For nine seasons, "Seinfeld" was one of the most consistently funny sitcoms ever to air on network television. The show did nothing to buck the conventional wisdom about what a sitcom should be (much to the dismay of some NBC executives), but it gradually won over television viewers with its fiercely acerbic tone and high-level Jerry Seinfeld-Julia Lewis ensemble cast. -Dreyfuss, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards. And the fact that his humor can get dark has never bothered enough viewers to cause a drop in ratings. Although more than a few fans of the show gasped when George's fiancee Susan died from licking cheap envelopes at the end of season seven, they got over the shock and returned in the fall.

The show hit its share of nerves in addition to Susan's shocking death. The episode "Puerto Rico Day".which showed Cramer accidentally setting a Puerto Rican flag on fire and stomping on it to put out the fire, sparked public protests. Meanwhile, cast members once railed against an episode where Elaine gets a gun (the script he was sold on for a lot of money at auction). And Jason Alexander famously took on "The Bris" which he found offensive in his pandering to the Jewish rite.

What about the man who gave the series its name? Did Jerry Seinfeld ever feel like "Seinfeld" had gone too far? You might be surprised to learn that he did, and it's one of the series' early classics.

The Season 3 episode "The Alternate Side" is probably best known for launching the Seinfeld catchphrase "These pretzels are making me thirsty." This is the only line of dialogue given to Kramer when he is cast in a Woody Allen film, from which he is fired when he accidentally breaks a beer glass and sends a shard flying into the director's eye. While this is going on, George gets a temporary job, re-parking the neighbors' cars on the days when the other side of the street is being cleaned (a bow of the five best Georges in my opinion).

The element of this episode that bothered Seinfeld had to do with Elaine's 66-year-old boyfriend having a stroke just as she was about to break up with him. The man's condition worsens when George causes a commotion in the street through a traffic accident, which prevents the ambulance and paramedics from reaching him.

While appearing on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live in 2012, Seinfeld told Andy Cohen, “There was one where a guy had a stroke and we were feeding him on the couch. I felt very uncomfortable with that episode." Seinfeld didn't elaborate on his discomfort with this scenario, but it's possible that getting older and knowing more people who have had strokes played a role. It stands out as a particularly dark episode in the series' run, but, again, the show killed susan! And then it set off her death for a darkly tumultuous series of episodes in the next season. But everyone has their sensitive areas, and this was clearly Seinfeld's.