10 Classic ‘Seinfeld’ Episodes That Revolve Around Outdated Technology

In its time (1989-1998), Seinfeld famously touted itself as a “show about nothing,” when in fact it was a show about everything. In 2025, though, it feels more like a show about everything ‘90s. Video rentals, in-store shopping, and not being able to get in touch with your friends at a moment’s notice are some of the main causes of Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer’s plight, and propel some of the most famous storylines in television history.

Many of these scenarios are still totally possible (for example, sporting event outings that result in national embarrassment—hello, Coldplay concert couple!). But nearly four decades later, it’s striking how much of the action revolves specifically around technology we don’t really use anymore: payphones, over-the-air television, and answering machines (so many answering machines).

Here are the 10 most iconic episodes where the chaos is driven by oh-so-‘90s devices and the dilemmas they cause.

“The Baby Shower,” Season 2

A B-plot to a larger story about Elaine hosting a baby shower for a friend who once went on a disastrous date with George, Kramer convinces Jerry to steal cable after his TV antenna goes on the fritz.

Today, the closest equivalent would be mooching off your friend’s HBO Max account—frowned upon by streaming companies, but still possible with a little cloak-and-dagger. However, that carries far less harsh punishment than Jerry meets when the feds show up at his apartment and gun him down (OK, it was in a dream, but still).

“The Phone Message,” Season 2

George leaves an angry message on his date’s answering machine that he later regrets, resulting in a complicated caper to steal the cassette (remember those?) from her apartment when she gets home from the Hamptons, where she, it’s specifically noted, doesn’t have her beeper (remember those, too?). George and Jerry are successful in switching out the tape for a blank one, but nowadays this scenario wouldn’t prompt such sneaking around—George would just have to brace for the blowback.

“The Smelly Car,” Season 4

Jerry’s malodorous car interior, sullied by a BO-ridden valet, is the well-known centerpiece of this episode, but while that’s happening, George finds out his ex-girlfriend Susan is now dating a woman. That’s not the ‘90s part, though: he finds this out in a video store, an institution largely wiped from the landscape in a post-streaming world.

Later, with Susan present, he gets hit with a hefty charge for losing a videotape—a smutty foreign film that he’d now be able to watch in the privacy of his own home. He’d be spared the shame and the $98.

“The Pool Guy,” Season 7

Kramer gets a new number that’s just one digit off from 555-FILM—the number for Moviefone, a movie listing service, and decides to pose as the Moviefone voice rather than change it. (For all you young’ns that somehow ended up here: back in the day, the only way to find out when movies were playing was by looking in a real, actual newspaper, going to the theater itself, or calling up Moviefone so a recorded voice could read you your options.)

On first watch, this one seems like the biggest relic of the ‘90s—except that Moviefone still exists, now as a searchable website acquired in 2018 by the owner of the ill-fated MoviePass. MoviePass died, but Moviefone lives on, perhaps in part because of this legendary episode.

“The Muffin Tops,” Season 8

While toting a paper map around town, George gets a girlfriend out of a representative from the tourism board because she thinks he’s a hapless tourist. This could easily happen today, too: he would just be staring at his phone instead. (He’s more likely to get robbed that way, though.)

“The Millennium,” Season 8

After finding out he’s number 7 on his girlfriend’s speed dial—a function of some landline phones, where you could pre-program a person’s number to a single button instead of typing each digit individually—Jerry tries to get into even better graces with her to make it to number one.

Speed dial is basically the default now, with modern smartphones containing searchable contact lists, no ranking system necessary. (Honorable mention goes to this episode’s main plot, which is about Kramer and Newman’s plans for competing Y2K New Year’s Eve parties.)

“The Serenity Now,” Season 9

Among (many) other things, the stress of selling desktop computers out of his garage necessitates Frank Constanza’s constant invocation “serenity now!”—a calming mantra he learned from a set of self-help cassette tapes.

Now our computers are in our pockets, following us around everywhere we go—and with the constant pinging and ringing we all endure daily, he’d probably need that “serenity now” even more today. Self-help content, for its part, has basically transferred over from individual books and tapes to wellness influencers and get-rich-quick scammers on social media.

“The Frogger,” Season 9

You know this one: When Jerry and George find out their old high-school hangout, Mario’s Pizza, is closing down, George—with, of course, Kramer’s help—hires two shady electricians to help him move the shop’s Frogger machine to a new location without losing power and, thus, his high score. Gameplay imitates life when George crosses a busy street, strategically darting between cars, until a semi comes along and ruins his two-decade reign by way of total decimation. While pizza shops like Mario’s are still around, arcade games are a rarity.

“The Slicer,” Season 9

George is excited to take a new job at a poorly-managed company (he figures he can slack off)...until he spots himself in the background of a photo in his new boss’s office, taken during a beach outing that ended with George yelling at the guy’s kids.

This results in an elaborate plot to steal the photo, airbrush himself out, and return it with his boss none the wiser. (Even more ‘90s is that George tossed the kids’ boombox into the sea in anger; launching a JBL speaker just wouldn’t have the same effect.) This episode is so packed with ‘90s tech and techniques, it’s practically an audio-visual time capsule.

Some of it’s still around today: removing yourself from a photo is now made even easier thanks to a wealth of apps that can quickly and seamlessly edit images. The organizing of a phony cancer screening so you can take a photo of your boss shirtless to paste back into the photo, though? Still hard.

“The Maid,” Season 9

While Jerry navigates a relationship with his house cleaner and George attempts to give himself a nickname, Elaine comes home to find scores of messages on her answering machine that are nothing but a grating screeching sound.

It turns out Kramer signed up for a food delivery service and is having the orders faxed to Elaine’s home phone: faxing being a now-archaic method of transferring images over the phone to a printer, a practice incompatible with landlines. It also results in Elaine being issued a new area code, much to her irritation. While area codes still exist and are still strongly linked to a person’s identity, these days they wouldn’t result in long-distance charges.