the line if the race with Duncan Meyer doesn’t go down.

HAWAII (map)
Duncan promises Lois he’ll give her a raise and a two week vacation in Hawaii if Jerry beats him a second time. After his victory, Lois asks if Jerry will join her in Hawaii, to which Jerry proudly replies “maybe I will, Lois…maybe I will.”

Havana, CUBA (map)
George visits with El Presidente personally (as he is “muay sympatico” to Communism), Fidel Castro…who turns out to be a lot like George Steinbrenner: “there will be girls there, and I hear some good food…of course, the problem with parties is, you invariably have to eat standing up… once when I was at a party, I put my plate on someone’s piano. I assure you, if I had not been a dictator, I would not have been able to get away with that one.”