TV Character Profile: Newman

Name: Newman
Show: Seinfeld


Newman is a frequent source of annoyance to Jerry, such as in attracting fleas to the apartment ("The Doodle"), and generally making Jerry's life more difficult. However, the depth of Jerry and Newman's enmity seems to vary between episodes—or even within the same episode ("The Soul Mate")—and Jerry sometimes seems to consider him merely an annoying neighbor, rather than an outright enemy. At times they even work together on some scheme, though with some reluctance on Jerry's part (and usually with mutual friend Kramer as a buffer). In "The Old Man", Jerry casually mentions "a couple of friends," referring to Kramer and Newman. In "The Blood", Newman even does a considerable favor for Jerry, seemingly without ulterior motives (though the nature of the favor actually makes it quite distressing to Jerry). In any event, Newman often seems quite amused at how effectively he irritates Jerry (which of course only irritates Jerry all the more), although any battle of wits between them rarely leaves Newman the victor. Jerry and Newman also attend Super Bowl XXIX together, but only due to a ticket mix-up.

Newman is a good friend of Kramer's, and the pair are forever participating in various get-rich-quick schemes. In "The Bookstore", Newman and Kramer decide to use a rickshaw to transport people from place to place. In "The Old Man", Newman and Kramer try to find valuable records to sell for cash. "The Bottle Deposit" features the most creative scheme between Kramer and Newman to bring many deposit bottles (5 cents in New York) in a mail truck all the way to Michigan (10 cents each). Even Newman's friendship with Kramer, however, can be overcome by Newman's obsession to win in any situation; in "The Label Maker", he and Kramer play a game of Risk and when Kramer leaves the game board in Jerry's apartment for safekeeping, Newman goes so far as to sneak into Jerry's apartment via the fire escape with intent to rearrange the pieces' layout in his favor, although he is detected and flees before he actually changes anything.

As Kramer puts it in the episode "The Reverse Peephole", Newman can climb trees "like a ring-tailed lemur," a skill he claims to have learned in the Pacific Northwest. Despite his girth, Newman is a "fantastic" tennis player and a nimble runner. He is seen running athletically in several episodes. In the finale Newman claims to be one quarter French. In "The Label Maker", Jerry even agrees with George that Newman is "merry", which appeared to be a compliment of sorts.

Newman takes his job as a mailman with pride but, paradoxically, is portrayed as a lazy worker with such habits as not working when it is raining or hiding bags of mail in Jerry's basement storage locker rather than delivering them. Despite such clear lack of respect for mail, he nevertheless impulsively protests the idea of any mail being considered "junk". He is sometimes known to use his job for corrupt purposes, such as purposely withholding mail (often utility bills or the like) for blackmail revenge, or using the Union to get himself out of jail.