Tainted "Seinfeld" Rerun Pulled by Mark Armstrong Oct 29, 2001, 1:30 PM PT
Sometimes, even a show about nothing can be deemed inappropriate.
Add Seinfeld reruns to the list of entertainment that has been reviewed, rescheduled or reworked in the wake of September 11. With anthrax scares shaking up mailrooms up and down the East Coast, Columbia TriStar Television has yanked an old episode of the sitcom, in which George Costanza's fiancée dies from licking tainted wedding invitations.
The episode, titled "The Invitations," first aired in May 1996 and features George doing his darndest to get his girlfriend Susan to dump him--only to have her die from licking a toxic glue that was on the seal of their cheapo wedding invites. In many Seinfeldian circles, it's regarded as one of the show's best episodes ever--or at least the most bizarre.
Suddenly, however, poisonous envelopes aren't so funny. Distributor Columbia TriStar yanked the episode before it was scheduled to air on Monday, October 22--a date dictated by the show's current syndication cycle.
A Columbia TriStar spokeswoman says there are currently no plans to re-air the repeat. But it's just one of many changes they and other companies are still making in light of the recent tragedies.
Others, meanwhile, are already rethinking their decision to rethink. In a letter published in Monday's New York Times, Ben Stiller defends his decision to edit out shots of the World Trade Center that were originally in Zoolander, the fashion spoof he wrote and directed.
Stiller countered criticism from producer Michael Mailer that it was wrong to pull Twin Towers footage from films and TV shows. But the funnyguy didn't completely disagree.
"In deciding to go ahead, I had to make an immediate judgment about the skyline shots, which were indispensable to the story," Stiller writes. "I decided to edit out one shot and to obscure the towers in another.
"I felt that people who chose to see the movie as escapist entertainment were not looking for another reminder of tragedy," he adds. "In hindsight, it turns out that to some the omission of the towers was disconcerting. I make no claim that mine was the right decision; I only assert that I was trying to do the right thing, in a circumstance for which there was no precedent