Writing by Patricia Petro
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Zero Population Growth
SCENE ONE: Enter Kramer. He bursts into Jerry’s apartment. Everyone is there—Jerry, George and Elaine—sitting on the couch watching the evening news. The newscaster is saying something about the billionth person being born somewhere in China. Kramer is glad they’re watching and says so. He has an I-told-you-so attitude. He has been reading a lot lately about population growth, watching the news, waiting and warning the others for months that it was about to happen. And now it has. It is an EXPLOSION of people.
Jerry doesn’t see what the big deal is, it happened all the way over in China, but Kramer is emphatic. There’s a ZPG rally (for Zero Population Growth) on Saturday, and they had better all go. He tells Jerry and the others if people don’t stop procreating, soon there won’t be enough room to move . . . no air to breathe . . . no food. To make his point, he cries, if we aren’t careful, things will get so out of control, people will start eating people. Jerry makes a face as George remarks wistfully how the idea of cannibalism never appealed to him.
Kramer vows to find a way to help stop the problem. He has a plan. He’ll enlist the aid of the Soup Nazi, so together they can devise a formula that will not only make the soup dee-licious, but will contain a secret birth control ingredient as well.
Elaine, through it all, has been thinking. She thinks she doesn’t want to be part of the problem; and, with all the trouble she’s had finding sponges, maybe she ought to put an ad in the paper for them, advertise coast-to-coast, offer big money.
Jerry says, Oh, that sounds like a good idea.
And so it begins.
SCENE TWO: Elaine is the first to experience fallout from the birth of the billionth. She is on the couch with her boyfriend, Puddy, who is rounding second, about to reach third, sure of a home run, when he whispers something in Elaine’s ear.
SCENE THREE: He wants a baby, Elaine tells Jerry at the diner. Puddy thinks that with the birth of the billionth, the government is sure to step in and start regulating, issuing sanctions, like one baby per married couple, that sort of thing. And because he’s single, likes being single, and intends to stay single, he may never have a kid of his own if they don’t have one now. Elaine frowns. She broke up with Puddy. She tells Jerry she doesn’t want to have a baby. Having a baby is serious business . . . a lifetime commitment. You can’t just have a baby. Elaine decides on the spot that the sponge ad MUST go in.
George arrives. He is having problems of his own. He tells Jerry and Elaine that, since the birth of the billionth, his girlfriend won’t have sex with him now because she’s worried that any birth control could fail. No way, no how, no matter what George offered to the contrary, she is not taking any chances until someone comes up with something foolproof. He gives Elaine dagger eyes and says how his girlfriend claims she doesn’t want to be part of the problem.
Jerry tells George to take heart, maybe when Kramer comes up with his soup recipe, it will solve all his problems.
SCENE FOUR: Back at Jerry’s apartment, George tells Jerry that maybe Kramer is on to something with the soup idea. Think about it: You have a date, you pick up the girl and bring her soup. Valentine’s Day, you give her soup. At dinner, you order soup. And if she orders it, well . . . that takes the guesswork out of the date. It kills two birds with one stone. A kind of culinary foreplay. Cheaper than flowers, healthy, effective and it tastes good too—it shows you care.
They soon learn, when Kramer bursts in with the news, that the Soup Nazi will not cooperate. He will not compromise the integrity of his recipes by adding to them. But not to worry. Kramer says he and Newman are going into business together. They’ll devise a soup of their own, they’ll franchise it out. They’ll be rich, Jerry . . . rich!
Jerry’s not so sure. He reminds Kramer that he and Newman are not scientists; they won’t know what to put in the soup that will stop the population growth. You start messing with chemicals, he tells Kramer, you’ll kill someone. Kramer thinks aloud how that would stop the population growth, but Jerry cries, IT’S NOT THE SAME THING!
SCENE FIVE: Meanwhile, Elaine is taking calls on her sponge ad from every weirdo in the city.
SCENE SIX: Jerry is starting to feel the pinch. Waving for a cab, two—no, three—people run to it. On the street, he is a small part of a huge herd of people. Bumped and tousled. It is a city with people on top of people, and Kramer’s words echo in his brain . . . No room to move. When Jerry sees a crowd gathering at the hot dog stand, he thinks . . . People will start eating people. In the crowded elevator, there is . . . no air . . . barely enough room to breathe.
Jerry has a fitful night. He dreams about the diner and people happily ordering such items as Pamburgers and Mikeshakes, as well as Leg of Louis and Flo’s Toes (the new name for French fries). It is a new world. There is no longer controversy over what’s in a Frankfurter.
SCENE SEVEN: At the diner, Jerry relates his dream to George, who frets that chubby people won’t stand a chance. Both Jerry and George are going to the ZPG rally. They have no choice. Kramer has been badgering them and, after the night he’s had, Jerry is all for zero population growth. George agrees, it’s time to take action, though neither has a clue what to do.
Elaine shows up looking like she’s been in a dog fight. It seems Newman answered her ad. He said he had what she wanted. So she agreed to meet him in the alley behind the building. Oh, he had sponges all right, Elaine cries, pulling out one from her purse—bath sponges! She told Newman that was NOT what she wanted, but he said technically sponges were sponges; and since she was offering big bucks and he needed the money for his soup scheme, she better pay up or he’d sue for false advertising. She told him he could put the sponges in his soup—she was a little testy after all the bogus calls that were coming in from guys hitting on her—and lunged at Newman in an attempt to stuff the sponge down his throat. But she wasn’t quick enough, and broke a nail for her effort.
Jerry says that maybe putting the ad in the paper wasn’t such a good idea, but Elaine disagrees. She smiles. She’s met a man who sounds promising, and they’re having dinner after the rally.
FINAL SCENE: At the ZPG rally, Jerry, George and Elaine are all holding signs showing their support, wondering where Kramer is. They think it takes a lot of nerve for him to miss his own party. When he finally does show up—without a sign and without apparent interest—he tells them he’s just come to see what all the fuss is about. Since the soup scheme failed, he’s got another idea. He’s going to Venus and he’s taking half the earth’s population with him. He’ll be a national hero, revered, when he’s gone.
Jerry just rolls his eyes. He thinks Kramer is already gone.
Original cartoon by Pete Emslie, The Cartoon Cave
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