Martin Van Nostrand - Personality

Personality

is hard to pin down. A New York Times profile described Kramer as "cartoonlike" in a piece with a headline calling him "Seinfeld's craziest neighbor". The Los Angeles Times calls him "eccentric" and "flipped-lid." To the Washington Post, he was "goofy". But he's more than so much concentrated comic schtick. Kramer is an attitude. Kramer 's revolutionary far more than he's "funny". He's liberating, a one-man guide out of stereotyped sitcom behavior toward the nut-ball stuff that really happens.

Kramer has conflicting personality traits. A painting of him was described in "The Letter" by an art patron as "a loathsome, offensive brute"; he is sometimes shallow, callous, and indifferent. Though eccentric, Kramer is more often than not caring, friendly and kind-hearted; he often goes out of his way to help total strangers, and tries to get his friends to also help others and to do the right thing even when they do not want to. His quirkiness and strange body movements have become his trademark.

Paradoxically, Kramer also gets his friends directly into trouble by talking them into unwise or even illegal actions such as parking illegally in a handicapped space ("The Handicap Spot"), urinating in a parking garage ("The Parking Garage"), committing mail fraud ("The Package") or even hiring an assassin (who turns out to be Newman) to get rid of a dog ("The Engagement"). Kramer is also known to mooch off his friends, particularly Jerry. Kramer regularly enters and uses Jerry's apartment without his consent or knowledge, and he often helps himself to Jerry's food. Kramer is also known to use tools/appliances of Jerry's, only occasionally with permission, and sometimes returning them in a broken or destroyed state.

Kramer is known for his extreme honesty and, correspondingly, his lack of tact; in "The Nose Job", he tells George's insecure girlfriend that she is as pretty as any girl in New York City; she just needs a nose job. Instead of being horrified, many characters end up thanking Kramer for his candor. Kramer rarely gets into trouble for it, but his friends often do; this is especially prevalent in "The Cartoon" where Kramer makes comments to Sally Weaver (Kathy Griffin), who then blames Jerry for "ruining her life" as a result.

One explanation as to Kramer's personality and traits, with respect to his mysterious childhood and background, is hinted in "The Chicken Roaster". After a series of conflicts, Jerry is forced to live in Kramer's apartment and vice versa, which quickly has an effect on both characters. Jerry, bothered endlessly by the many problems in Kramer's home, quickly begins acting like his wacky friend, showing that Kramer might be radically influenced by his own apartment but has simply grown used to it. Of course, when Kramer finally begins living in Jerry's regular and normal apartment, he quickly and briefly becomes more like his calm and quick-witted friend.

His relationship with George and Elaine is as moderately strong as with Jerry. He helps Elaine in "The Watch", "The Engagement", "The Soup Nazi" and "The Slicer", and helps George in "The Busboy", "The Stall" and "The Slicer". He clashes with Elaine in "The Seven" and with George in "The Susie".

His relationship with Jerry is very questionable. Simply put, Kramer excels at persuading a usually reluctant Jerry into doing things against his better judgment. Kramer also at times gets into arguments with Jerry, in episodes such as "The Chaperone", "The Kiss Hello" and "The Caddy". On the other hand, Kramer has displayed an almost unbending loyalty toward Jerry in many episodes (although he does once comment that he would turn Jerry in were he wanted for murder) especially when choosing to help him against Newman in many episodes, including "The Suicide" and "The Millennium". In the same respect, Jerry has helped Kramer out of good will in some episodes and always seems to forgive and ultimately accept his friend's mooching tendencies. At times, Jerry is clearly quite amused by Kramer's antics, which may also be a factor in the friendship's endurance. In "The Serenity Now", an overemotional Jerry declares a near-brotherly love for Kramer, to which Kramer easily responds, "I love you, too, buddy." The duo are so close that in one instance when Kramer was locked out of his apartment, Jerry even let him sleep in the same bed with him ("The Wig Master").

His relationship with Newman is defined from the start in "The Suicide", in which they get along very well. Like the main characters they also get into conflict with each other, most notably "The Junk Mail". Their get-rich-quick schemes are noted in "The Old Man" and "The Bottle Deposit". Kramer's most notable conflict other than with Newman is with Keith Hernandez in "The Boyfriend" until the baseball star straightens out the facts, along with the famous JFK parody and a battle-of-wits game of Risk, where the two are pitted against one another in a battle for world domination ("The Label Maker").

His relationship with Susan is mixed. Although they get along in "The Pool Guy", there are many episodes in which he makes her life a mess. He vomits on her in "The Pitch", unwittingly burns her father's cabin in "The Bubble Boy", dates Mona while Susan is a lesbian in "The Smelly Car" and calls her "Lily" in "The Invitations," much to her chagrin.

Kramer's apartment is the subject of numerous radical experiments in interior design, including "levels" (no furniture) in "The Pony Remark", and a reconstruction of the set of The Merv Griffin Show in "The Merv Griffin Show". Inside views of Kramer's apartment are seldom seen, but it is known that he installed hardwood flooring and woodgrain-like wallpaper to, as he explains to Jerry, "give it the feel of a ski lodge." The apartment is centered around a large hot tub and couch styled after a 1957 Chevy.

Kramer has a liking for smoking Cuban cigars. It starts in "The Wallet" and in "The Abstinence" he sets up a smoking club in his apartment. His face gets ruined after so much smoking and he hires Jackie Chiles to sue the cigarette company, but instead ends up getting his image as the Marlboro Man on the Marlboro billboard in Times Square.