Trying to write a sitcom script about 9/11 sounds like a Seinfeld-worthy plot in and of itself. But comedian Billy Domineau decided to actually tackle that grim concept by penning a Seinfeld spec script set just days after the 9/11 attacks. Although Seinfeld went off the air in 1998, Domineau imagines a world in which the show continued on through the ’00s and the writers chose to directly grapple with the terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 people. He uploaded the script into a Google Doc, and it’s been causing quite a stir, both for its pitch-perfect recreation of Seinfeld’s tone and incredibly dark black comedy.
In “Twin Towers,” Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer all deal with slightly mundane 9/11-related conundrums that, naturally, wind up intersecting with one another in the episode’s finale. Jerry develops an aversion to the dust that’s settled over New York City; Elaine discovers—much to her chagrin—that the guy she wanted to dump didn’t end up dying in the attack; George is mistaken for a mysterious hero who saved a dozen people from the World Trade Center; and Kramer tries to get the government to replace his box cutters, which were stolen by his friend and used in the 9/11 hijacking.
What’s most remarkable about the script is that it works both as a parody of Seinfeld and as an actual episode of Seinfeld. Domineau—who used to write for The Onion News Network—spoke to The Comic’s Comic about how he came up with the idea. “I was helping someone write a sketch a few months back and told them theirs needed to be an exercise in bad taste,” he explains. “‘Like imagine if there was a 9/11 episode of Seinfeld… wait a minute.’”
The script is available via Google Drive and embedded below:
[via Splitsider]