Are you still the master of your domain? What has now become a legendary “Seinfeld” question started out as part of a rather taboo episode. When “The Contest” hit the airwaves during Season 4, it was a bit risqué and received pushback from censors and even a few viewers. Now, however, it’s considered not just one of the best episodes of “Seinfeld,” but a classic part of TV sitcom history as well.
For those unfamiliar with the episode, it centers around George, Elaine, Kramer, and Jerry making a wager to see who can go the longest without — um — pleasuring themselves. Hilarity ensues as one by one they all fall victim to their own devices until George is the last one standing. While the subject matter might not set off any alarms these days, in the ’90s, this was breaking new ground. Episode writer Larry David was convinced NBC wouldn’t let the episode air. In 1995, he told the Los Angeles Times that he wondered if they had pushed the envelope a bit too far: “That particular show, I was very worried about. And in my mind, I thought that I would quit if they wouldn’t let us do it.”
Even though some executives panicked about the episode, Warren Littlefield, who was president of NBC at the time, said one brilliant decision made the episode work. “The script, as I remember it, never had the word ‘masturbation’ in it,” Littlefield told Vulture. “It had ‘master of my domain.’ It had all these euphemisms that were brilliant, but it never said ‘masturbation.'”
The episode wasn’t as scandalous as people feared
By the time “The Contest” made it to the table read, writers and cast members knew they were on to something special. “As soon as the read-through started, the laughs were huge,” writer Larry David told Vulture. “Big, satisfying laughs. I would glance at [the executives’] faces and they seemed to be enjoying it. You could sense it was a very special show.”
But some of those executives had their reservations. In that same Vulture interview, former NBC president Warren Littlefield said that after the read-through, people got nervous. “Rick [Ludwin], as an executive for NBC, knew, ‘Uh-oh, s***’s going to hit the fan,'” said Littlefield. “The broadcast standards executive who was there was like, ‘What the f***?'”
Despite the concerns, the episode aired to mostly positive reviews. After it aired, NBC said it received only 62 viewer complaints. And once word of mouth got around, the episode only became more popular. While 18.5 million people watched it when it first aired, 28.8 million people watched its first rerun. In the end, even though some parts of the “Seinfeld” episode may not have aged perfectly, most fans regard it as one of the series’ best episodes.
