Blog

THE LIBRARY (1991)

There were nine seasons of Seinfeld. I’ve got almost all of them on DVD. (The only DVDs I own, in fact.) One of my favourite scenes from the entire run is this exquisitely scripted exchange between Jerry Seinfeld and the hard-nosed library investigations officer, Mr Bookman.

The scene was written by Larry Charles – who went on to direct Curb Your Enthusiasm and Borat, amongst other things. He got the idea from watching reruns of the 1960s cop show Dragnet, and imagining how life would be if more people conducted themselves in the manner of Sergent Joe Friday

As a writer, if I ever compose a punchline as funny as “I’ve got a flash for you joyboy” I will die a happy man.

On the DVD commentary, Larry David reveals that Bookman (played brilliantly by Philip Baker Hall) was one of his all-time favourite characters on the show. He would have made Bookman a recurring character, he says, but found it impossible to write a library investigations officer back into the series. Philip Baker Hall, however, would later resurface on Curb Your Enthusiasm as Larry’s doctor.

P.S. Ah, what the hell… Apropos of nothing at all, here’s Sergent Joe Friday interrogating Johnny Carson.