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Cosmo Kramer (usually referred to as just Kramer) is a fictional character of Polish descent on the US television sitcom Seinfeld (1989–1998), played by Michael Richards. Kramer is the wacky neighbor of main character Jerry Seinfeld. Of the series' four central characters only Kramer has no visible means of support; what few jobs he holds seem to be nothing more than a lark. His trademarks include his humourous upright bouffant hairstyle and vintage wardrobe, the combination of which led to his categorization as a 'hipster doofus'; his various bursts through Jerry's apartment door and other comedic attributes. Cosmo was known only as "Kramer" for many years. It was George who found out his unusual name through an encounter with Kramer's mother, Babs (played by Sheree North), on the season six episode, The Switch.

The real-life Kramer

Kramer is based on the real-life Kenny Kramer, a neighbor of co-creator Larry David. At the time of the shooting of the original Seinfeld pilot called The Seinfeld Chronicles, Kenny Kramer had not yet given consent to use his name, and so Kramer's character is known as "Kessler".

David was hesitant to use Kenny Kramer's real name because he suspected that Kramer would take advantage of this. David's suspicion turned out to be correct – Kramer created the "Kramer Reality Tour," a New York City bus tour that points out actual locations of events or places featured in Seinfeld. The "Kramer Reality Tour" is itself spoofed on Seinfeld – when Cosmo receives money from catalog sales company owner J. Peterman for the use of his various stories in Peterman's biography; he develops a reality bus tour and touts himself as "The Real J. Peterman." Kenny Kramer also made both monetary and non-monetary demands on Castle-Rock Entertainment – all of which were met.

The "backwards episode", The Betrayal, explains that Kramer's original name, "Kessler", is just a misspelling on his mailbox.

"A Loathsome Brute"

Kramer has many conflicting personality traits. Described by an art patron as "a loathsome, offensive brute," he is often shallow, callous, and indifferent. On the other hand, he is often caring and friendly, going out of his way to get his friends to help others and to do the right thing even when they don't want to. Kramer is known for his extreme honesty and, conversely, his lack of tact; in The Nose Job, he tells George's girlfriend that she "needs a nose job". Instead of being horrified, many of these people end up thanking Kramer for his candor. Kramer never gets into trouble for it, but often his friends do. He also gets his friends into trouble by talking them into things such as parking illegally in a handicapped space (The Handicap Spot) or urinating in a parking garage (The Parking Garage).

Kramer is perhaps the most social of the four main characters, and seems to have more friends and associates than any of the others, some of whom are just as eccentric, if not more so, than he is. This includes Bob Sacamano, an oft-referred to, but never-seen character, as well as Newman, played by Wayne Knight. Although they seem to get into many fights, Newman often participates in many of Kramer's inventions and money-making ideas. Kramer is popular with Jerry's parents: he calls them once a week, and even briefly lives in the same retirement community in Florida as they do. He participates in schemes with George's father, Frank Costanza, such as the invention of a male brassiere (the "man-ssiere" or the "bro").

Kramer was known to embrace opposite and reverse philosophies and rejected acceptable social behaviors or established facts. For example, he once insisted that you have to eat before undergoing surgery because "you need your strength," even though people should never eat before being operated for safety reasons. He is also vehemently opposed to circumcision.

In The Gymnast Kramer admits that he suffers from coulrophobia (fear of clowns).

Kramer's signature on the show is entering a room sliding in, much like Art Carney's character in The Honeymooners. This reportedly first became a recurring gag when Richards was late for a cue; trying to save the scene, he burst into the room, much to the delight of the audience.

George Costanza once commented, upon hearing that Kramer had gone to a baseball fantasy camp, that Kramer's whole life was a fantasy camp. "People should plunk down two thousand dollars to live like him for a week. Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors, and have sex without dating; that's a fantasy camp."

Kramer's schemes

Perhaps Kramer's first scheme was running away from home at age 17 and stowing away aboard a steamer headed for Sweden; it is unknown how he returned to the United States from Sweden, however.

The only known steady job Kramer had throughout the entire series was in The Strike, where he went back to work at H&H Bagels after being on strike for over a decade. His union finally settled the strike when the minimum wage of New York was raised to the same hourly rate Kramer was demanding from his employer (Kramer still felt the strike was a success), and he was reemployed. He only worked there for one episode before he was fired. During the time he was working at the bagel shop, he went on strike again because of having to work on Festivus, a holiday fabricated by Frank Costanza, George Costanza's father. He also worked part-time as a department store Santa before being fired for spreading Communist propaganda to young children. In The Bizarro Jerry, he works at an office, before it is discovered that he has no business education, and that his reports are "nothing but gibberish".

Kramer has a variety of ways of making a living, including gambling (he is an addict who fell off the wagon gambling on the departure sites of flights going into New York's LaGuardia Airport), working in various theater projects, acting out illnesses at a medical school (he was quite good as "gonorrhea" at Mt. Sinai Hospital's student-diagnosis sessions, drawing rave reviews from the hospital's staff for his performance), getting a spot on the show Murphy Brown, and pitching ideas for inventions like his book, "The Coffee Table Book of Coffee Tables", a book about coffee tables and celebrities with their coffee tables that featured a coaster on the cover and legs on the bottom to make the book itself a little coffee table. Other books he's mentioned include "Astonishing Tales of the Sea", and "Astounding Bear Attacks". In The Dinner Party Kramer reveals he doesn't carry his wallet or any money with him, following advice from his osteopath. When George asks how he pays for anything, Kramer mysteriously replies, "I get by."

Kramer also participates in lawsuits against various people and companies. He won one such suit (though he received no monetary compensation) against a coffee company whose beverages were too hot (a reference to the McDonald's coffee case) and a tobacco company whose products aged him prematurely. His lawyer is Jackie Chiles, a parody of Johnnie Cochran, the late celebrity defense attorney of O. J. Simpson.

In one memorable episode, Kramer cries foul after failing to receive due credit for J. Peterman's book success which was unduly based on Kramer's misadventures. He then confronts Peterman during a book signing, and is instantly kicked out of the event. Kramer then declares himself to be "the Real Peterman" and initiates The Real Peterman Reality Bus Tour. The tour consists of an old schoolbus where Kramer takes unwitting fans to the places of interests that pique the Real Peterman's fancy. The tour costs $37.50 and includes pizza bread and a bite-size Three Musketeers candy bar.

Kramer saves money by appropriating items from Jerry, most notably food. Jerry's apartment is Kramer's second home; he has his own key to the apartment and rarely bothers to knock. Kramer's own apartment is sub-let from documentary filmmaker Paul Buchman from Mad About You. Kramer's apartment is the subject of numerous radical experiments in interior design, including "levels" (no furniture), a reconstruction of the set of The Merv Griffin Show, and other bizarre schemes.

A struggling (and untalented) actor, Kramer briefly lived in Los Angeles, where his only accomplishments were accosting Fred Savage, appearing in a cameo on Murphy Brown, and being suspected as a serial killer. Back in New York Kramer worked as a stand-in on a daytime television soap opera with his friend Mickey in The Stand-In, and was given a part as an extra in a Woody Allen movie for which he practiced the line "These pretzels are making me thirsty." However, he is fired from the set shortly after breaking a beer mug, which shattered and injured Woody with the broken glass. Additionally, Jerry claims that Kramer does the worst Cockney accent he has ever heard.

Kramer showed an entreprenurial bent with "Kramerica Industries," for which he devised plans for a pizza place where customers must make their own pizza, a bladder system for tankers that would "put an end to maritime oil spills", and a product that would put ketchup and mustard in the same bottle.

Kramer also came up with the zany idea of a beach scented cologne. Jerry informed him that the idea was senseless, opining that people aren't going to "pay $80 to smell like dead fish and seaweed That's why they shower." The idea was picked up in a later episode by Calvin Klein. When Kramer confronts CK about his misappropriated idea, his interaction with a CK executive lands him a photo shoot in connection with the cologne.

Pseudonyms

Like the other three characters, Kramer has pseudonyms he uses in various schemes; H. E. Pennypacker, Dr. Martin van Nostrand, and Peter van Nostrand are the most popular. Under the name H. E. Pennypacker; in The Puerto Rican, Kramer poses as a buyer interested in an apartment in order to use its bathroom. Kramer also appeared as H. E. Pennypacker to help Elaine get revenge on a store, Putumayo, by repricing all the merchandise in the store with a pricing gun. As Dr. Martin van Nostrand, Kramer tried to get Elaine's medical chart to erase the negative comments her doctor had made in The Package. He also used the van Nostrand alias in the episode The Slicer, posing as a dermatologist for a cancer screening at Kruger. Kramer used the name Martin van Nostrand (sans the "doctor" prefix) while auditioning for the role of himself on the show Jerry. Kramer posed as Professor Peter van Nostrand in The Nose Job in order to retrieve his jacket from another man's apartment. Kramer has also been referred to as "Assman" in reference to the license plate the state of New York accidentally gave him. Other nicknames such as "Krame" and the "K-man" were short-lived. One nickname that Kramer can't stand is "Hipster Doofus," a moniker once assigned to him by a woman in a wheelchair he once dated, and occasionally directed at him by Elaine. The nickname was first used in a newspaper review of Seinfeld. There have been some interpretations of the term "hipster doofus" that suggest Kramer to be "a flamboyant and sophisticated unfortuante," "a person who is learned on the ways of the world, but not learned or aware of his own physicality," as well as "the world's roughest prototype of the metrosexual male."

External links

• Kramer on Seinfeldonline.com- Learn something about Kramer.
• Michael Richards at IMDb
• Seinfeld Chronicles- The ultimate site about nothing that includes all 180 Seinfeld scripts, quotes, trivia, merchandise and much more.
• Some favorite Kramer quotes from wikiquote.org.

• Anti-heroes
• Seinfeld characters
• Fictional actors