How Old Jerry Was At The Start & End Of Seinfeld

How Old Jerry Was At The Start & End Of Seinfeld

Seinfeld follows 9 years in the lives of a group of New York City friends, with their ages, especially Jerry’s, being particularly hard to pin down.

Jerry Seinfeld plays a fictionalized version of himself navigating life and dating in the hit sitcom Seinfeld, but how old was he at the start and end of the show’s 9 seasons? Co-created by Jerry Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Larry David, Seinfeld is now regarded as a beloved TV show about nothing – a premise that receives plenty of meta jokes when Jerry and George pitch a series in season 4. Seinfeld follows the everyday life of Jerry Seinfeld, his best friend George Constanza, ex-girlfriend and best friend Elaine Benes, and eccentric neighbor Cosmo Kramer as they deal with the nuances of life in New York City and the painstaking process of dating throughout adulthood.

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While most sitcoms navigating city dating life and a small group of friends like Friends or How I Met Your Mother pin the characters’ ages quite close together, Seinfeld’s protagonist characters vary widely in age. Elaine is the youngest of the group, being 27 years old when the 1989 premiere season began, and a year younger than her Emmy-winning actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus. George Costanza follows up as the second-youngest Seinfeld character, with his surmised birthday putting him at 31 years old when the show starts. Kramer is the elder of the group, which isn’t surprising considering how well he gets along with the characters’ parents, but he’s never actually given an age. Since most of the characters’ ages are within a year or two of their actors’, Kramer likely began the series at 40 years old, since Michael Richards was born in 1949.

Related: Seinfeld: Kramer’s Inspiration Explained (& Why His Name Changed)

Jerry Seinfeld’s character is never actually given a specific birthday in the series, and the claims of his age seem to vary as Seinfeld’s 9-season continuity is blurred. George and Jerry are assumed to be childhood best friends, having grown up together at the same age. This gets a bit confusing when little comments by George and Jerry make it seem like they’re actually a few years apart, with Jerry being older. In the 1991 season 2 episode, “The Heart Attack,” George mentions that he’s 33 years old, while in season 3 Jerry mentions that he’s 37 years old. Either one of them is lying, which wouldn’t be surprising, or Seinfeld really just couldn’t decide how old they were. The most plausible revelation is that George and Jerry are said to have graduated high school in 1971, which, if they’re both graduating at 18 years old, puts Jerry Seinfeld’s age at about 35 when Seinfeld begins.

Jerry’s Age In Seinfeld Is Never Made Clear

Jerry Seinfeld on Seinfeld featured image

Since Jerry’s Seinfeld comedic character is a fictionalized version of himself, starting the show at 35 years old makes the most logical sense, since that was the real age of Jerry Seinfeld when the show premiered. This does put into question how old George is really supposed to be, though. If the show wants its real continuity to say that George and Jerry graduated together, then they’re both 35-36 when the show starts. When George first says that he’s 33 in Seinfeld season 2, it was likely because they hadn’t figured out how exactly they wanted to write the characters’ background and connections. It seems Seinfeld’s first few seasons were largely going off of the real ages of the actors, and George’s actor Jason Alexander would have been about 32 years old when said season 2 episode premiered.

Seinfeld spanned over 9 seasons in a timeline that moves along with the progression of the real world, so the series covers 9 years in the characters’ lives. The show’s controversial season 9 finale premiered on May 21, 1998, which puts Jerry’s age at 44 years old at the end of Seinfeld if his birthday truly corresponds with the actor’s of April 29, 1954. Of course, this could just as easily not be the case. Sitcoms tend to struggle with maintaining continuity for characters’ ages, and trying to pin down Jerry’s fictional age is a clear example.

Other Seinfeld Continuity Errors That Make It Weird

Jerry’s nebulous age (along with George’s, Elaine’s, and Kramer’s) isn’t the only odd continuity error in Seinfeld. Several other inconsistencies exist throughout all of Seinfeld’s 9 seasons, some deliberate and some less so. For one, Jerry’s apartment number and floor change several times, particularly throughout season 1. There’s also the ever-present disparity between the exterior and interior of the Seinfeld gang’s favorite restaurant. While the outside of the restaurant was shot at a real storefront, “Tom’s Restaurant” at the corner of Broadway and West 112th Street, the interior of “Monk’s Cafe,” as it’s called in the show, doesn’t match the building’s actual layout at all. Finally, Jerry and George both refer to having siblings at various points throughout Seinfeld, but no such siblings are ever officially introduced, and both Jerry and George’s parents seem to behave like they are only children.

Next: Netflix’s Seinfeld Release Repeats Disney+’s Original Simpsons Mistake

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About The Author

Jordan Williams
(847 Articles Published)

Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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