Seinfeld: How It Began (FULL)

the next guest is a young comedian who's making his very first appearance on The Tonight Show he's originally from New York City would you welcome him please Jerry Seinfeld Jerry weather reports are the same wherever you go in the country they always have the guy comes out he shows you the highs the lows the Front's then they show you the satellite photo this is real helpful a photograph of the earth from 10,000 miles away can you tell if you should take a sweater or nod from that shot I have no idea if I really need to know the weather I watch the Opera pick any show they lay it on the line if the little Willy guy in the wall gets a raincoat I know what's happening Jerry Seinfeld Thank You Jerry it was May 6 1981 first time at The Tonight Show and Johnny Carson gave him the okay sign which is the ultimate for any comedian in those days and Jerry feels to this day that appearance was the most important and most significant in his career I saw Jerry for the first time at the Comedy Store in Hollywood and after I saw him a couple of times I brought in Howard West My partner and I saw something very unique in someone that young he was about 26 years of age and he did a whole series of tonight shows and David Letterman and I sent a letter to Brandon Tartikoff I said dear Brandon call me a crazy guy but I think Jerry Seinfeld will soon be on NBC in a series I didn't know that George Shapiro had written a letter to NBC to tell them that he thought I should be on NBC which I didn't think I didn't think anything you know I really kind of decided I was just gonna be a comedian I've been sending letters to Brandon for years every time you know he got a good review or a magazine article I would send letters to Brandon this time it triggered a meeting the comedian's always hate any meeting in the middle of the day you always feel like this is screwing up my whole afternoon this is the whole reason I became a comedian so I could be free from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. as a solid block of complete you know mall schmooze time it's all we went to the meeting you know I mean George has gone to the trouble of writing the note I thought at least I could do was go to the meeting Jerry Seinfeld came in for a meeting with myself and Rick Ludwin and Rick was our executive who was in charge of late-night and specials and Rick really felt that Jerry did have a unique voice and he was scoring very very well on The Tonight Show we basically said to Jerry what would you like to do in television would you like to host a late-night show would you like to do primetime specials would you like to do a primetime series what is it Jerry that you would like to do in television we'd like to do it with you and I said the only thing I ever had in mind was to have a meeting like this this seemed like you were getting somewhere in show business but I don't have any ideas he wanted to play basically himself that's that's all he took out of it I found out later that he had been a semi-regular on a show called Benson and had had a terrible experience he was not in control of that show obviously he had to say the words that had been written by other people George Shapiro's favorite part of the story of Benson is how I got fired which was they neglected to tell me they fired me from the show and I just showed up Monday morning I went to my chair where the table reading was held and there was no script and I said how come this knows and get a script this week and someone had to call me aside and say cuz you're not on the show anymore after that first meeting in this office Jerry went back to New York that place over there it says prints properties that used to be catch a rising star legendary New York Comedy Club where I used to work and Larry used to work and we were standing in the bar and I started telling him that NBC was talking to me about doing a TV show and would I be interested in in working on it with him and of course I really didn't have anything going at the time and I didn't have any money and I said sure fine we left patch arising star and we walked into a Korean grocery store and we were getting something to eat and making fun of all these different items they have here and we started as we invariably did talking about some of the products in the store and you know there's always these things here like here's some korean ginseng Roy royal jelly comes in and jelly now so you can spread it it occurred to me that this is the kind of discussion that you never really hear on television and that that would in fact would be funny and Larry said this is what the show should be I said what he said just you know making fun of stuff oh yeah that's the show this is what the show became I remember I had heard that Jerry had signed a development deal with NBC and that it was putting together a show and actually Larry David's now wife Laurie and I we sort of credit the two of them joining forces creatively because of a birthday party that I had and I needed to bring a birthday gift and I didn't quite know what to get her I didn't really have any money and and I thought oh this will I have a good gift I'll write some litter I'll write some stand-up material for her so it was my birthday so huge thanks and I was kind of to treat the material so you know everybody said Oh Jerry you read it and I got big laughs reading this routine and it was kind of the first time that I thought his material really works well with my voice and maybe we would be a good team it was it was really very funny and I don't know if that was some kind of connection with my writing and his performing but if it was it was the first I was thinking about trying to get him to do this with him because he was the only person I knew that had ever written anything he wrote a movie script and I never knew a community that had written anything but you know an airline peanuts bit so he had actually typed something out on a piece of paper so he seemed like a writer to me and I thought I should get myself you know real writer but somebody that I could relate to somebody who had the same kind of bent we went to a diner the Westway diner the next night and this is the exact booth that we were at actually it isn't it was the one over there but it was just two ladies there so we couldn't get in there but this is very similar to the booth that we were at and we sat here about I don't know probably 12 1 o'clock in the morning we had both performed over at The Improv and trying to go what what could this show be where it's just you know nonsense and and and idiotic conversations was going to be about how a comedian gets his material it was gonna be a 90-minute special that was gonna fill in for Saturday Night Live one weekend one Saturday night when they were off we would follow Jere around with one camera not three cameras we would discuss it's a special after well we're gonna follow him around with one camera throughout a day or a couple of days or a week or whatever and see what this comedian Jerry Seinfeld experienced during that week and how what he experienced would eventually be formed into us into some stand-up material and then at the end of the show we would see him go on and do the material on that that was really what the show was that was that initial special and I just didn't think that you could sustain that for 90 minutes I thought maybe you could do it for 30 minutes and that's how it became a TV series it was gonna be a special all the way but I just didn't think we could we could last 90 minutes so instead we ended up making 90 hours once the ideas shifted from a special to a pilot then I think the George character came on because George /me in a way after we got the idea of the idea of two guys talking this was the idea what if we had two guys talking it was brilliant then I went to then george shapiro suggested I meet with the Rob Reiner at Castle Rock when they had the idea of doing essentially a conversational show which was an extension of love of Jerry's act I mean Larry and Jerry shared such a great sensibility and what was wonderful is you had this kind of curmudgeonly misanthropic dyspeptic Larry David being pushed through this very accessible likable Jerry Seinfeld even though they did share their comic sensibility there was a marriage made in heaven at one point when I asked the normal network questions like well who's going to be writing this with you Jerry obviously you have a strong voice and we want that voice to be recognized and you know have you thought about a strong showrunner you know someone who really knows what they're doing in the world a comedy television weekly episodic series television a strong creator executive producer and he said Larry David and for me it was a loud and clear who I started doing stand-up in New York in the late 70s I came out to California in 1979 to do a television show called Fridays which was sort of like a Saturday night clone show and then no sooner was I back in New York then I got hired as a writer on Saturday Night Live I wrote there for one season I got one sketch on the air which was on at 5:00 to 1:00 in the morning Larry David had been a writer on Saturday Night Live had as I understand it a rather fractious relationship with the executive producer of the show and I quit in the middle of the season I said the show stinks I'm leaving and on the way home I realized that I was costing myself a year in a year to live on in salary and my next-door neighbor Kramer said just go back and tell them that so just pretend it never happened and and I didn't of course I used that in one of our episodes Larry David was the Ultimate Comics comic you know the guy who went on stage and all the comics would come in the room and watch him because he was a great stand-up but he was not the type of stand-up who embraced the audience ladies gentlemen comedy stylings of Larry David he was about three minutes up there he wasn't really getting too many laughs and he goes I don't need this forget it he threw the microphone down called the audience a bunch of ignorant and and what he said you he said people and he left the stage I went wow what an act well but it was mostly on stage that I had seen him kind of uh you know lose his temper a little bit but I think it since we're not gonna be on stage you were just gonna be in a room maybe it wouldn't be so bad we pitched the show in much the same way that Jerry and George pitched the show to the NBC executives on the series Jerry and I came in and I had no experience to come up with well we thought about this in a variety of ways but the basic idea is I go ahead I think I can sum up the show for you with one word nothing nothing nothing what does that mean the show is about nothing well it's not about no no it's about nothing well maybe in philosophy but even nothing is something well as I was saying I I would play myself and as a comedian living in New York and I have a friend and a neighbor and an ex-girlfriend which is all true but nothing happens on the show see it's just like life well why am i watching it because it's on TV not yet we pushed it as as the one camera show and then I remember that they said oh no no no no no this is not one camera this is three cameras this is a three camera show and I I recoiled at the notion of a three camera show I'm not going to compromise my artistic integrity and I'll tell you something else this is the show and we're not gonna change it right no no no no no this is not the show and the room kind of went quiet and I looked over at one of the Castle Rock executives Glenn patnik and his his eye his eyes were popping out of his head yeah I think he thought that the whole thing was gonna go up and smoke right there that was the famous meeting if you think we're gonna if this is the idea and if you think we're gonna change it we're not which nobody had even suggested changing it he was throwing down the meaningless gauntlet Jerry had a way of kind of convincing me to do things and he said well we'll talk about it it'll be fine we could and then eventually I'm thinking now about the $25,000 that I'm gonna get for the pilot and I said oh well yeah maybe we could do with three cameras show and I remember ending the meeting and I looked at Rick and I said I don't know you know I look it's a script commitment you know it we haven't spent that much money on this guy and who the hell knows I guess we wrote the pilot and take us all that long to coat to go George from one of the episodes when he was lying about being an architect about the new wing on the good night take me that long we had a lot of fun writing that we always had fun writing it was never a struggle I don't remember us ever really racking our brains too much in writing we had a great chemistry the story of the pilot where a woman who a Jerry had met town asks if she could stay with him she was gonna be in New York for a couple of days and wonder if she could stay with him and what all that meant was the thing that we always were drawn to were these gaps in in society where no one there was no rules you know how do you find this out how do you ask this what does this mean there's no indication I have here I've saved all these years the very first draft that the network received Castle Rock Entertainment says right there and the interesting part of it is that the the title is not the Seinfeld Chronicles it's not Seinfeld it's stand-up it certainly wasn't a strong story drive and it was kind of all over the place but it was funny so we all said Oh what the hell let's try pilot on this thing and let's see what happens you know what Jerry's a funny guy they seem to have a pretty good thing going on here with with Larry God we still need to get a good showrunner on this show and we just said go make it a week later I had discovered a script that had been a half of it had been rewritten or maybe a third of it I'd say a third it didn't really make a difference who rewrote it once Woody Allen could have rewritten it I would have hated it it doesn't it doesn't matter it wasn't it's not it wasn't theirs it was ours and and once I thought I've been rewritten I was I was livid I remember a lot of very there was a lot of conversation reanimated conversation and I do remember a point and I bet you remember this too it was that Castle Rock and it was a big fight I think it was you and Andy as usually was and Gilbert was there and I could never figure out exactly what these guys were fighting about which side and I remember you turning to me one time and going so what do you think about yeah I was just determined to try and get as much as much of their stuff out that I could and as much of our stuff back and to that degree I succeeded I succeeded somewhat not all the way and to this day I have to say I have a lot of difficulty watching that pilot the role of George Costanza was just left off the page people have often asked me how come you didn't play George didn't you want to play George and the answer to that is no I had there was never a notion that I wanted to do this all I want to do was all I wanted to do here was write this thing get my money and go back to New York that's that was my only plan there was no plan of acting or anything like that and and plus they never would have approved of me as an actor anyway and how could I write it an act at the same time and and I had no I really had no interest in it at all we never thought it should be like Larry I mean obviously we wanted someone that could do the conversations the way Larry and I would do them but we really were just looking for someone who would be a counterpoint to the type of person that I was someone who would just be kind of different from what I was we started the process and saw every actor we could possibly see in Los Angeles nobody ever really hit it the way we thought that it needed I had worked with Jason Alexander when I was working on the casting of the original er I'd gotten my hands on I might have turned them to pieces by fenced in college carry on Alexander I'd seen him in a Neil Simon play broadway-bound but I was a different kind of character in that play and it was it was fairly dramatic that role I had no idea who Jason Alexander was I had never I don't even think I had heard of him I didn't get a script for the Seinfeld Chronicles they don't do that in New York they send you sides they send you you know a three or four page snippet but de Larry and I saw him on a tape which is the worst way to ever see anyone audition it they never no one ever comes off well and I read this thing and I had no context it was like no other pilot script I haven't read it had something to do with trying to tell Jerry that he was miss reading signals that this girl was giving him and it read very much like a Woody Allen film to me so using that as a model I went out and got a pair of glasses I didn't actually wear glasses at the time he was balding and he's a little overweight and he had on a pair of glasses and he was sitting on a stool and he was he had the script and he was just reading along with the casting director who wasn't on camera and I you know I did on the audition tape but you know a blatant Woody Allen impression I'm going signals Jerry its signals and I said that was wasted time but the second we saw him like two lines out of his mouth you went that's the guy that's it turn it off that's the guy apparently my imitation isn't as good as I think it wasn't quite reading for them as Woody Allen I mean it was just so completely obvious that he was he he was so talented and so funny and perfect just perfect I flew out I think I came to Castle the Castle Rock offices met Jerry met Larry yeah God knows who else was in the room we talked for awhile and I read a bit more of the stuff for them the two of them had a great chemistry right right from the beginning they were right on the same wavelength and you could see that this relationship was gonna work traditionally during the casting process we bring one two or three choices of our frontrunner for each role into the Network executive suite at NBC and the only other guy that I remember seeing in there may have been more but I don't think so the only guy that was auditioning that day was Larry Miller and I don't know why I knew this but I knew that Larry and Jerry were very good friends that's right Larry Miller Bret for the George part he was my best friend still is so I had nothing on it when I went into the room I was very relaxed because I knew I'm not getting this line Jerry's best friend is gonna get this and played it in the room there everybody laughed is that great thanks Larry shook my hand Jerry shook my hand whoever else was there sure glad i got directly into a car went right back to the airport and i think by the time I landed back in New York there was a call waiting that said they want to hire you so I can't believe you're bringing in an extra bed for a woman that wants to sleep with you why don't you bring in an extra guy look it's a very awkward situation I don't want to be presumptuous all right one more time one more time what was the exact phrasing of the request she said she couldn't find a decent hotel room a decent hotel room would it be terribly inconvenient if she stayed at my place you can't be serious this is New York City there must be 11 million decent hotel rooms flip this is the signal Jerry this initially in the pilot the character of Kramer was called Kessler I was living in New York at the time and I had a next-door neighbor who was a bit of an eccentric fellow named Kenny Kramer who was always coming into my apartment and just always prevailing upon me to do things I didn't want to do and he was a little overbearing at times but very lovable and funny and we started hanging out and we became very good friends I mean best friends you know and it's unlikely for us two guys to be such good friends because we're very different kinds of people I'm an outgoing fun-loving ready to party kind of guy and now this is George Costanza and he always got had a lot of women there and things were always happening in his apartment it was sort of like the mecca of the building and I thought this would be a good character also for the show you can live next door to this Kramer fell out yeah and he came in as an actual real-life wacky neighbor Jerry I think at first thought oh well that's too cliche the wacky neighbor you know but I knew this guy very well and I thought I could I can write I can write this character one day Larry comes in and says to me crane the sign phone asked me to write this pilot with him and I think I'm gonna do it but you know what I'd like to base a character on you and call him Kramer is that okay and I said certainly it's okay as long as I get to play Kramer and he says you can't be Kramer and I said but I am Kramer and one of the characters will be based on you know I don't what do you mean you don't think so tell you what you can do it on one condition whatever you want i get to play Kramer you can't play claim I am Kramer but you can't act I still didn't want to call him Kramer because I knew my real neighbor Kramer and I knew that by calling this character Kramer it was gonna open up a can of worms that I didn't really want to get involved in Larry was positive and it and correctly predicted that if we involve Kenny Kramer in any way in this show he exploit it to the maximum and become a complete pain which of course he did he's actually I think a great guy and a funny guy and but that name just had something that no other name had Jerry like the name Kramer so much he got he got so attached to this name and also don't forget while we while we were working on the first on the first couple of shows in my apartment which was right next door to Kramer's and we worked in my apartment Kramer was coming in while we were working I'd be on the phone with Jerry they'd be writing in Larry David's apartment and Jerry would say the real Kramer just came in and then Jerry would tell me what the real Kramer was doing he's going to the kitchen he's searching through he got something okay he left and I eventually prevailed on Larry said we have to change it to Kramer there's no other name there's something in that name that is that that just rings true Kramer eventually started calling the Castle Rock legal department and said and said listen if you're gonna use this name and he gave a whole list of things that demands that he wanted including some financial demands and he got everything he wanted for the character that was called Kessler at the time when we made the pilot they were very interested in Michael Richards he was one of those very special very rare talents that I had seen in my years in the business and I thought if he's available that that guy's you know he's one of those real Midas touch guys Michael Richards had been on Fridays we had both been on Fridays together he used to go on Jay Leno those years as a fitness expert and he would come out with black socks and and shorts and smoking and attempt to operate some sort of exercise machine would you please welcome Hollywood's top fitness trainer dick Williams later [Applause] now what are we gonna be doing here [Applause] Larry actually preferred another guy I knew the real Kramer and I was I was trying to match up the real Kramer in my head and Michael as funny as he is wasn't quite matching the way that I had seen the match but I was a big Michael Richards fan so Jerry said no no no it's got to be Michael and I said okay and boy was he right about that one NBC had some sort of a function at the Century Plaza Hotel and Brandon Tartikoff was pressed for time so the casting for Kramer took place at the Century Plaza Hotel I was standing in a lobby with people walking by talking to myself going over the lines and they just saw me went well those people in Hollywood are crazy he came in and did a great reading I wasn't quite sure exactly how the character was gonna go I had to kind of get in there with Jerry and feel Jerry and so forth I know that we had a chemistry I felt a connection to Jerry but it was very very different than was on the page he really couldn't help but sort of explode into the room and he was just such an odd offbeat and truly funny character you know the thing about it is Larry never stayed in the room during the audition he would listen to me through the door because he felt it would throw me I was a very considerate move on his part you know everything that he said in the audition got screams and I think at one point in the middle of the scene I got up and went over and opened up the door and he was standing there and I go you're really throwing me I know you're behind this door and it's really messing up my audition he's [Laughter] and after he did it he he leaned forward and did a handstand and then stood up and walked out of the room and everyone was very perplexed Brandon Tartikoff was the president of NBC looked at everybody in the room and said well if you want funny so I wasn't allowed to be in here this weekend no it's ok now that that girl's not coming I must read the whole thing hmm want me to talk to her no I can be very persuasive you know that I was almost a lawyer fourth regular in the pilot ultimately was played by an actress namely Garlington and she played the role of Claire who was a waitress at the coffee shop Claire you're a woman right what gave it away George I came out for the filming of the of the pilot and we had a director and an executive producer hi but I I was there I was I was on the floor watching somewhat neutered I just could sense that Larry was unhappy about things I'm not I don't I think he felt out of the loop with the director I could that's one thing about it I knew when Larry wasn't you I remember seeing stuff that just wasn't really right and I would gingerly approach the director after all there's a director and oh in my most tactful delicate way I would say you know I was just kind of thinking what it and I'm just trying to get this out and I get mmm yes well mmm okay well we'll try that or I I don't think so and and I remember thinking she's how about how am I gonna this thing is not gonna be any good one of the guys I remember thinking boy this really worked pretty well and we did two shows right and I think we'd had a show and then there was a dinner we ate mm-hm and then we did another show and is the only time we ever did two shows in one night yeah I remember saying goodbye to you and thinking that I wouldn't see you again for another couple of years during the filming Jerry said so mr. experienced what do you think I said no way Jay there's no way so why I said I think the number-one show in America right now is Alf if that's the number-one show in America who's gonna watch is the audience for this show is me and I don't watch TV we delivered the power to NBC we thought it turned out very well we all liked it around the office I was hopeful that the Seinfeld Chronicles could actually make the fall schedule and we'd heard that it was well received when they screened it for the executives at NBC but then we heard the testing had come in I've heard this so many times the test research can be a very very brutal day many of your hopes and dreams your your your favorite children turn to crap and Seinfeld was no exception the research report on Seinfeld was pretty disastrous pilot performance week I don't remember when I saw the testing results but it's really one of everyone's favorite things about the show is how poorly it was received but by the network people the test audience felt that the supporting cast was not strong enough and that Jerry himself was a weak lead my favorite thing in the testing is that the show is considered contemporary unusual humorous and appealing to young adults therefore not something that we would want and there also was a sentiment of very New York and also very much a sentiment of I think it's too Jewish I'm not from New York I'm not Jewish I thought it was funny and I thought a lot of audience could relate to it we put on the nuthouse we put on some other shows that I can't even remember the names of them a few weeks later and Seinfeld did not make the cut the pilot aired in its original form on July 5th 1989 which usually means that it's a burned off pilot it's a busted pilot it's never going to go any further and we sometimes refer to those sorts of dumpings as garbage dump theater Seinfeld I'm dating the only difference between a date and a job interview is not many job interviews is there a chance you'll end up naked at the end of it what do we want sitcom special the Seinfeld Chronicles after Night Court next Wednesday I remember going in to catch a rising star the comedy club to do stand-up one night and I remember a few comedians coming up to me saying hey we saw Jerry's pilot it's terrific what what are you kidding you got to be kidding me when I heard it was going they were going to run the pilot all by itself in the summer then I felt we were dead at NBC and no one at NBC told me I was wrong and thinking that so much so that in early August we drove over to Fox and pitched the the show there with it with the full understand that NBC would release it to them if they were interested and they passed so we drove a home and in my view the show was dead but some of the executives who had seen the pilot said you've got something there don't give up on this Rick became the champion for Seinfeld and every successful Network television show somewhere in that organization there must be a champion or they don't succeed and I certainly felt that we did have a show there that I went to Brandon Tartikoff I said look I'll take two hours of my specials budget we'll split that into four half hours and that will be our order for Seinfeld was asked how much he really how good he thought the show was and the price he had to pay for it was giving up some of his own development money for projects that were late-night oriented so that was assigned to to Brandon certainly maybe less so to me because I didn't find out about that till later that that was he was clearly putting his money where his mouth was I called Jerry and I said Jerry Warren here listen I've got great news for you and he told me we got an order for four episodes and from that point I pretty much felt like the show was going to work I never thought it was gonna be a big hit but I thought that people will like this for show hosts hmm well they must be doing somebody a favor do it for oh and I go hold up to my apartment then I have to say my initial reaction was not joy I was not really happy about it but I said oh you know great but all that meant to me was oh jeez four shows how we gonna do four shows I'm gonna come up with four shows we did have one note just one note from the network and we said guys you have to agree to this in order to go forward you need a girl in the show you have to have a woman in this that has a real part if this is gonna be a TV series and we thought that was that was a decent idea that was fair enough they agreed to add a full-time woman in the cast obviously more than the waitress in the coffee shop but uh appear my initial thinking about the character was about a woman who I had dated who I had become friends with in her name was Monica Yates after we broke up we we remained friends and it was a very smooth transition from going out to staying friends the easiest one I'd ever had maybe if we can get captured that dynamic that could work for this female character who NBC wanted we read everybody in town for that part some of them you would know because they going on to start him on television Megan Mullally from Will & Grace but your she Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond Rosie O'Donnell came in and at a great reading then I mentioned Julia I had worked with on my one season in Saturday Night Live and she was able to take any line and kind of put a little spin on it and do something with it and she's just a terrific actress people say my hair is my greatest quality Jamie what do you think my best quality is I don't know you Julia I don't you wish she did are you really this outrageous oh yeah and talented I remember that casting session and her rapport that I had with her Jerry came in and I remember he was eating a bowl of cereal and I thought oh yeah I sort of recognize that guy and I saw Larry and that was nice to see Larry and we just sort was very relaxed and I immediately felt comfortable for some reason I don't really know why maybe because nobody really can I don't know just her whole tone I thought was gonna this is gonna mesh well with the Kramer and George and it just went extremely well I thought it just felt great and then I left and I wore and you know it was all very nice and I left and Larry came running down after me down the sidewalk and he goes well what do you think what do you think do you want to do it and I go well I don't know and you know frankly what I didn't say to him at the time was you know I don't know if this is the right move for me you imagine and once we got her I was absolutely convinced from then on that nothing could really hurt the show that it really it just felt like a balanced team I remember Julia showed up wearing cowboy boots and I said ah yes this is our girl I mean if we're gonna be friends we gotta be able to talk about other people couldn't agree more good good good great great where do you get great it's great to talk about other people elaine marieb image so we had the four shows to write the first show so again I'm not I didn't really have much experience in writing any experience except for her you know the sketches I did on Saturday Night Live and Fridays but no half hours but for the pilot hmm and I'm wondering where are these how you supposed to do this where these ideas gonna come from yes yet it's only four shows imagine if it was more than four what what it would have been like we were pretty meticulous with the scripts I mean but things yet the things would happen that we would be you know there would be a discussion of something in Larry and I would just go back and forth and then would you let's write that down in that and that was the script we wrote the first show and then we were called in Jerry and I to the executive producers office so we're sitting there and he's sitting behind his desk and he's giving us the notes on the show I think you need to do this with this character and I want more conflict here and I want this and and he said his piece and I looked at him and I said no no I'm not doing I'm not doing any of it I'm not doing anything nothing and I left I think Larry felt like you know this guy was gonna be the guy and he was gonna have to answer to this guy and then that night I was saying I was staying with Jerry in his apartment and then I said to him I said all right look I'm not gonna be able to go through this I can't I can't listen to this and I can't I can't do it I can't do the notes I can't do it you know so honestly good luck I was sincere I said really I hope it's I hope it's great I hope it's a hit but I can't I can't I can't work on this like this I can't work like this and yeah but that wasn't that outstanding over the course of the nine years well it was the first time it was the first time yeah it was nice to get that out of the way get into the swing of Larry quitting which would be a regular event he's a very persuasive man he said no no don't worry don't worry I'll straighten it out we'll we'll fix we'll fix this well we'll we'll get it we'll get what we want and all this and I reassured him that you know this was just a phase that we were passing through and eventually we would control the whole thing and I guess it was just after that that I should actually you should actually have a job talking people out of suicide on their lives because he's very good at it very calm he knows exactly what to say ya know your life will get better to cut just come off the ledge everything will be fine Larry David was not allowed at network meetings because he was too volatile and so I would go with Castlerock executives and Howard and George and Jerry and that I don't know why they brought me just to fill another chair I didn't say anything but the higher-ups at NBC would give very specific notes that seem like generic sitcom notes and I remember Jerry listening and listening and listening and saying okay we're not gonna do that and they would say where are the high powerful people at NBC and Jerry said yeah I know but we're not doing it and I'm happy to go back and be a stand-up you almost kind of knew you were on the right track when people if the network didn't like it I mean I wanted him to like it but we weren't going to you know you know really changed the the tone of the show I couldn't have done a show any other I couldn't have done any other show than that show I just wouldn't have wouldn't know how to do it we were filming this show with the robbery and I remember the during the filming show had a lot of problems and then something needed to be fixed and I remember coming up with this solution to fix the story and after I came up with that like the next day I got a castle rock gave me like a $20,000 bonus and said to me you're the executive producer if the show gets picked up and that was kind of a bit of a turning point for me I didn't realize that that George was Larry probably he was in that you know that first season of with that confidence order of four it was somewhere in there there was some act hmmm exactly was there was some a moment in the script that you know with my fine classical actor training I went to Larry and I said Larry first of all this would never happen to anybody but if it did no human being would react like this and I said what do you mean this happened to me this is exactly what I did I went oh okay and it was kind of at that moment that that I understood that he was writing his own experiences in his own reactions so I I made a conscious switch to leave the Woody Allen Patil behind and start to try and do as blatant a Larry David imitation as I could I loved doing those four episodes and I really wanted to go back to work with these people because I will also say there was an immediate immediate camaraderie with our our little foursome after the four episodes were filmed I went back to New York and I thought well that's probably the end of the show and I started to go back to my other life in New York Oh Brandon was a fan even though he wouldn't schedule the show I remember going to his office one time for a meeting and he showed me how he had cued up on his VCR a scene from the stakeout that he loved and when people would come in he said I just play them this scene to show them this very funny scene but still it wasn't enough for him to put it on the air Brandt's heart akov called me in March of 1990 after we had finished making the first four episodes and offered me what he called Sophie's Choice he said we could either go on the very next month April in a poor timeslot but perhaps be eligible then to be on the fall schedule if the show succeeded or we can wait until the summer after he had announced his fall schedule but and go on in the very best timeslot he had to offer after cheers and I felt that was an easy choice that I would rather take the cheers timeslot and get what had to be better ratings and think about long-term survival than the chance being on the fall schedule after Cheers repeats Thursday night at 9:30 we put on four original episodes of Seinfeld Xbox summer hits tomorrow night see the big knife yeah tomorrow night time NBC how did this all happen five years ago would you thought hey that's gonna happen no no I I've been doing this show for ten years I guess so and it's really a big feel I'd like to thank you actually for you know putting me on all these years and because of for a long time this is all I was doing is this show and the little clubs and that's a really exciting break loose is just kind of a little nighttime throw away now you're in the big picture Wow so have you been planning on the show a long time yeah I know yeah evolving the writing and everything yeah I wrote it with the Larry David who's a comedian from New York and neither of us had ever written a TV show before and they let us do it NBC is I have to say was wonderful letting us really do the type of comedy and a type of show that we wanted to do and they did okay not great but the audience didn't reject them and the more closely we looked at it what we saw was well it it wasn't just a New York show and for the people who had articulated a number of times it's too Jewish what we found is whether you in a major market in the east or whether you were in a small market in the West or more importantly even the Midwest the numbers all seem to be the same and young adult men felt something was out there on television that was fresh and original and they were connecting to it and by god they were funny they picked us up at 13 okay well all right I I got through the four shows okay somehow I got through the four shows and they weren't the best four shows that have ever been made but I got through those but now he said this number thirteen to me and I was I hung up that phone and I was traumatized I'm telling you tears came into my eyes I was 13 shows and I said I said to my fiancee at the time I said oh my god I can't do this how am I gonna come up with 13 shows it's ridiculous I said this is crazy I'm and I was petrified I couldn't believe it I couldn't believe it this thing now is it's getting much bigger than it was supposed to I was supposed to be done with this thing and now I'm supposed to be doing 13 shows I'm responsible for it I'm the executive producer of the show now I'm completely responsible for this thing this is mine how am I gonna do this I can't do it I cannot do it this is insane what have I got myself into after we got this order for 13 I figure we'd be on at that point I went we're gonna we're gonna be out for a little this is gonna work now I felt okay now we can get to work we didn't really have any idea how to run a show so Larry Charles was a friend of mine from Friday's and we had remained friends so I thought that'd be good let's hire Larry Larry called me and said the show just got picked up for 13 you know you want you want a job and I was like yeah I got nothing else to do and Peter Melman I just read some piece in the New York Times that he had done and I thought hey that's pretty funny you know let's hire him I was a freelance magazine writer I had written for the Washington Post but at the time I was magazine writing and I had met Larry David in New York maybe twice and then I bumped into him out here and he said you know I'm doing this little TV show with Jerry Seinfeld maybe he could write a script and I was like oh you know I've never written dialogue I've never really made anything up except if he count a few quotes and my articles Larry Charles had never written a said computer moment had never written a sitcom and we did pretty well with them when I would get a script I would look at it and I would read it and I would say who cares what are they talking about who cares what lining somebody has in a jacket who cares if they used real Turkey for a sandwich why are they so picky and then the actors would read it and it would be funny and I would laughing I would say okay I just don't get it I guess fortunately the network guys didn't get it either and they left us alone the first thing I remember at the Chinese restaurant I remember the exact restaurant I was in with Larry it was Genghis Cohen's on on Fairfax and we were waiting for a table and I remember him writing the idea down you get 23 minutes to do the show whatever let's let's just have him wait 23 minutes for a table I read that script and I went nothing happens I am I am I'm missing am I missing pages literally they go to the restaurant they stand around they can't get a table nothing happens is this are they trying to save money NBC when we suggested that we wanted to do this one set idea where the gang just waits for a table the entire show and never gets it that they thought that was very static and and not appealing and I didn't like want us to write it they didn't want us to film it and after we filmed it they held it back and didn't run it until towards the end of the season because they were so sure that this was going to really be one of the real bombs of the of the season I knew the network was up in arms about this episode they thought this was a betrayal they thought this was just sacrilege how could we a struggling nothing show like this that nobody's watching how dare you try and pull something off like this I wasn't surprised at NBC wasn't crazy about that show cuz you know not only was our show unlike any other shows but now this show was like within that context this show was just like crazy extreme it was bizarre it's a it's a bizarre show but to their credit the only thing that they said was we completely disagree with this idea but if you want to do it go ahead and I thought that's that's as all you can ask for it is they gave us the shot I feel like just walking over there and taking some food on somebody's plate I'll tell you what there's fifty bucks in it for you if you're doing what do you mean you walk over to that table you pick up an egg roll you don't say anything you eat it say thank you very much wipe your mouth walk away I give you 50 bucks should I do it George for 50 bucks I put my face in this soup and blow things out that became one of the episodes that that really put the show into another category I didn't get it and and I remember fighting that episode looking at the the cut of the episode and and it was funny but I really felt you know Jerry Larry don't doesn't something have to happen in this show and and of course I fueled for them all about it's the show where nothing happens what's the story who says you gotta have a story number one we were waiting for them for that table and that Chinese restaurant that time one of the turning points in the writing for me came with The busboy episode when somehow The busboy character met Elaine's boyfriend in the building the circumstances just led for those two there was a path for those two to get together unconsciously but that's what happened in the building they had and they had a big fight okay cuz you bumped into me who do you think you're talking to and they left an impression on me how those two stories really collided like freight trains and I remember that I really like how that happened I hope that could happen again or somehow or maybe I could even make that happen again and I remember thinking this this is a good thing to continue there was another aspect to that as well that I never like to see actors unhappy on a set especially the principles you know that they're coming they're coming in every day I wanted I wanted the actors to be happy and so we started a chart this is how little we knew about how to write a sitcom we started with Charter we put Jerry George Kramer and Elaine on this chart and for each story we would check off if one of them had a story and we had to make sure after that that each person had a story in the show and I tried to give everybody a lot of stuff to do and sometimes that would mean doing four separate stories and juggling these these balls and trying to bring them all together somehow you know the idea that you have two guys who've never written a show being run by a network executive that had never had a show leading to a show that has a unique and unusual feel this is a model that all the network's subsequently ignored and never did again except for HBO I think HBO I don't know if they really knew that that's how our show evolved but that's a network that hires people that they like and says that's the end of their job we like you do what you think you should do and it leads to much more distinctive programming and all you Seinfeld is back one part should come one part stand up if you see these operating theaters that they have with like stadium seating you want that you don't want them doing anything to you that makes other doctors go I have to see this a winner I left some books in her apartment to read them yeah what do you need what do you need it for after you read it Seinfeld on NBC Wednesday 9:30 8:30 central the night that Seinfeld was going to premiere in 91 on Wednesday night we bombed Baghdad just two hours ago Allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait I remember that night that we were supposed to premiere and the war started and I never everybody being very disturbed by it I mean not being able to understand why people were upset let's go on look you don't have that in from that much information yet you're repeating yourselves take a break a half hour say 8:30 to 9:00 and put on whatever you were gonna put on and then come back with more with an update update us but don't she tried she tried to snore her way through the war I know that we weren't doing well in the ratings for that second season we weren't we were no longer behind cheers yeah we would always lose to Jake and The Fatman I always probably we would get closer and then he would get fatter and he would pull away again it was very tough competition I didn't even understand ratings to tell you the truth and to this day I really don't understand him I never really bought that people have told it to me but I guess I have so little interest in it that it didn't it didn't really matter to me I just knew that I didn't I didn't want to be a hit as a result of following a good show I used to say that you know the reason the second half of Jake and the family are somewhat stronger is because that's when he runs after the the crooks and everybody wants to see that and when the show was eventually moved from Wednesday night to Thursday night behind cheers I spoke to was a television reporter and he said well you must be thrilled about this move and I and I said to him if they weren't watching on Wednesday night I don't want him watching on Thursday night and and I was serious I didn't I do this was a very good thing I mean relatively obscure show and suddenly we were going to have a prime spot where people could at least sample us and see if they liked the show there was almost unfindable prior to that and Larry was so upset he was just pissed I don't want to be cheers his little brother cheers his little brother I was really kind of I was looking at this show and I so believed it was going to work and could work and I just loved the unique and an original chemistry and the relationship that that Jerry and Elaine had at some point during that second season I began to hear from NBC very strenuously about getting Jerry and Elaine together I was beating the drums saying their relationship when when they're together when there are real stakes in their relationship I believe that that is something that the audience can attach themselves to and they kept persisting and I was very very reluctant and resistant and I wasn't doing it and then I remembered something from my life that I thought would make a really funny show even if they had never said that to me and once I once I remembered that that incident from my past in which I'm sorry to say I did try and work out a deal where I could actually have this this physical relationship with someone and and yet not have it get to the point where we were boyfriend and girlfriend and the only way we could do that was if I was if we followed these particular rules and that became the deal episode because this is very good and that would be good that would be good too the idea is to combine this and that but this cannot be disturbed we just want to take this and thought that people weren't gonna believe that these two were just gonna continue to hang out we thought the idea of them just being friends with stretching credibility and we thought we had to put them back together so uh what are you guys gonna do today and the other what I really like the two of you much better when you weren't a couple I think we thought that that's what it was gonna be after we shot the deal which was the last episode of that season my thinking never went into another season I just figured well that's that's it why would they pick up the show the ratings aren't good I didn't think that they would pick up the show so okay so that's how the show ended I didn't really matter to me I mean we weren't on long enough to go out with some big some big splash ending it didn't really matter but then the show got picked up okay yet another season this time 22:22 I don't tend to worry no matter what you know laughs and Larry was certainly worrying enough for the two of us maybe as long as he's worried he's thinking about it he'll worry and that's all I don't have to worry there was never a hint a hint of panic this time and I am I am dead honest here real actual tears out of my eyes crying I cried on my bed crying at the prospect of coming up with 22 more of these things how in God's name is that gonna happen it was just from there to there we went from a couple of bums to industry tightness right across First Avenue and 78th Street and that's the story [Music] you [Music]

Channel: pinkskies21

Views: 4,008,548

Rating: 4.7775512 out of 5

Keywords: elaine benes, jason alexander, Jerry Seinfeld (Author), Cosmo Kramer (Fictional Character), Elaine Benes (Fictional Character), george costanza, kramer, Michael Richards (Comedian), julia louis-dreyfus, Larry David (Comedian), Jerry Seinfeld (Fictional Character), Seinfeld (TV Show), jerry seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Comedian), George Costanza (Fictional Character), seinfeld, michael richards, Jason Alexander (TV Program Creator)

Id: I8_2hPjljag

Length: 64min 56sec (3896 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 06 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/Johnnycc]

It's obvious that despite Larry's inarguable comedic genius, this show wouldn't have worked without Jerry pulling Larry kicking and screaming into unparalleled success. He talked Larry down from the ledge so many times.

[u/Joesusthegreat]

Michael Richards reaction to Larry David storming off stage angrily.

Priceless.

[u/eelaws]

I've been watching Seinfeld's latest endeavor and have been enjoying it quite a bit. You can see it here http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/ and I would start with the first episode with Larry David. Pretty funny stuff and unscripted.

[u/[deleted]]

I don't know about the whole "cellphones would have killed it" argument. They already referred to it in jest on the last episode of Season 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm (Seinfeld reunion, George suggests an iPhone app that locates the nearest toilet near you anywhere in the world) . If anything there would be a whole new world of possibilities to play with; there's so many manners and particular idiosyncrasies that have developed as we have become attached to our devices that I know the writing staff would have had a ball.

If only someone here could show us an example...

[u/akhilman78]

I'm rewatching the show now and have only 10 episodes left. I'm gonna miss it once it's done.

[u/randomlurker6089]

I rarely have the patience to sit through videos that are over 5 minutes here. But I watched every second and it made me reaffirm my love for this show. It also explains a lot of how Larry structured curb episodes, truly a must watch if you like Seinfeld!

[u/rananame]

Jerry (@7:00): "This is the exact booth that we were at... Actually, it isn't, it's the one over there, but there's two ladies there so we couldn't get in there. But, this is very similar to the booth we were at."

[u/dispatch_async]

So according to Jerry, the show was so great because 1) their team was a crew of talented comedians running the show in its entirety and 2) they were unknown quantities.

He credits HBO as the only other network which does this, and that NBC completely forgot about this notion. Verrry interesting, and explains alot about the consistent quality of HBO programming.

[u/Seusstein]

Every night at 9, before bed, while growing up. Thanks for all the laughs.