George Costanza

"Like I don't know I'm pathetic"

- George knows he's pathetic "Yeah I'm a great quitter. It's one of the few things I do well. I come from a long line of quitters. My father was a quitter, my grandfather was a quitter… I was raised to give up"

- George Costanza

George Costanza was one of the main central characters of the hit comedy series, Seinfeld alongside Jerry Seinfeld, his best friend since childhood, Cosmo Kramer and Elaine Benes. He is played by Jason Alexander.

George is neurotic, impulsive and insecure. His name literally means "can't stand ya" in contrast to his undesirable personality. He also has a tendency to undergo explosive mood swings (sometimes in the most inappropriate times). He is also very easily dominated by his parents, Frank and Estelle Costanza who were equally as neurotic as their son. George's family doesn't celebrate Christmas as George's father believed that it was too over-commercialised and created his own holiday on the 23rd of December called Festivus. Instead of having a tree they have an aluminium pole which they decorated with tinsel, and they would go around the family table explaining how they had disappointed each other over the year. At the end of Festivus George is forced to do a feat of strength where he was forced to overpower his father. As the Costanza family grew older they stopped celebrating Festivus however after Kramer returned to his old job he convinced Frank to restart the holiday.

George has been described as a "short, stocky bald man" and an idiot by most of his friends, more specifically however in earlier seasons George was one of moderately average intelligence however it's revealed that his over-obsession with sex was the cause of his idiocy. When he puts his mind to it he is actually quite an intelligent person, even able to speak Portugese however when he has sex again he simply reverts back to his normal intellect.

George shares the same fate as the rest of the main characters. After trying to sell Jerry's show to a company in California however on the way there Kramer hops up and down on their private jet to get water out of his ears and causes the plane to go down and they are forced to land in a nearby town. There they are all seen a fat guy being mugged for his car and instead of helping they make jokes and Kramer even records it on his phone. In doing this they accidentally break "The Good Samaritan Law" and after a trial which recollects all of thier "criminal moments" they are sent to prison for one year. It is presumed they are all let out after this.

George was portrayed by Jason Alexander.

Personality
George has been described as a really conniving liar, a "short-stocky bald man" and an "idiot." George is seen as being a neurotic, paranoid, anxious, impulsive, insecure, selfish, miserly, bitter, vindictive and greedy man yet despite this he was capable of being overconfident about his own superiority. George had a tendency to undergo very explosive mood swings which caught the eye of his friends more than once but despite this he saw himself as a very calm, level-headed person.

George is rifled with a startling amount of insecurities. A specific case was his dating life as he thought that being bald held back his potential romantically speaking. On one occasion he actually wore a wig for a friend of Elaine who he was being set up with which actually increased his self-worthiness by a mile however as it turns out the friend was bald herself which outraged him. George was also infuriated when he caught word that she was going to dump him, not so much that he was being dumped by her but being dumped by a bald person indicating wearing the wig went to his head. George possesses a massive infatuation with the actress, Marissa Tomei as apparently her favourite type of man was one who was "bald and stocky" and forced Elaine to set a date with her. However he was engaged at the time and after Marissa Tomei discovered this it earned George a punch in the face.

Unlike Kramer and Elaine but similar to Jerry, George isn't much of a smoker. In fact George has never held a cigarette in his life and the only time he has actually smoked was when he was trying to get Susan to end their engagement however he ended up hacking violently and actually threw up.

George is seen as being somewhat temper-traumatic. He is easily displeased to put it gently, in fact so much that the slightest inconvenience would send him completely over the edge. Such as when in a theatre a man with a laser pen stole his opening for a joke which caused him to scream his frustrations to the laser pen guy however in retaliation the same person followed him around Peurto Rican Day trailing the laser beam across George's forehead, nearly going into his cornea. This got so bad that he signed himself up with Rageaholics. George is not without the occasional impulsive side however this normally ends up coming back to bite him. An example of this would be when a fire started at his girlfriends nephews party, he actually hurtled past her grandmother, the party clown and children all the way to the exit. Another case was a day at the beach where he raged at a couple who he was certain had stolen his clothes and in retaliation he destroyed their boom box. It was revealed that the tide had dragged his clothes and he gave the father a fake address before escaping. The father would later by his future boss, Mister Kruger

George seems unaware that he is normally the butte of his friends jokes, in his eyes the person the group always makes fun of is Elaine. Geroge had a tendency to speak in the third person, a trait which he picked up from the Maestro, ("George is getting UPSET! "George is in weird trouble!")

George's neuroticism most likely stems from his childhood of being dominated and controlled by his parents. Frank and Estelle Costanza are as equally neaurotic as their son and normally start a massive fight over the smallest things. George is very rattled by the mention of his childhood, an example would be when Kramer persuaded Frank into reigniting their old family holiday, Festivus a holiday that was similar to Christmas however it occured on December 23rd and instead of a Christmas tree they had a decorated aluminium pole and at their Festivus feast the family all voices how they have disappointed each other over the year. Festivus normally ended with a Feat of Strength which George was forced to try to overpower his father which imaginably made him extremely uncomfortable. Jerry describes the Costanza's as "psychopaths" and George commented that if they divorced when he was a child he might have "had a chance" to be normal as an adult.

Despite his incredible insecurities, George was a serial dater. He normally goes on different dates with different women all the time however the reasons for them breaking up are quite ridiculous. Such as when one of his dates beat him at chess and he simply broke up with her on the spot as apparently he felt too emasculated to perform sexually after that. On one occasion Geroge was extremely entranced by a woman he was dating however he knew that she was making plans to break up with him, to prevent this he avoids her all together stating, "she can't break up with me if she can't find me."

George was surprisingly satisfied with his life the way it was, he displayed no interests in being engaged or even getting married, in fact the whole reason that he got engaged to Susan Ross was becuase he and Jerry made a pact to change their lives. As their engagement became closer, George was completely freaked out that "world's were colliding" (Elaine and Susan were developing a friendship) and he was losing his secrecy, so much that he panicked over having to share his PIN number with his fianceè. Geroge desperately tried to postpone the marriage as he was evidently too cowardly to break up with her face to face, he also concocted very hard-brained ideas such as taking up smoking or asking for a prenup which both failed to end it. Ironically while picking out the wedding invitations he ends up picking the cheapest ones which cause Susan to die.

George was rather indifferent to other people's concerns or well-being. This was most obvious when a fire started at his girlfriends party and he rocketed to the exit, shoving past her grandmother, the circus clown and countless children. Another situation was when at the hospital the doctor broke the news that Susan had died from an allergic reaction to the "toxic envelopes" that he picked out and didn't seem all that fazed that his fiancé dying was partly his fault, instead the doctor simply described it as "stifled joy." On one occasion he was competing for a girl who was already dating Neil, a man who looked exactly like George himself and when he was injured his girlfriend picked Neil over him, his final words to George actually were, "I win" which prompted him to pull the plug on his life support.

George should be remarked for his petty, vindictiveness and overall embittered nature. He is not a person to cross however most people tend to do so and he normally creates very intricate plans for revenge even if the reason for revenge was a very small thing to begin with, when he asked to borrow one of Jerry's friends sweaters during a very cold party he was met with a no as apparently he didn't want George's bulbous head to stretch the swearer. After he became an alcoholic and was making amends for the people he supposedly wronged George demanded an apology for this remark but was only met with a sharp remark in his direction. George was also incapable of not getting the last word in, when one of his co-workers, Riley joked over how much shrimp he ate during a meeting (hey, George. The ocean called they're running out of shrimp) and on the way home he thought of a comeback (well the jerk-store called, they're running out of you) until he eventually became obsessed about zinging him, so much that he flew all the way to Ohio and set him up for the "jerk-store" line only to be met with silence. When it was revealed that Jerry slept with his current girlfriend, Nina, George demanded reporarions and thought he should have slept with Elaine to make it equal.

Occasionally George's need for revenge makes him ignore the reason why he wanted revenge in the same place. At Puddy's dealership George was convinced that the mechanic had stolen his Twix bar (when he bought it actually got stuck in he vending machine and when the mechanic bought his own, George's Twix fell with it) however in George's mind "simply because he picked it up it does not indicate transference of ownership" and went over the mechanic's head to get him fired. He actually created a "candy line-up", ten Twix'es together without any wrappers to see if he can pick out the Twix he had presumbably stolen however at the time George was extremely hungry however he didn't eat any as he wanted revenge more than to be fed and when he got to the "candy line-up' they were all eaten.

George is a surprisingly resilient individual. While dating a travel agent who mistakes him for a tourist he pretended to be one as she was very attractive. When he planed to "move to New York" to contiue their relationship she remarked that New York would eat him alive, indicating that others saw him as a weak-willed person that was still able to survive in a cut-throat city. He was also able to withstand the abuse from his co-workers at his new job when they found out he had faked being paraplegic.

George is more reliant than lying towards his bosses and co-workers than his actual working experience, that if he had any to begin with. Jerry remarked that the three-years he spent working at the Yankee's he did virtually nothing. Instead of actually doing his job well, he decided to "grease up" Steinbrenner by using his new-favourite Calzone restaurant to put him in his bosses favour and in return Steinbrenner took his opinion to the heart and even granting all-out access to his private office. George occasionally uses his friends antics and eccentricities to put him in other people's favour (such as eating his Snickers with a knife and fork) which actually put him in his superior, Mister Wilhelm's liking until it eventually became a thing. George also not above lying about his medical condition to his work colleague, especially if it would put him in a favourable light or make his life easier, pretending to be handicapped as it would grant him his own personal bathroom, parking space and stair lift at his new job.

Despite being classed as an idiot by his friends, at the start of the series George was one of moderate intelligence, even taking an interest in the Civil War and on more than one occasion acted like a mentor towards Jerry he actually however as Seinfeld continued George became more "dumb." However it's revealed that this was brought on by an over-obsession with sex, when he doesn't only think about his own needs he is quite the smart individual, using his full intellectual potential he was able to solve a Rubik's Cube, answering a string of questions on Jeopardy! and was able to correctly answer Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams pointers on hitting on based Newtonian physics, George was able to read, understand and was even able to speak Portuguese which actually caused him to have sex with a Portuguese waitress and caused him to revert back to his normal intellectual state.

As mentioned beforehand George's parents are the source of constant annoyance in his life. It was also revealed that Estelle put George in diapers since he was 8 (or 7-and-a-half to be correct) and they themselves changed his used ones. His father is shown to be overly domineering towards his son and becuase of this it's no wonder George constantly tries to create a massive distance between them (or in his preference, Florida) however ironically in the way he imagined the situation in which he cut all ties with his parents, HE, was the one who cuts his parents out of his life and when it was them who did it first he wanted revenge and actually went out with his cousin to spite them. George remarks that he was afriad of Elaine but on some occasions they actually work pretty well together, Elaine also helps him find dates such as Marissa Tomei or her bald friend.

George occasionally works with Kramer fairly well however they are normally quite awkward together, as Jerry was the standing pole of their relationship. It is implied that George thinks Kramer is something of a screw-up, as when he was waiting for Cosmo to send his in-laws on a romantic horse-ride across New York as a distraction so he could return a stolen rye bread. While waiting he remarks "my whole plan is dependant on Kramer?!" Indicating that he doesn't put a lot of faith on his reliance. Kramer evidently has a better relationship with George's parents than George does.

George and Jerry have been best friends even since they were children, Jerry was the only member of the group who knew about Festivus and George was the only person who knew that during Jerry's school 100-yard dash he got a massive head-start which no-one reaslsied, and incorrectly thought he was the fastest kid in school. However due to their closeness many people mistake their relationship for gayness and on one occasion George went out with a woman who looked stunningly like Jerry, although George denied it at first but she cut her hair in the exact same way Jerry did, he instantly ran out

A running gag was when George reached the end of his tether he would literally scream out of that much frustration (when he used the plot of Wrath of Khan to get out of the Rosses loop but ended up being even more trapped, prompting him to yell KHAN to the sky).

Similar to Kramer and Elaine, George uses pseudonyms and aliases, the most common one was Art Vandely normally when trying to escape a situation he feels uncomfortable or to avoid meeting a person he considers annoying, like a date. George normally attempts to put himself on a high pedestal in relationships and would normally prefer to lie to make himself appear impressive or more interesting than he really was. While dating one of Elaine's co-workers, he pretends to be a "bad boy" however after Elaine tarnishes this "reputation" he responds by boot-legging pirated movies however when he was discovered he was reduced to tears as the policeman who brought him to the police station yelled at him, viciously.

He also shows interest in comic books as well, such as DC and Marvel and other fan-fiction. He normally engages in very frivolous conversations about topics of a comic book character with Jerry (such as does Iron Man wear any undergarments underneath his suit). George's PIN number is Kal-El (which is Superman's birth name). Despite his interest in comics, George hates reading and was too lazy to even read a ninety-page book for his assignment and instead tracked the film version down and watched it in a strangers house. George was even willing to sabotage an eye-test so he could buy audio books instead of actually reading