Michael Richards Reveals His Favorite Kramer Moments on ‘Seinfeld’

Ask Michael Richards for his favorite Kramer moment and he does not reach for a catchphrase or an entrance. He goes straight to the times he got beaten up by a man half his size.

"When I'm into the physical comedy," Richards told Rich. "I liked it when I used to get in brawls with little Mickey."

The bit worked, Richards explained, because the comedy ran in exactly the opposite direction of what the audience expected. Kramer thought he had the upper hand. Kramer did not have the upper hand.

"I love that. Having Kramer think that he could take Mickey," Richards said, "and here's little Mickey just knocking him about."

The one thing that never quite worked was getting his scene partner to commit to the violence. Richards kept asking Danny, the actor playing Mickey, to actually connect.

"I'd always tell Danny, now really hit me, really hit me. And he could never really hit me. He was such a nice guy," Richards said. "I said, hit me, though. The harder you hit me, the funnier it'll be. Nope, he would not."

Rich asked the obvious follow-up. Did Richards ever get hurt doing all of it?

"No," Richards said. "I was well padded."

That answer turns out to be more literal than anyone watching in the 1990s would have guessed. Elbow pads. Knee pads. Every time.

"I took all that very, very seriously," Richards said. "Back then, in the '90s, there was great gear you could get to protect yourself, sport gear, things like that. I was into it."

He did not announce it to the room, either. No one on set got a heads up. Richards simply did the math on the furniture in front of him and dressed accordingly.

"I didn't tell anybody, hey, look," he said. "I knew if I'm going to take a bump off that wall or the corner of that couch or I'm going to go over that chair, yeah, I'm going to be padded up for it."

Then there is the stunt that required more than sporting goods. Richards described a scene where Mickey loses his temper, charges him, and throws his full body weight into him while Richards is sitting on a crate a short distance off the floor. Richards had to go over backward and absorb both of them on the landing.

"My back is going to hit that floor," he said. "So I had a piece of metal made so that I could wear it and it would protect my spine, and when I hit that floor, yeah. Otherwise, I don't know if I'd be around."

Physical comedy tends to get described as fearless. Richards makes it sound like something closer to engineering.