you remember that dress that swept the
Internet a couple months ago I mean
what's the deal with that it's like was
it black was it gold pick a color and
stick with it am i right and what about
that 90's show Seinfeld that started
every episode with a stand-up bit it's
like Hello we know you're a comedian but
this is a sitcom so get to the episode
already am i right
[Music]
hello Internet welcome to film theory
where sometimes we do episodes that
aren't about Game of Thrones so maybe
now you're breathing a sigh of relief
because you're like finally film theory
will be covering a show I've actually
seen something that I can relate to well
hate to break it to you you youth of the
nation because today we're talking about
Seinfeld no this episode wasn't pulled
from BuzzFeed's latest 90s nostalgia
list 27 struggles that were all too real
to nineties kids we're talking about the
series that's widely considered to be
the best sitcom of all time I know that
top pad of 1995 loved it and now the
series just had a recent resurgence over
one specific episode that I just had to
talk about a couple weeks ago one of the
show's stars Jason Alexander appeared on
the Howard Stern Show to talk about his
character George Costanza I would say
that he's the unlovable one of the cast
but basically the whole show revolved
around for people who just did awful
awful things all the time
hilarious things but legitimately awful
things here watch the money for the lipo
and yeah you still like them it was
pretty incredible anyway at the top of
season 7 George gets engaged to a woman
named Susan it's a recurring plot
throughout the season but Jason
Alexander revealed in the Howard Stern
interview that her sense of comedy was
never able to mesh with any of the
show's regular cast members so as a way
to fix the problem they killed her off
in one of the most bizarre and memorable
episodes of the series
Susan dies in the season 7 finale but
it's not her death that's so bizarre
it's the way in which she dies it's not
murder it's not suicide it's not even
cancer it's envelopes yes Susan dies by
licking her own wedding invitation
envelopes
apparently the glue and the wedding
invitations was toxic
and the internet being the Internet this
issue of course spawned countless
medical web forum debates about whether
stamp and envelope licking could
actually kill you and for us it's a
question too fun to pass up so in this
episode of film theory my mouth is
watering in anticipation of finding out
whether a person can die from licking
too much envelope adhesive get it
watering it's a joke because it's about
licking envelopes
he's a stretch let's move on to examine
whether this plot has any sticking power
I'm on fire today we need to take a
closer look at the circumstances around
Susan and B envelopes we don't ever get
a close-up of the envelope itself or the
adhesive that kills her but the show
leaves us a couple clues that help us
tear open this sticky situation don't
worry I'll stop I'll behave myself let's
start with buying the invitations George
and Susan go to pick them up from a
stationery store in Manhattan where the
sales clerk shows them their options
George immediately flips to the back of
the binder where the cheapest
invitations are kept because you know
guys just don't really understand all
the hoopla around a car that people are
just gonna throw out anyway Google
Calendar invite maybe customize the
color or something whatever anyway as we
learn from the store clerk the cheapest
invitations the one George happens to
choose have been discontinued for quite
some time
they haven't manufactured that one for a
number of years why don't they make them
anymore well for one thing the glue
isn't very adhesive so the scene
actually tells us a lot one the
envelopes are old this episode was
produced in season seven of Seinfeld
which aired in 1995 the store clerk says
that the envelopes haven't been printed
in several years which leaves us a
pretty open window as far as the
envelope time frame to the envelopes are
cheap and three they're not very
adhesive so let's start with the first
piece of evidence the old envelopes
believe it or not the wide world of
envelope adhesive Sciences well a thing
that actually exists but even more than
that is an area where there have
actually been some interesting advances
over the course of the last century oh
man
Century VR better watch out for that
emerging envelope tech hole boy anyway
modern envelope adhesives have their
in World War two packaging and shipping
where the US government needed adhesives
that would resist jolting and unsticking
in bad weather and trips across the
ocean
the majority of adhesives up to that
point and still today actually are
solvent adhesives a solvent adhesive is
usually made out of some kind of starch
like potato starch or flour the idea is
that when you get it wet it gets sticky
and as the water evaporates around it it
hardens well in World War two they
needed something stronger more resilient
their answer was a synthetic resin
called polyvinyl acetate or PVA c.p vac
which is actually derived from petroleum
but unlike the petroleum we use to make
gasoline or vick's vapo rub but pee vac
is a glue in World War two pee vac
adhesives were used because they were
super waterproof and could be used on
almost anything after the war PVA
adhesive was rolled out commercially and
started to be used in pretty much
everything from sealants to sticky
labels on tin cans to envelope glue in
the late 1950s manufacturers started to
change the formulation of polyvinyl
acetate to remove its waterproofness but
that seems weird right having watertight
seals on envelopes and boxes seems like
a really good idea doesn't it well the
primary reason for this change was that
the waterproof version was difficult to
seal I mean think about it if your
adhesive is waterproof it also makes it
resist well your tongue in other words
to get past the waterproof envelope glue
you would have to apply more spit to
activate the adhesive and once you had
it sealed it would take a longer time to
dry going back to our evidence from the
episode it takes a lot of moisture to
make them stick doesn't stick well and
needs a lot of moisture seems like we're
getting our answer signed sealed and
delivered I'm sorry I just had to fit
one more in so now we have evidence for
the existence of old envelopes that are
difficult to seal and required more
licks to stick but that doesn't mean
they're poisonous right right well
polyvinyl acetate contains trace
elements that you wouldn't want to spend
an afternoon slurping up specifically
heavy metals and one in particular
arsenic sound familiar arsenic is known
as the king of poisons the
most famous and one of the most deadly
poisons in the world inorganic arsenic
was the choice poison for royal
assassination since before the Middle
Ages it's been implicated in Napoleon's
death and was used in some of the first
war gases in World War two and one of
its more recent victims Susan from
Seinfeld in the scene leading up to
Susan's death we see her getting tired
of licking envelopes then we see her
appearing to get lightheaded kinda woozy
and then she collapses it's not much to
go on but it does align to the symptoms
of arsenic poisoning if say the poison
were cyanide Susan would have started to
feel an abrupt shortness of breath
because the poison directly targets
respiratory function for biological
weapons like anthrax the poisoning isn't
immediate and can take days or even
weeks to kill with arsenic though the
first symptoms would be quick and
neurological dizziness weakness and
delirium as we see Susan become more and
more sick over the course of the
afternoon we notice her becoming visibly
more sluggish weaker more tired until
she just keels over the exact way
arsenic would kill a bride-to-be whoa
wait wait why o mean girl 20 to 15 don't
run to throw away all your envelopes and
stamps just yet P VAX today are
considered non-toxic
which is good since it's in school glues
so you keep eating your paste weird
preschooler in the corner you do you you
do you so does that mean we've debunked
the show heck no remember we're talking
about pee VAX put on envelopes from the
1950s you see today the Food and Drug
Administration or FDA is responsible for
regulating the amount of dangerous or
nasty stuff that makes its way into
products we ingest and that includes
adhesives that stick envelope shots but
back in the 1950s the FDA didn't
regulate non-traditional food items like
stamps or envelopes why would they there
the Food and Drug Administration not the
Food Drug and adhesive Administration
FDA a doesn't have the same ring to it I
guess in fact the first regulations on
these sorts of glues were based on my
research either in 1968 or 1973 nearly
20 years
later the invitations we see Susan
licking would have been unregulated
untested envelopes made at a time when
no limitations around arsenic levels
existed in other words as she licked she
would slowly be ingesting decades-old
arsenic until eventually dying sound
unbelievable well it's not in the late
1890s people were getting poisoned by
their wallpaper as hangers mixed arsenic
into the wallpaper paste that tacky
floral print in the bedroom was
literally killing them so stuff like
this isn't unheard of which means we
have one final question dancer was there
enough arsenic in the envelopes to
actually kill Susan well in the season
seven opener
George estimates that Susan is five foot
three inches and about a hundred pounds
that small stature means she's gonna be
a lot more susceptible to poisoning I
did the calculations and based on her
height and weight Susan would need to
consume about 300 milligrams of arsenic
to kill her and so how many envelopes
does she lick well we hear repeatedly
through the episode that they're looking
at around 200 guests for the wedding so
let's assume worst case and say that
each individual is getting their own
invitation that's 300 milligrams of
arsenic spread across 200 invites or 1.5
milligrams of arsenic per envelope sound
reasonable well it's not quite frankly
it's too much way too much even with
untested glues on envelopes for every
envelope the weight of the adhesive
strip applied to the flap is about 500
milligrams at one point five milligrams
that would mean arsenic would constitute
about point three percent of the glue
seems like a small enough number right
well FDA safety standards are defined in
units of parts per million which in
simplest terms means that for every
million pieces of glue there can only be
a certain number of pieces of arsenic
right now the acceptable amount of
arsenic and lickable adhesives is set to
three parts per million and a typical
formula only requires about two to work
for Susan to have died of arsenic
poisoning from licking two hundred
envelopes that level would have to be
three thousand
parts-per-million one thousand times
more than where it is today and quite
frankly that's too much let's just look
at the anecdotal evidence history has
zero reported cases of this sort of
thing happening if the levels were ever
truly that high brides-to-be would have
been dropping dead left and right back
in the Nifty 50s in fact even if we
doubled the acceptable amount of arsenic
in today's envelopes she would still
have to lick a staggering three million
envelopes in a single afternoon even if
she were somehow able to fully lick an
envelope every second three million
seconds is the equivalent of 34 days of
straight envelope licking which would no
longer put her in the range of acute
poisoning but would kill her from
dehydration in a fraction of that time
thirsty and okay I know what you're
thinking what about cutting her tongue I
thought it - well that certainly does
reduce the number that she would need to
lick but only down to a third leaving a
measly 1 million envelopes to get
through and honestly George Costanza
just doesn't have that many friends so
long story short for as brilliant as the
Seinfeld series was and as many panicked
WebMD posts as this episode is inspired
it simply is impossible to be poisoned
by licking conventional envelopes
new-old even with all the tongue paper
cuts you want so sorry Larry David it
was a good try and it might have taken
us 20 years to get there but film theory
has sealed this one up yadda yadda yadda
no soup for you but hey that's just a
theory a film theory and cut what's the
deal with subscribing I mean sometimes
my subs see the episodes sometimes they
don't I mean why can't the YouTube
algorithm just show my videos to
everyone who wants to see them am i
right well you should subscribe anyway
that said welcome back to the super
amazing end card tournament where we
have a lot to catch you up on since the
channel launched don't worry I'll make
it quick in our recent Fifty Shades of
Grey theory I was able to convince an
overwhelming 97% of you that Christian
Grey's tactics were indeed the same as
cult indoctrination strategies then in
Doctor Who part 1 your favorite villain
winning by 46 percent of the vote was
the weeping angels in our first Game of
Thrones episode looking at the secrets
behind Jon Snow Tyrion was the overall
winner of your favorite character with
57 percent with Arya and Danny in a
distant second and third each with about
20 and speaking of Game of Thrones with
our second theory on the subject I was
almost able to convince most of you that
my Jorah theory was correct but with 44%
the majority of you still think that Jon
Snow will be the one to slaughter the
ice zombies we'll see how that goes for
you and finally the last two in our
future movies episode two-thirds of you
said that you were excited about
watching movies in 4d with one third of
you preferring the old-school Leanback
popcorn munching experience and finally
in our how to win a Best Actor Academy
Award episode 80% of you showed the love
to Leonardo DiCaprio giving him an
honorary nod for Best Actor got all that
good
no no one this week cuz that was a lot
but in case you missed any of those
previous episodes here they are if you
ask me the 50 shades of grey one might
be my favorite theory we've done in a
while plus it's got cinemasins so extra
win there now if you'll excuse me this
end slate has gotten too long and I've
got a date with some dwarves so I'll see
you next time