Seinfeld followers will recall that, within the eighth season of the present, Elaine inadvertently conjures up her outdated boss, Mr. Lippman, to launch a brand new enterprise that completely sells muffin tops. However the store “Prime of the Muffin to You!” runs into hassle when Lippman can’t a technique to correctly get rid of the muffin stumps that actually no one on this planet likes.
Weirdly, this episode a few stolen pastry-based thought, was itself accused of thievery. Again in 2017, podcast host (and Canada’s archenemy) Joe Rogan steered that the muffin high storyline was lifted from Paul Blart himself: Kevin James.
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Rogan advised visitor Andrew Santino that a few of Seinfeld’s “high writers” as soon as went to see James carry out at “an NBC showcase, when Kevin was getting a improvement deal.” And the next season one among his “signature bits” about muffins “was on a Seinfeld episode.”
James does have a bit about muffins, which seems in his 2001 particular Sweat the Small Stuff, but it surely has nothing to do with promoting muffin tops. It’s nearly how comically massive muffins have gotten (“I’ll have the bean bag chair with raisins”). And “The Muffin Tops” is seemingly the one muffin-centric episode of Seinfeld.
It’s doable that James had a bit about muffin tops in his act that didn’t make it into the particular, however James himself has by no means publicly complained about Seinfeld’s muffin content material. Seeing as this story is coming from the identical supply who as soon as claimed that vaccines alter your DNA, perhaps take it with a grain of salt.
In line with the episode’s author, Spike Feresten, the muffin-top stuff wasn’t even part of the unique script. There was imagined to be a storyline about spying on neighbors with a Bearcat scanner, however two days earlier than filming, an identical joke popped up in an episode of Frasier. So Feresten scrambled to provide you with one thing recent, recalling that an ex-girlfriend had refused to eat the bottoms of muffins. Though, so far as we all know, she by no means turned that idiosyncrasy right into a profitable facet hustle.
Not lengthy after Rogan claimed that the episode was a rip off, the episode was arguably ripped off — not by one other TV present, however by fast-food overlords McDonald’s. In 2018, Mickey D’s began promoting muffin tops, within the type of “McCafé Muffin Toppers.”
Feresten wasn’t upset, however did jokingly recommend that McDonald’s ought to pay him “a billion {dollars}” for the concept in order that he may purchase a much bigger automobile assortment than Jerry Seinfeld. He additionally admitted that he was stunned that it took 21 years for somebody to run with the concept, as he was anticipating a “muffin high craze” to hit America instantly after the episode aired.
Because the product was shortly discontinued, McDonald’s by no means confronted any lawsuits from the Seinfeld writers. Nor Kevin James for that matter.
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