Entertainment
Seinfeld's Best Superhero References Include An Appearance By Batman's Two-Face
By Brian Myers
| Published
Throughout most of the 1990s, the top-rated NBC sitcom Seinfeld dominated primetime television. The witty humor and superficial characters took viewers through bizarre happenstances surrounding relatable life situations that are seemingly mundane on the surface. The “show about nothing” proved to be more about everything else, but also weaved in the real-life interests of the show’s star and namesake, Jerry Seinfeld. A fan of superheroes, Seinfeld and his writers found ways of inserting references to comic book icons in multiple episodes, some a bit more concealed than others.
Fans of Seinfeld have claimed since the show’s run that the writers packed a Superman reference into every episode. If you count the noticeable Superman statue on Jerry’s shelf or the small magnets of the superhero on his refrigerator, you might come up with a visual reference for the majority of the show’s 180 entries. While the real tally of mentions and nods is far less than what some fans might have originally speculated, looking for and discovering these little Easter eggs has been a bonus to enjoying a much-beloved 90s TV staple.
Two Specific Episodes Do The Heavy Lifting
Two episodes are almost entirely dominated by Superman references. In the 1996 fan favorite episode, “The Bizarro Jerry,” Elaine begins a friendship with Kevin, with whom she has just ended a very short-term romance. As his new friend, Elaine discovers parallels between the life she experiences with Jerry and the gang, and Kevin and his friend group. Each person in Kevin’s life is the mirror opposite of every person in Jerry’s. Gene (George) and Feldman (Kramer) make up Kevin’s core friends, while Kevin is Jerry’s counterpart.
Kevin’s apartment also has details that, upon close examination, show Jerry’s interests in a twisted recreation. Aside from the layout being mirrored, there’s a unicycle on the wall where Jerry’s bike always hangs, Feldman always knocks before entering (instead of barging in, like Kramer), and continually restocks Kevin’s refrigerator and cabinets with groceries instead of bumming them. The cou de gras is positioned where Jerry’s prized Superman statue should be. In its place is Bizarro Superman, completing Jerry’s reference to Elaine being in “the Bizarro World” when she’s with Kevin.
The 1994 episode, “The Race,” sees Jerry have a rematch of a running contest that he deceptively won during high school. His old rival, Duncan Meyer, is revealed to be the employer of his newest love interest, Lois (as in Lois Lane, Superman’s girlfriend). Throughout the episode, Jerry utters memorable lines like “I’d have to be Superman to do that,” and “Faster than a speeding bullet.” The theme from Superman (1978) plays as Duncan gets his rematch with Jerry, which Jerry also wins after an unwitting headstart. He closes the show with a nod to the 1950s series, The Adventures of Superman, by uttering the line “Maybe I will, Lois. Maybe I will,” before breaking the fourth wall and winking at the camera.
Subtle Nods Through Dialogue
Most of the references to superheroes are revealed through the show’s dialogue instead of being visual cues. When George refers to Jerry’s new girlfriend, Gwen, as a “Two-Face” (the woman looks starkly different when the lighting changes), Jerry exclaims, “Like the Batman villain!” In another exchange, it’s revealed by Elaine that Jerry doodles naked pictures of Lois Lane. Yet another moment has George referring to Jerry as having only two interests, Superman and cereal.
Two-Face, Batman & Robin, and Superman aren’t the only DC superheroes mentioned in the series. On at least two occasions, Aquaman is the subject of conversations between George and Jerry. In “The Deal,” George wonders whether the character was “restricted to water,” while “The Glasses” has Jerry referring to his friend as “Aquaboy.”
“The Strongbox” Has Deep Cuts
One of the best superhero references occurred during an exchange between George, Jerry, and Elaine while the three were sitting in their favorite coffee shop in “The Strongbox.” Elaine has been seeing a new guy, a secretive fellow named Glenn. Elaine had previously speculated that he was probably married, given that he always met her out and refused to give her his phone number.
Jerry had interjected that the guy could be protecting his secret identity and that Elaine could very well be dating the Green Lantern. At the coffee shop, Elaine reveals that her new beau isn’t married, but that he’s been actively hiding the fact that he’s living in poverty. The exchange that follows is packed so full of lines revolving around DC characters, making it one of the greatest instances of snap dialogue over Seinfeld’s nine-season run.
Jerry’s one-liners included “We found out his superpower was lack of money,” “He’s the ‘got no green’ lantern,” and “He’s invulnerable to creditors.” A visibly annoyed Elaine gets up to leave, only to have George pipe up with “Maybe his girlfriend is Lois Loan.” Jerry deals the final blow when Elaine reenters moments later to retrieve something she’d left behind; “He can wipe out a checking account with a single bounce!”
References You May Have Missed
Superman-related references also make appearances in the following episodes:
In “The Pilot,” Jerry is clad in a wardrobe of red and blue, Superman’s colors.
During a scene in “The Secret Code,” Jerry tells George that his ATM passcode is “Jor-El,” the name of Superman’s father on the planet Krypton.
“The Stock Tip” sees Jerry and George debating whether or not Superman has a super sense of humor.
After George makes a bone-headed move concerning a new love interest in “The Face Painter,” he wishes he could turn back time in the way Superman could, by spinning the Earth in reverse.
“The Cheever Letters” makes one of several references to someone’s home being their “Fortress of Solitude.”
“The Invitations” has a montage of Jerry with his new fiancée, Jeannie. In one moment, the two of them are shown reading Superman comic books.
The next time you stream Seinfeld on Netflix, look and listen for the references aboveand others.
Entertainment
Peter Jackson Is Making A New Lord Of The Rings Movie, It's About Tom Bombadil
By Joshua Tyler
| Updated
New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson is working on a new Lord of the Rings movie, and to make it, he’s teaming up with talk show host Stephen Colbert. This is not a joke or a drill; it’s happening, and they’re already writing the script.
Stephen Colbert, long known as one of Hollywood’s most obsessive Tolkien fans, is co-writing the film alongside his son, Peter McGee, and returning franchise writer Philippa Boyens. They’re using the working title The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past to refer to the project. It’s not clear yet if that will be the movie’s final title.
Here’s the announcement recorded by Peter Jackson…
The story they’re developing is based on six specific chapters from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring. Those chapters are numbers three through eight, often referred to as “Three Is Company through Fog on the Barrow Downs.” They involve Frodo first leaving the Shire, encountering his first Black Rider, and, most notably of all, encountering Tom Bombadil.
Tolkien fans will no doubt remember that Tom Bombadil was the biggest omission from the original Lord of the Rings movies. Jackson will now remedy that by making an entire, dedicated Tom Bombadil story.
Tom Bombadil is one of the strangest and most mysterious figures in The Lord of the Rings. Living in the Old Forest with his wife Goldberry, in Tolkien’s book, he appears cheerful and harmless, yet possesses immense, unexplained power. He’s so powerful that he’s totally unaffected by the One Ring.
Bombadil rescues the hobbits from multiple dangers, including the Barrow-downs, but exists completely outside the main conflict of Middle-earth, seemingly untouched by its wars, politics, or even its rules.
Peter Jackson is mostly involved in The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past on the production side, reuniting with key members of the original creative team, signaling that this isn’t a reboot but another attempt to mine unused Tolkien material with the same people who built the franchise the first time. This new project is slated for release after Lord of the Rings: Hunt For Gollum, a feature film in production under the direction of Lord of the Rings alum Andy Serkis.
Entertainment
NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for March 25, 2026
The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult if you keep up with the news.
Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that’s captured the public’s attention. The game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today’s Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications’ Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
Mashable Top Stories
Here’s a hint for today’s Connections categories
Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Here are today’s Connections categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections #1018 is…
What is the answer to Connections today
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Obfuscate: BLUR, CLOUD, MUDDY, OBSCURE
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Magazines: FORTUNE, PEOPLE, SPIN, TIME
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Payment methods: CASH, CHARGE, CHECK, WIRE
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Units of volume with last letter changed: CUR, GALLOP, PING, QUARK
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today’s puzzle.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.
Entertainment
Starfleet Academy Is Dead, Schrödinger’s Fans Blamed
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
My relationship with Starfleet Academy has been, as Facebook would call it, complicated. It’s a show I absolutely despised at first, but I grew to like more as Season 1 progressed. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the show was doomed from the start. That’s because it never cracked the Nielsen Top 10 Streaming list, and it very rarely made it into the top 10 for Paramount +, its own streamer. The network is cagey about releasing any actual viewership numbers, but from the outside looking in, it never seemed like enough people were watching to justify this show’s rumored per-episode price tag.
Schrödinger’s Fans (noun, plural) — A paradoxical audience state in which a fanbase is simultaneously dismissed as too small to matter and blamed as large enough to determine a project’s success or failure, depending on which argument is more convenient.
Now that the show is dead, the fandom has been conducting its inevitable autopsy. Equally inevitable is who they have chosen to blame for the show’s failure. Those mean, older fans who criticized the show from the start. Those haters warned of SFA’s doom from the beginning, but were always told they were simply a vocal, hateful minority. Now, these haters are being blamed for the death of Starfleet Academy, which has revealed these harsh critics to be Schrödinger’s fans; a group so small their opinion don’t matter, but so big that their lack of interest can ruin an entire show.
Cultural Collision
When it comes to Starfleet Academy, the division between Star Trek fans is pretty obvious. Most of the show’s biggest defenders skew younger, and the formative sci-fi of their youth was things like the Star Wars prequels (or, God help us, the Star Wars sequels). Conversely, most of the show’s biggest critics skew older, and they grew up watching shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation. A collision between these groups was inevitable: older Star Trek fans wanted Starfleet Academy to be more like older Star Trek. Newer fans wanted the franchise to do something new.
Paramount obviously chose to tailor Starfleet Academy to younger viewers. It’s an understandable impulse, of course. As the franchise warps to its 60th anniversary, the majority of the fandom isn’t getting any younger. The network decided to address this problem fairly directly by creating a show filled with young people speaking in modern slang and constantly enjoying sophomoric humor. Unfortunately, this decision ultimately drove away the older fans that, as Paramount found out the hard way, were more important than anyone could have guessed.
Understanding Schrödinger’s Fans
In case you need a quick refresher, Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment in quantum physics. It refers to the idea that particles exist in every possible state until they are directly observed. This idea (known as “superposition”) works well in theory, but the thought experiment shows how silly this notion is when applied to something as simple as a cat in a sealed box. You see, until you open the box and check, quantum mechanics tells us that the cat is, paradoxically, both alive and dead.
What does this have to do with Star Trek? Fans of Starfleet Academy have been looking for someone to blame for the show’s cancellation, and many of them are blaming the older fans who have hated the show from the beginning. These superfans seemingly believe that if the haters had tuned in or simply stopped saying anything negative about the show, SFA would still be around.
To these fans, I must make a blunt request: pick a lane! Before Starfleet Academy was canceled, critical voices were dismissed as a vocal minority who just didn’t understand the subtle genius of this new Star Trek show (the one with the dick and fart jokes).
Now, haters are being told that their refusal to watch SFA somehow screwed the show. Just like that, older Star Trek lovers became Schrödinger’s fans. There are so few of us that our thoughts and opinions don’t matter, yet there are so many of us that our opinions can either save or doom a show.
An Expensive Lesson, But Will Paramount Learn?
It feels self-serving saying this (since I’m a middle-aged, lifelong lover of the franchise), but the clear lesson here is that Paramount needs to give older Star Trek fans what we want. We are not some tiny minority group to be ignored. We are the group that has kept this franchise alive for 60 years. Ironically, most of us started watching The Next Generation at a young age because, get this, it was a slick update to The Original Series!
Star Trek doesn’t have to radically change direction to gain younger fans. Instead, creators need to work on updating the classic formula for modern audiences. This is why Strange New Worlds has proven popular with younger and older fans alike. Aging Trek fans like its homages to The Original Series, while younger fans enjoy the humor and jokes. Hindsight is always 20/20, but there was no need to make Starfleet Academy so radically different than what came before. As it turns out, if a show is Star Trek in name only, not that many Star Trek fans will tune in.
At the end of the day, this is a numbers game, and Starfleet Academy just didn’t have that many viewers. Paramount tried to do something completely new, and it blew up in their faces. Now is the time to embrace the Golden Age of the franchise: kick Alex Kurtzman to the curb, bring back Terry Matalas for Star Trek: Legacy, and focus on capable, competent adults exploring strange new worlds. Otherwise, Paramount’s attempts to reach younger viewers will ultimately result in no viewers, finally killing the greatest sci-fi franchise ever made.
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