David Puddy
Posted on 17. Sep, 2011 by admin in Characters
He is Elaine Benes’s on-and-off boyfriend. Puddy first appears in the season six episode “The Fusilli Jerry” as Elaine’s new love interest. Jerry had been casual friends with Puddy before he went out with Elaine, and he had spoken of a sexual technique with Puddy known as “The Move.” Elaine is pleasantly surprised when Puddy uses this distinctive maneuver on her, as she had previously dated Jerry and experienced the same technique before. Puddy next appears as Elaine’s current boyfriend and as an obsessive fan of the New Jersey Devils in “The Face Painter”, also in season 6.
Elaine and Puddy break up and make up frequently. In season nine’s “The Butter Shave”, the two manage to break up, get back together again and break up again all during the course of an international flight, much to the chagrin of ‘Vegetable Lasagna’, a Scandinavian seat-mate of the duo. In “The Voice”, Elaine actually bets Jerry she can break up with Puddy and stay broken up, a bet she loses several times throughout the episode. When she finally realizes she likes being with Puddy, he breaks up with her. In the season nine episode “The Burning”, Elaine reveals a motive for reuniting with Puddy to George: “I needed to move a bureau.” A reason Elaine once gives for breaking up with Puddy is: “I think his answering machine is broken, so I just gave up.” (“The Wizard”). Conversely, Elaine gives the following reason for getting back together with Puddy: “His apartment was being fumigated so we thought we’d give it another shot.”
Elaine finds Puddy attractive for his masculine qualities, such as his large physique, supposed sexual prowess, deep voice, and the fact that he works with his hands; early in their relationship, Elaine compares him to Stanley Kowalski; Jerry quips that such a relationship “didn’t end well for Stella”. She is turned off by his casual, lackadaisical attitude toward relationships and what she perceives as his odd behaviors, such as face and body painting in support of the New Jersey Devils, and his love of Arby’s. She also finds his religious beliefs (“The Burning”) problematic, as she herself is not very religious. He is unfazed by her lack of faith, and reminds her in his matter-of-fact way that she is going to Hell. Puddy is also a recovering germaphobe; he wears a necklace with a germ emblem attached as both proof of the phobia and as a reminder of his struggle. His catch phrase is “Yeah, that’s right,” delivered in a deadpan manner, consistent with his speech pattern. Though Puddy originally appears as a mechanic, he is later promoted to salesman at a Saab dealership, after which Jerry tries to use him to get a good deal on a new car (“The Dealership”).
When Puddy agrees with someone strongly enough, he likes to get that person to give him a high-five, a habit which Jerry considers “the lowest form of male primate ritual.” Puddy is offended by people that use the term “grease monkey” to describe an auto mechanic, arguing “I don’t know too many monkeys that could take apart a fuel injector.”
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