Newman’s Mail Truck Catches On Fire (Season 8, "The Pothole")
Speaking of energetic fury and animated gestures, an arguably more hysterical example of Wayne Knight’s physicality occurs as the result of some clever cause-and-effect in the Seinfeld Season 8 episode, “The Pothole.” After a sewing machine drops out from the trunk of Jerry’s car, as Elaine Benes (future Veep cast member Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is taking advantage of the widened lanes on the highway Kramer recently adopted, Kramer is later seen accidentally dumping an entire barrel of paint thinner on the same road.
Soon after, Newman is on that highway, too busy singing Lionel Ritchie’s “Three Times a Lady” to notice the sewing machine get trapped under his truck, causing sparks that ignite when he passes over the paint thinner, turning the vehicle into a literal fireball as he dramatically yelps out the immortal words, “Oh, the humanity!”
