Seinfeld

GEORGE STEINBRENNER had just one cameo on "Seinfeld" but "appeared" in a bunch of episodes. Tonight through Friday, TBS will pay tribute to the Yankees owner - who died last week at age 80 - by airing 10 "Seinfeld" episodes that "include" Steinbrenner. In all but the one appearance, actor Lee Bear portrayed Steinbrenner, although Bear's face was never shown. Larry David, the show's co-creator, provided Steinbrenner's voice. The Steinbrenner plots revolve around "Seinfeld" character George Costanza (actor Jason Alexander)

LOS ANGELES - Ian Abercrombie, 77, the British character actor who played Elaine's demanding boss, Mr. Pitt, on "Seinfeld," died Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his friend Cathy Lind Hayes. He suffered complications of kidney failure. As the eccentric Justin Pitt, Abercrombie appeared in seven episodes opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Elaine Benes in the high-rated sit-com. "I was a pain in the neck. I was a hypochondriac. I was many things, and I just made her life so miserable," Abercrombie said in a 1998 CNN interview.

A Wisconsin appeals court yesterday reversed a $25 million jury award to a Miller Brewing Co. executive who was fired after a coworker complained that he had harassed her by discussing a racy episode of Seinfeld. Jerold Mackenzie was fired in 1993 for "poor managerial judgment" five days after recounting a scene in which Seinfeld's title character tried to remember a girlfriend's name that rhymed with a part of the female anatomy. Mackenzie then sued, alleging that being fired for merely discussing the episode was unfair and that Miller executives had been looking for an excuse to fire him from his $95,000-a-year management job. The 1997 jury award of $25 million came after Mackenzie, now 56, argued that the company had downgraded his position 10 years earlier without notifying him and that by the time he was fired he was too old to find comparable employment elsewhere.

The people at Entertainment Weekly have been watching lots of Seinfeld episodes and keeping score. In what's billed as "The Ultimate Seinfeld Viewers Guide," the magazine has amassed a ton of trivia about the show. For instance, Jerry and company have gathered at Monk's Cafe 229 times, Kramer has made 252 of those bizarre entrances into Jerry's apartment, and the Seinfeld refrigerator has been opened 103 times. There have been 28 scenes in either a doctor's office or a hospital, and 95 in a car, but only eight on subways and one on a bus. There have been 11 references to Hitler or Nazis, and 10 to the Kennedy family.

Seinfeld has given us more than curmudgeonly characters, complex plots, and the indelible memory of Mr. Costanza in a "manssiere. " It has given us a language - a rich stew of neologisms, catch-phrases and of-the-moment slang. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Want to master the domain of Sein language? Read on. Atomic wedgie. Humiliation that the young George Costanza endured in high school. Bosco. George's ATM code, which he refused to reveal - not even to save a dying man. (Superman aficionado Jerry's code is Jor-El.

Come back, Elaine! We miss you. And we miss hearing you bad-mouthing all your friends every week on Seinfeld. OK, you've been off minding your kids for two years, but isn't all that diaper duty and meal-planning blunting your carbon-steel tongue? Julia Louis-Dreyfus, whose tongue seems as soft as a marshmallow on this hot and sunny Los Angeles day, couldn't care less. "It's fabulous to be a full-time mom," she says. She has two sons, Henry, 7, and Charles, 2, with TV producer husband Brad Hall.

The first three words of Joel Wingard's new college textbook ask, "What is literature?" His answer, which takes 1,756 pages, might seem a little unusual. Under drama, for instance, you'll find Sophocles, Shakespeare - and Seinfeld. The lyrics of a Tom Petty song, "Mary Jane's Last Dance," are praised for their narrative value. Short stories cited are by such authors as Anne Tyler and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The essay section features the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham City Jail.

When everybody is done with Seinfeld, CBS hopes Everybody Loves Raymond. First, however, people have to meet Raymond, as in Ray Romano, the star of the critically praised CBS sitcom based on his family-focused stand-up comedy act. Introductions are taking place, gradually. Romano's show, CBS's top-rated sitcom in the latest Nielsen ratings report, is now ending its second season. It has been thriving this year on Mondays, where it ranks 35th in the Nielsen ratings and often beats the competition.

Sweeps month has seen much hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing over the demise of Seinfeld and loads of acrimony and name-calling around the cancellation of Ellen. But it is now time to praise less famous stars. Where are the paeans to Step By Step? Who among us wails for the final end of the final incarnation of The Naked Truth? Why is Diane Sawyer not interviewing Queen Latifah about the death of Living Single? And wherefore will your suspenders go, Steve Urkel, now that Family Matters no longer matters?

Long, long ago, back before Web TV and Friends; the Game Show Network and picture-within-picture; Sony Watchmen and Jenny McCarthy; back before the first Mary Tyler Moore reunion show, the deities of television decreed the 39-week year. Never mind that most mortals subscribed to a thing called "summer" that quaintly stretched the year by 13 weeks. There were vacations to be taken in TV-land, Riviera villas to be used, golf habits to be supported. Summer on TV, then, especially the second-half "dog days," has long been left for the reruns, the faint hopes, the completely escapist, and the absolute trash.

LOS ANGELES - Ian Abercrombie, 77, the British character actor who played Elaine's demanding boss, Mr. Pitt, on "Seinfeld," died Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his friend Cathy Lind Hayes. He suffered complications of kidney failure. As the eccentric Justin Pitt, Abercrombie appeared in seven episodes opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Elaine Benes in the high-rated sit-com. "I was a pain in the neck. I was a hypochondriac. I was many things, and I just made her life so miserable," Abercrombie said in a 1998 CNN interview.

D ONALD TRUMP , who seems to be mad at everybody these days, has added Jerry Seinfeld to his enemies list. Trump is angry because Seinfeld canceled an upcoming appearance at a benefit for son Eric Trump 's foundation, the New York Post reported yesterday. But is The Donald mad at The Jerry because he pulled out or because of why he pulled out? The benefit isn't until Sept. 13, so it's not as if Jerry left them in the lurch without a headliner - Trump has already gotten former "Celebrity Apprentice" contestant Bret Michaels to pinch hit. He did something worse.

YES, SOUP for you! Larry Thomas , who played the Soup Nazi on "Seinfeld," serves up soup from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at the newly opened Doc's Gourmet Soup (169 W. Girard). Thomas, who you may also remember as the blackjack dealer in "Austin Powers," is proud of how closely identified he is with the Soup Nazi character. "I live in a community of journeymen, working actors who have been doing it for 30 years, like I have," Thomas says. "It's kinda cool to have something like that.

RESTAURATEUR Jolly Weldon was arraigned Friday on charges of making terroristic threats, stalking, harassment and reckless endangerment in an alleged dispute with ex-business partners in Jolly's Dueling Piano Bar (2006 Chestnut). According to a police report, on Sept. 8 Weldon threatened Timothy Smith , who owns the building, and two men physically restrained Weldon from attacking Smith outside the Center City piano lounge. Weldon also turned up at Smith's apartment the next day, according to police.

J ERRY SEINFELD and Bette Midler will headline the Nov. 13 opening gala of the National Museum of American Jewish History in its new home on Independence Mall. Ticketing information will be released soon on nmajh.org. "Real Housewives of New Jersey" reg- ular Kim Granatell took in Lady Gaga's concert last night at the Wells Fargo Center with 14-year-old Garrett Snider , grandson of Comcast-Spectacor boss Ed Snider , who befriended Kim G. over the summer. Country rocker Bo Bice , former "American Idol" runner-up, stopped at Food Tek (555 City Ave.)

GEORGE STEINBRENNER had just one cameo on "Seinfeld" but "appeared" in a bunch of episodes. Tonight through Friday, TBS will pay tribute to the Yankees owner - who died last week at age 80 - by airing 10 "Seinfeld" episodes that "include" Steinbrenner. In all but the one appearance, actor Lee Bear portrayed Steinbrenner, although Bear's face was never shown. Larry David, the show's co-creator, provided Steinbrenner's voice. The Steinbrenner plots revolve around "Seinfeld" character George Costanza (actor Jason Alexander)

If Seinfeld was a show about nothing, then Lost has been the series about everything. The incomparable ABC drama, which ends Sunday night, spun a rich universe out of a seemingly deserted island, weaving provocative themes - faith, ethics, filicide, quantum physics, fate, and ontology, to name a few - into a compelling morality play. "There will never be another show like this," says Marc Berman, television analyst for Mediaweek. "It started as a story of 14 people surviving a plane crash and became so much more.

Ask Don Amendolia to identify his favorite role over four decades as an actor, and he'll reply: "I tend to fall in love with whatever I'm working on at the time. " Few actors have been smitten as often as the Glassboro-raised Amendolia, who plays the Wizard in the touring production of Wicked that arrives Wednesday at the Academy of Music for a run through Jan. 24. Amendolia, who will turn 65 next month, doesn't have a "type," either. His road to Oz includes diverse stops: on and Off-Broadway (Stepping Out, My One and Only, Cloud Nine)

MONTY AND HIS Money Managers had themselves some week. They ran the greatest shell game since the days when big carnivals would roll into small towns, relieve the local yokels of the harvest money and move on. The carny sharpsters had a signal they would holler if one of them was caught in his con by a sharp-eyed citizen. "Hey, Rube," they would yell. Roustabouts would soon be beating on the trouble-maker. Hey, Ruben . . . From the minute he called trading for Roy Halladay "an unlikeliness," Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro and his carnies were running a double shell game with two American League clubs, the Toronto Blue Jays and rookie GM Alex Anthopoulos, and the Seattle Mariners and second-year GM Jack Zduriencik, guessing which of the six walnut shells would hide the slickly maneuvered peas.

HOPING TO become as wealthy as Bill Gates, if he's not there already, Jerry Seinfeld will appear in Microsoft's next Windows advertising campaign. Perhaps the spot will be a spoof of the classic "Seinfeld" episode in which Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine battle to see who can become master of his domain . . . name. Free Sheryl Crow Sheryl Crow is offering a free download of her politically charged tune "Gasoline" to anyone who logs onto rockthevote.org or anyone on the group's mailing list.