The Statue - Cultural References

Cultural References

The episode contained a number of references to pop culture. George explains that he broke the original statue when he was using it as a microphone, singing the song "MacArthur Park", by Jimmy Webb; in early drafts of the script, George broke it while singing Eddie Cochran's "There Ain't No Cure for the Summertime Blues". The episode also contained numerous references to the 1960s television crime drama Dragnet,. This was because Larry Charles, who wrote the episode, watched a lot of reruns of the show when he was writing for Seinfeld. The cop Kramer pretends to be when he retrieves the statue was inspired by Joe Friday, the central character of Dragnet. Finland is also mentioned multiple times, as Rava is from there. At the end of the episode Kramer states "Well, lets put it this way, I didn't take them to The People's Court", a reference to the judicial television show.