Wikipedia is your friend.

how does this help?

the guy just didnt know the answer to your question, and thought he would try to appear smart.

Unrelated to the Seinfeld reference, but he *was* secretly gay, and lived a pretty miserable life by most accounts. An earlier studio-aided-and-enforced closet case like Rock Hudson.

Guys you may be overthinking this. I had the same question and the wikipedia page does seem to have the answer. And I quote: "Midway through the movie's production in 1943, Johnson was involved in a serious car accident that left him with a metal plate in his forehead and a number of scars on his face that the plastic surgery of the time could not completely correct or conceal; he used heavy makeup to hide them for years. "


Van used heavy makeup to hide scars, Uncle Leo is suggesting Jerry is also using something to hide some flaws on his face. I think this case is closed.

23 Paces To Baker Street

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_P...o_Baker_Street

"Philip Hannon (Van Johnson) is a blind man who lives in a London flat "

Ok. If he's wearing sun glasses as a blind man then that would probably be a better explanation.

He does not wear sun glasses in the movie.

It only took 12 years to get the answer. We nailed it.

"He does not wear sun glasses in the movie."

Thanks for posting the movie. I couldn't find it on Amazon. Even if he doesn't wear sunglasses in the movie I still think that's the right reference. Leo is basically saying "What are you, blind?"

12 years late, but I always interpreted the line as Uncle Leo accusing Jerry of behaving like a self-important celebrity --the kind that would wear sunglasses all the time, and in Uncle Leo's mind Van Johnson was the biggest movie star he could think of, which kind of puts the joke on Leo because it is such an odd reference even for someone from his generation. And I still think that's the point of the reference. if anybody watching the episode 30 years ago (or today) got that there was a deeper dive into the fact that Johnson played a blind man in a movie, then hooray for them. And Johnson is another word for penis, so there's that.

Was Johnson or even Dick used as penis slang back in Uncle Leo's day?

Why would that matter?

The premise of the line from a character standpoint is just that Leo is an oddball and his frame of reference on Hollywood is out of step.

The choice of Van Johnson versus, for example, Alan Ladd or Dana Andrews is (theoretically and very subliminally) a dick joke on the part of the writer..

That makes sense. And it's funny how people are saying check google when this thread is the first result on Google for Seinfeld questions about Van Johnson! (that's how I got here)

Funny enough, I'm working my way through Seinfeld: The Complete Series on DVD in the background at work and this episode came on the same day this thread was resurrected. I am watching the show with the "Notes About Nothing" feature, little tidbits of trivia on the screen instead of subtitles It's a really well done feature on every episode. There's even a Kramer entrance counter! Anyway, here's what the DVD producer team wrote:

"Van Johnson was born in 1916. He was a popular film star during the 1940s and '50s. In 1942, Johnson was injured in a major car accident that left him with a metal plate in his head. This may help to explain Uncle Leo's reference."

Between that and Uncle Leo just plain being weird, that's the official word.

Even if someone did not know who Van Johnson was, Google will tell you he was a movie star in the 40s/50s. So his identity was never the question. The question was why Uncle Leo would choose him to reference, and then people over-thought it.
Why would the DVD include the info about him having a plate in his head? That's just confusing.

Shit, my dad does that all the time, talking about semi-obscure old actors (or singers, or songs, etc.) that the average younger person is clueless about. That's what old people do, Leo is old, I thought that was the gag.

You got it.

He could have said "Who are you? Edie Brickell?" to the same effect.

Sorry, I'm going to play "Let's take the structure of a joke seriously."

Even though she was relatively famous when this episode aired, it would not make sense for Uncle Leo to know who she is, and the Van Johnson reference DOES make sense from a character perspective --he's old and his references are out of date. Also, it has to be a movie star. That's the premise of the line: movie stars where sunglasses in public.

Or maybe you're just overthinking it

That's why all the successful comics just get up on stage and say whatever pops into their heads in the moment rather than writing and rewriting and structuring their jokes.

Foster Grant sunglasses used to have a "Who's that behind those Foster Grants?" ad campaign. I was vaguely aware of Van Johnson and figured he was in one of those ads.

Van seems like a name that has fallen out of fashion these days. I can't recall ever meeting a Van in my life.

It wasn't even his real name.
Charles Van Dell Johnson (August 25, 1916 – December 12, 2008) was an American film, television, theatre and radio actor, singer, and dancer. He was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during and after World War II.