The Surprising Job Seinfeld's George Costanza Originally Had

"Seinfeld's" George Costanza (Jason Alexander) is a man of many dubious talents, which he showcases in predictably disastrous ways during his stints of employment. A deeply insecure and neurotic habitual schemer, George seems like a bad fit for most jobs, and shows as much over the course of the sitcom's nine seasons. However, in appropriately self-deprecating fashion, Jerry Seinfeld originally had a very fitting job in mind for his fictional self's flawed best friend. In a 1998 interview with NY Mag, Seinfeld revealed that George was originally going to be Jerry's funnyman colleague. 

"Originally the George character was a comedian too. At that time, stand-up had a little more novelty than it does now. It seemed like it might be an interesting thing for people to see, how comedians come up with their material, because people always ask me that question."

The stand-up theme was going to go much further than Jerry's trademark show segments, too. In the same interview, Seinfeld revealed that the show was originally going to have a heavy focus on life as a stand-up comedian, to the point that its working title was "Seinfeld's Stand-up Diary." 

While George Costanza might or might not have excelled as a stand-up comedian, there's no question that the decision to make him a bit of a job drifter paid handsome dividends. After all, every season of "Seinfeld" benefits from George's shenanigans, and the fact that there's only one episode that doesn't feature Jason Alexander's character speaks volumes of his importance to the show. Combined with his well-defined core personality, George's general inability to hold a job means that creators Seinfeld and Larry David were able to place him in a vast variety of professional environments and milk the situation for every bit of comedy. 

As a result, the character could always be given a lengthier gig, if it was funny enough — namely, the job as the Assistant to the Traveling Secretary of the New York Yankees he gains at the end of season 5 and holds on to for quite a while. He also can (and absolutely does) run a gamut of increasingly absurd jobs, from a delightfully meta stint as a sitcom writer to various doomed attempts to become a salesperson or an office drone. More often than not, the character's interactions with his bosses and coworkers are reliable comedy gold, and even the worst episodes of "Seinfeld" are that little bit better whenever they remember to give some attention to George's eternally bedeviled professional life.