S1: Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm

Jeff and Susie are on set to discuss the making of the original special 'Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm.'

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You can watch the original episode we'll be discussing and
every other episode of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Including the new and final season, on Max.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
You can also watch the.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Video version of the History of Curb Your Enthusiasm podcast
on Max and YouTube as well.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Links available in the episode description.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
All Right, hi everybody, this is the.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
History of Curby Enthusiasm, and we're doing the so called
pilot special episode now the first thing before there was
a series. Yes, it was so interesting to watch to me,
and one of the things that I missed more than anything.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Was the music.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Different, music cues different.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
I mean, it was a lovely, whimsical little jazz was fine.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
It was fine.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
The thing about the Curb music, you know, once we
start episode one of season one next week, is it
creates the world that now does way that I missed.

Speaker 5 (01:01):
By the way, most of the music cues are still
from the first episode of the first season.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
Like it didn't. It didn't get moved or replaced, and.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
I always felt like, well, we'll talk about it next
week when we get to that episode.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
But the music cues to me are a laugh track.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
Oh they can be. Yeah on the first one.

Speaker 5 (01:17):
Yeah, on the special yeah, yeah, I didn't dig it.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
I just can't believe how much I missed the music
on this one.

Speaker 5 (01:25):
Well, I didn't miss the music because I was there
editing every day and I was there with the music
cues and so I remember that.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
So it just fit that.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, because the show, it's all right.

Speaker 5 (01:37):
I went to do a movie once in Toronto, okay,
and Toronto felt like the United States of America. But
something was wrong a sports center. Hockey's the lead story
that alone, but yeah, something which is And by the
wa're talking slightly.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
And everybody's so much nicer oh in Toronto. Yeah, way night,
And that kind.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Of throws me as a New Yorker.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
Toronto's like may yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
So yeah that's how this felt. I agree with you.
It feels like Toronto this special.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
So it's off, but it is. I enjoyed it very much.

Speaker 5 (02:10):
I wish I could go back in time and we
cut about fifteen minutes out of it.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
See.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
To me? What was disorienting about it watching it, and
I think the only time I've seen it was when
it first came out, right, was the back and forth
between the reality and the.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
It was annoying. Yeah, it was annoying.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:28):
And by the way, the interviews, all of the interviews
were real, except for my character.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
My character is speaking like he really is.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Caera was not interviewed. If I record, no, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:39):
So it was to my analogy that she might have
been having just watched it a week ago. But I
don't remember. And by the way, I have a lot
of notes written down. Good luck be remembering half of them.
But if you ask questions, I'll get there. I'll remember.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
So a couple of things struck me. Okay, the music
was one. The other that was so interesting is that
the basis of the characters of yours and Larry's and Cheryl's,
which are really the only characters at that point, it
was there.

Speaker 5 (03:07):
It was completely there except for one thing. And this
is kind of fascinating. So Cheryl did not like Jeff Green.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
I was going to bring that out.

Speaker 5 (03:17):
No, she did not like Jeff Green and hated pretty much,
and she couldn't hide her disdain.

Speaker 6 (03:24):
Some people just rub you the wrong way. Yeah, and
that's how I feel about Jeff. I just feel like,
I'm not sure he's always thinking about Larry.

Speaker 5 (03:39):
And Larry, who is a big bowl, a brilliant when
he went to the first episode, he completely changed. He
changed that and Cheryl always I irritate Cheryl sometimes, but
she grew to even love Mike Garrette.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
What was the reasoning for that?

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Know?

Speaker 5 (03:56):
What I do remember is Larry felt like the show
had nowhere to go if that was our relationship. And
Carolyn Strauss, who is one of my favorite executives, maybe
my favorite executive.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
It was an executive at HBO at the time.

Speaker 5 (04:09):
Yeah, programming, you know, and believe it or not, that
was the one note we got. She wanted more of
us conflict, Yeah, conflict between Cheryl and I and Larry
said no, it won't work, and.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
He was right.

Speaker 5 (04:25):
And back then I didn't know. I'm like, oh, he
doesn't want to new conflict. I didn't think anything of it.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
And it was actually a big storyline.

Speaker 5 (04:33):
By the way, I don't want to make out like
Carolyn Strauss. Pretty much everything she says I agree with.
I just want to make that clear. I don't want
to make it like she gave us stupid notes. That
was the only note. There were no other notes going
from the hour to the series. There was no zero.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
And what's interesting is Larry I know in all his
Seinfeld years never took notes. People don't know how unusual
that is.

Speaker 5 (04:59):
Well, my own way of doing it, which is I nod,
I listen, I say that's great.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
And I never do any of it.

Speaker 5 (05:05):
But by the way, I'm always open to something being oh,
that's a good idea, but most of them are terrible.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah. So now I don't think Jeff correct me if
I'm wrong.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Beyond the pilot episode, I don't think there were any notes.

Speaker 5 (05:19):
No, no, you know what. There might have been, but
there were just like the way thing, there were nothing.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, and I.

Speaker 5 (05:26):
Wouldn't be surprised if Larry even did some of them
or went yeah, yeah, you're right, because he respected Carolyn Strauss.
And the feeling of the show is the respect one
way or another. You know, HBO respected us, We respected them. However,
HBO used to refer to us even during the first
season into the second season this was our name, their

(05:50):
little experimental show.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Uh huh, because we shot digitally, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (05:54):
And we were improvising. Their little experimental show was a
little experimental show is now the longest running show and
has been.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
In the history of age.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
We felt that by the way, we felt that we
were not the sopranos. We were not Sex and the City.
We didn't have that kind of budget for you. We
were just kind of I got a barn, let's do
a show kind of a thing.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
At what point when you.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Were shooting this initial special did it come up that
there was going to be a series?

Speaker 4 (06:22):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (06:23):
The unusual thing about the hour we shot linear We
shot everything in order. So if we were shooting a
scene and then we're shooting another scene of block down
and then the next scenes where we're at we'd go
the block shoot it come back.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Like everything expensive.

Speaker 5 (06:38):
It adds to the budget, that's for sure, and it's difficult.
It's difficult. So the first scenes of Larry and I
coming in and he's frustrated that he has to do this.
Is this camera going.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
To be here?

Speaker 5 (06:51):
He's doing that? Well, we had a little exchange where
I thought to myself, boy, this could be something, and
that was he ask me if I want a piece
of gum? I said no, I don't like gum. I
don't chew gum, which is reminiscent of the time later
on when we're on a plane where he.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
Said what are you doing?

Speaker 5 (07:10):
I go just flying to nothing and then you know
what's so funny about that. He didn't like that, and
he said, do something different, and I did different things,
and then he said to me, no, let's use the one,
you know with the thing.

Speaker 4 (07:22):
So we had this.

Speaker 5 (07:23):
Gum thing and then there was the hallway with the
nodding to black people, just giving them a shot. His
great line is I want to show them that I'm
one of the good ones, which made me burst out laughing.
And that's how the show is. You hear something you
feel like laughing at laugh That's not the way TV

(07:44):
comedies have worked for a long time. For a long time,
someone says something funny, everyone reacts like nothing happened. The
closest to it, I would say is the Andy Griffiths
show when don Knots would do something, Andy would smile
sometimes laugh, you know.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
To me, that's how it should be.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Right after that elevator scene, when you're coming out of
the elevator and I forgot one of you points to
the camera. It was either you or Larry, I don't
remember who it was. I think it was you acknowledges
the camera. So that's also something that's completely changed.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
Oh yeah, completely. There is no camera.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
There's no camera this.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
Fourth wall. But here's what I say to answer your question.

Speaker 5 (08:24):
Yes, we had so much fun doing all that, And
then we went into to film the scene of us
pitching the show with Alan Wasserman, wonderful actor, and Judy Toll,
one of my favorite comedic voices of all time, who
passed away number of years ago. I was close with
Judy and my wife of yore cast the show, which

(08:46):
we talked about in the last episode, and Judy was
a close friend of us. But Judy did our show twice.
She was also in the wheelchair episode, you know, and
she was having a tough time, but she died, you know,
of cancer her and she would We filmed that scene
and even her in that scene, she nailed the typical

(09:07):
executive Is there any tape we could see.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
You know?

Speaker 5 (09:12):
And then Larry said the funny thing of there's no
tape anywhere of me. There's nothing anyone can see. And
we had so much fun doing that. When we walked
out of shooting that scene, that specific scene.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Which was very early on and.

Speaker 5 (09:26):
By the way, those were the real HBO offices at
the time, and when we walked out, Larry said to me,
we're supposed standing by these desks sort of away from
the set. He said, wouldn't this be great to do
as a series? Now I said, yeah, that would be amazing,
But inside my head I actually was saying, yeah, right,

(09:46):
we're going to do a series out of this.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
What happened? Did he pitch it to HBO?

Speaker 1 (09:52):
No?

Speaker 4 (09:52):
No, no, no, Both HBO wanted to work with Larry.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
But have they seen footage they.

Speaker 5 (10:00):
Had surrounded Larry like they're birds surrounding that. Well, I'm
losing it a lot. They flocked to Larry, and Larry
told me when we talked about doing the show, he said,
HBO really wants to do something with me, and he
was sort of open to that because HBO at that
point was pretty high falutin. The sopranos were lifting them

(10:21):
up above everybody else, right, So we had fun the
whole time, and as we were cutting it, you know,
and then afterwards just going that would be great, we
should do this. And I, of course I'm not going
to argue even though I agreed with him. I'm happy
to not agree with him on things, but that one,
no matter what, I'm like, yeah, that would be.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Great, But you didn't think it was going to happen.

Speaker 5 (10:41):
By the way, even by the last day of filming,
I didn't think it was gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
My recollection is when he called me, which I'll talk
about next episode. How I got the part because I'm
in the first episode. This had not aired yet. When
the decision to start shooting in a series, this special
had not aired yet.

Speaker 5 (10:58):
Yeah, it's better that it didn't dare yet because we
didn't get a lot of viewers. It was not like
a huge success, right, and then even the first season.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Was we built up seasons.

Speaker 5 (11:08):
Yeah, we built up slowly to where we started a note.
What I can tell you now when we became a.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
Hit, Well, I can tell you anecdotally for me, when
people started stopping me in the street.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Season three, Okay, what happened?

Speaker 5 (11:23):
Season three? We followed the Sopranos. Oh, maybe a great
season of Sopranos followed by us, and that went for
three or four more years. Yeah, ninety minutes of wow,
great work.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
And I'm talking mostly Sopranos.

Speaker 5 (11:38):
I don't want to you know, but that was about
ninety minutes of television as good as it gets. Yeah,
that was like Saturday night CBS in the seventies. With
Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and the Carol Burnett Show.
What people who loved the Sopranos were definitely gonna love
Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
But I'll talk more of that in future.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, when we go.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
So the thing that stuck to me about this special
was your character was already your character, and I know
that character is not you whatsoever, So I want to
talk about that how you created that. Larry's interesting to
me because at one point he says, so all I
do is apologize. People are so touchy, I can't even
leave the house. Well that's the essence of the Larry

(12:23):
character much though. But his acting was very, very different.
He looked like he was about to crack up every
single minute.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
I think you have that in reverse.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Really, yes, I.

Speaker 5 (12:34):
Think when he was doing that, having been there, I
think he was less apt to laugh as you know now,
which I know which is the great secret of Curb
Your Enthusiasm, which is you should really watch when it
cuts away from Larry, because generally it cuts away from
Larry right before he let Yeah, he just laughed on it.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
But I don't mean that, I don't mean laughing.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
I mean that in all of his scenes, he has
a little on his face in a way that now
he doesn't. Now he's more in the character in the scene.

Speaker 5 (13:06):
What I feel the difference was back then he would
go from a smile to really grumpy, so that way
you noticed them both like he was, whereas now it's
sort of a combination of the two.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
We'll be right back. Stay tuned, Okay, we're back.

Speaker 5 (13:33):
The number one thing from watching the first special was
how good his acting was. I was so because when
we were doing it, I thought he was good. But
I look and I go, wow, now looking at it,
what a natural?

Speaker 3 (13:48):
What I agree with that. I just think he's gotten
so much better.

Speaker 5 (13:52):
Season two, season three, I say to him one day, boy,
your acting has grown so much. Oh good, And he
took that as an insult.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, I know, I know he really.

Speaker 5 (14:06):
Took that as an insult, and I'm like, man, you're
bound to grow. He didn't understand that. He's like, wasn't
I good last season? Season before?

Speaker 1 (14:13):
But also whenever I tell him his acting is, I'll
watch a season, I'll say, you're acting.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
Was waited, But I don't consider myself acting. That's I'm
not acting. But he is, of course.

Speaker 5 (14:20):
Well, by the way, it's a different style of acting.
It's a style of acting that you do and I
do it.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
But which are acting?

Speaker 5 (14:27):
We are completely acting, and like you said, I'm not
my character. But that being said, there's a naturalism that's
our approach to acting. I feel as an actor, I'm
only as good as the material I'm given. You'll give
me bad material. I'm gonna suck up the joint. You
give me good material, and hopefully I won't suck up
the joint. That's where I'm at as an actor. Where

(14:47):
is this anything that I do? And this naturalistic, very naturalism?

Speaker 3 (14:53):
We're given such amazing things to do.

Speaker 5 (14:55):
Can I just say something? Why don't you have a
spit thing in front of your microphone?

Speaker 4 (14:59):
Like the shield? Now? Then I do. All I'm saying
is was the last time we did it? Was there? Probably?
Are you yeah? Or was I? Maybe my voice is.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
So I want to get to I want to get
to that I.

Speaker 5 (15:11):
Tell a suit story. I told the suit story last time.
No that I that I that I said that I
wanted my character to wear suits.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
I don't recall that. Okay, So because I just want
to ask you about the character. So you made up
this character of his manager, who was even more clueless
in this episode.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Did you base this on somebody?

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yes and no, because let me just say, you can
say Garland, the person Jeff Garland is extremely air udite
and opinionated and you know, throw and thoughtful, throw and thoughtful.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
But the character of Jeff Green is like a lunk.

Speaker 5 (15:48):
Well overall, the consistency of his character is he would
do anything to make Larry happy for any agreed he
agre it's not even client. We're best friends. Yeah, but
you know, and so I just to agree. So basically,
there's a thing an emperor called exploring and heightening, where
someone says something to you and you send it back
to them at a more agreeable level and then it

(16:11):
keeps on going. Well, that's my character consistently. But I
don't do a lot of character work. But as I
was thinking about it, I go, my character should always
be in a suit. Yeah, in a suit. And I
told Larry Goes, we have a great idea. And by
the way, you'll get a lot of those, Larry, That's
how I do Larry, which he laughs at but it
really doesn't sound like him, but it does. It's like

(16:33):
a character of him. Anyhow, I went into the producer
and we didn't have a big budget, and I said,
you know, I think my character should be wearing a suit,
and all the time a suit and a tie. Takes
a beat and he goes, why you're saying that you
want free suits? I said, no, I can get myself
a suit. I just think that you're worrying. Yeah, look
if you want a free suit.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
You know.

Speaker 5 (16:55):
We went back and forth on that, and I just
said to him, I said, please get me a couple
of suits, and I left the room. Anyhow, the point
thing is, when I watched that pilot, I'm essentially wearing fabric.
There's no cut to the suit. They're the these are
ninety nine dollars.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
But the suit, I think is an important character. Don't
because it separates you. He's the comedian in his you know,
casual clothes, and you're the businessman.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
You know, you're the showbiz guy.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Right, Let's get to him doing his stand up, because
that was the greatest pleasure of this, and every single
bit of stand up that he did was something that
I had seen him do in the eighties on stage
at comic clubs.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Right, you know, the two form the theos favorite.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
I love the post, but I love the Jonah Sulk.
I remember him.

Speaker 7 (17:47):
Joining us my boy Jones, boy, it's Doe. But those
are classic Larry.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
Classic Larry bits.

Speaker 5 (17:53):
And that's why comedians love watching Larry. I mean, who
over thinks about answering machine in the Old West? Premise alone,
you should go. That's the best premise.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
And the beauty of this entire special is you will
never see that again. No, and you haven't seen it,
he said, there's no tape of him, so we haven't
seen it before.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
So that's the time capsule.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Exactly, very much him do the standard.

Speaker 5 (18:16):
By the way, when I said I want to cut
fifteen minutes, the stand up will be the last thing.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Out of the last thing, last thing. What would you cut?
Would you cut the interviews?

Speaker 5 (18:24):
You know what that's like going back and like if
I knew now you know, yes, of course, but they
served its purpose. And by the way, that thing, this
whole thing is a great introduction, but there are scenes
where nothing happens and it just goes on. It's not funny.
And I've already said to Larry, remember that scene, we
should have cut that.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
He agrees with me. All the ones.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
But this was the reason why I loved watching this,
even though it was flawed, right, It was.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Because this was the kernel more than the Curonel, more
than the Colonel.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
And out of this came, you know, the brilliance of
what Kurb became as a series. And maybe you needed this,
maybe you didn't.

Speaker 5 (19:04):
By the way, any pilot of any show in history,
the tone is going to be different from the pilot.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
And if you every exercise for people, you could go
back and watch pilots, whether it's Mary Tyler Moore, any
of the classes. Pilots are completely different than what they
ended up being.

Speaker 5 (19:21):
More often than that, they air the pilot as the
second or third episode because what they shot is better,
but they don't want to waste the money of not
airing it. Yeah that's true.

Speaker 4 (19:31):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
By the way, you mentioned a caricature before.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
I don't know that anything has ever made me laugh
so hard as that caricature of Troy.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
Okay, can I say something?

Speaker 3 (19:40):
The money ever?

Speaker 5 (19:41):
I had that, Now the big one went to Gavin Polone,
the one that's on the stage, but the little mock
up set, Yeah, I had that and I don't know
where it was where.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
It is w A few times.

Speaker 5 (19:52):
No, actually I moved out of my home. Yeah, and
I hope it's in the garage. So my wife of
the girl funny, why have that?

Speaker 3 (20:01):
It is so perfect for him to be disgusted.

Speaker 5 (20:04):
By completely, But was great acting wise in that episode
was the executives, the HBO executives.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
Their acceptance of Larry going.

Speaker 5 (20:15):
No, no, no, never do that, No, no no.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
And then they look set the set, the whole set they.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Bring out on the Seinfeld set, and I love the
enthusiasm of the set designer and showing it, yes Susy
not Kimura, and showing it and thinking it's so fantastic,
and then and then it's all. It's all there, The
whole Larry person is completely there.

Speaker 5 (20:37):
You think of a funnier reply when you're the guy
who created Seinfeld and you mentioned to someone because he's
making a recommendation phone call for a guy who used
to be the writer's assistant on Seinfeld, and the executive
he calls, he says, Larry David, you know I created Seinfeld.
And the guy responds, never watched it. Not a fan

(21:01):
that's from Larry's brain right there. I mean that like,
never watched it none. First of all, how can you
not know.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
That happened to him?

Speaker 4 (21:08):
Oh it did?

Speaker 5 (21:08):
Oh. Oh, by the way, I want to say, through
the history of the show, at least seventy five percent,
if not more, of things these things happen.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Interestingly in the show when they're interviewing Jason Alexander, and
Jason tells that story that he would read the scripts
of Seinfeldt and he would say, this is ridiculous. Nobody
ever behaved that way, And Larry would say, it happened
to me. I behave that way and it was true.

Speaker 4 (21:32):
And by the way, that was the turning point of
that character, that.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Character where he just new to base George on Larry.

Speaker 5 (21:39):
I talked about the audition process last time, right with
Cheryl auditions.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yes, okay, we did, and when we have Cheryl on,
which we will, I want Cheryl to talk about that
as well.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Speaking of Cheryl, you know one of my pet peeves,
and I know that you're going to agree with me,
is when Cheryl comes up to Larry after his performance
and immediately starts telling him what doesn't work.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
That is as a stand up comic, when you just
come off stage and your partner or your manager whoever
comes over to you and start immediately starts saying, oh this,
you want to fucking kill them?

Speaker 4 (22:12):
Okay, so let's go there.

Speaker 5 (22:14):
Yeah, yesterday it was my two year anniversary with Sari.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
That's my girlfriend. Yeah, Sari showed.

Speaker 5 (22:20):
Up at my gig. She's never done that before. I
was pleasantly surprised, and I was happy she was there.
But after I was done, she gave me her notes,
and now she gave me the notes. They it didn't
even start with wow, that was a great set right
into the notes. And the truth is as comedians, we
don't bring our significant others to shows. Like she'll say,

(22:42):
can I go to the comedy store with you? I'm like, no,
no one brings their girlfriend's wife's husband's boyfriends.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
Let's need them to drive.

Speaker 4 (22:50):
Yes.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
But by the way, the only thing that's appropriate that
you see pretty often is children, adult children, someone's son
or daughter. They you see them at clubs. You never
see spouses, spouses, any of that, because that's exactly what happens.
And other comedians are also on edge that we give
you tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
I have trained my husband, who's with me sometimes because
he drives, not to say a word negative to me
only positive when I first come off stay, you're so vulnerable,
you're so rang raw.

Speaker 5 (23:24):
I remember a friend of mine who I was performing with,
one of her best friends, came backstage and didn't say
anything to me about my show, and I was like, now,
by the way, all you got to do is look,
even if you fucking hated it, just look at somebody.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Go great show, great show, funny, Yeah, done over.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
You lied? Who gives a shit? Instead you don't say anything.

Speaker 5 (23:49):
By the way, a few years later, I became unbelievably
close to that woman.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
I'm not in dater, but she was a friend of mine.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
Well, well, no, they don't know.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
They don't know, which is one of the things actually
why I think so much of this show works because
we're all stand ups and we have an unsaid understanding
of each other that nobody else really understands.

Speaker 5 (24:13):
It's amazing that Cheryl fits into that. Yeah, because you me, JB,
Richard Lewis, and the two people that aren't Ted Dance
and then Cheryl.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, of course I didn't exist in the pilot. No,
but you were married.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
By the way, ironically, though I thought of you a
lot more from me.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
No, go ahead, but you were married, cheating on your wife.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
So funny you say that. It's like we didn't see
my wife. We didn't see anything. And by the way
that I came up with, like I you know, I
told Larry my idea about teating, no about the idea
about the show, and I told a genius, and the
genius created something that I thank him for every day.

(24:59):
But the one, one thing in this hour thing that
I came up with was the cheating aspect of my
character and the whole premise of where he walks through
the park, where's my girlfriend with the woman I'm cheating with?

Speaker 4 (25:11):
Yes, and even in the bar.

Speaker 5 (25:12):
When I get caught, like now, he laughs at me
cheating you really, you know, you really have a marble marbles.
But then when I pulled it off, he was polite
and you can see disappointed.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
And that's cheating and confused, very confused by it. The
scene with him walking in the park with Becky and
getting caught.

Speaker 4 (25:36):
My wife doesn't know anything about this. I'll tell you
more later. I don't want to.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
You know.

Speaker 5 (25:41):
Becky Thayer, by the way, who I just thought, and
Sidney Campania, those are two Chicago improvisers. Sydney Campania are
going through the park.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
And Larry Cheryl's friend yes, and Larry explaining over, explaining
over it is hilarious. Is the other thing that hilarious
was Larry's clothing style, which is so different than it
is now.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
He was wearing these big, bulky jackets on stage and.

Speaker 5 (26:07):
I say, there was a bulkiness to all of our
wardrobe because it was cheaper. If my suit were ninety
nine dollars, his were one hundred and ninety nine.

Speaker 4 (26:16):
You know that was the difference.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
We'll be right back, stay tuned, and we're back.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Another thing I want to bring up, because it's mentioned
several times in the episode, is he had children.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
He didn't see his the storyline children.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
He spoke about his children and was that a conscious
or was it just he has children in real life?
So we had children on the show because once we
started the series, no children, that was.

Speaker 5 (26:53):
Not even a conversation because we didn't know there was
something that was going to be strange about him. To
my children, it's like children. And by the way, he
only had children to say on my children's life, where
are my children? Yeah, because he thought of that premise
he has children. Well, first thing that was gone when
the pilot, when we were.

Speaker 4 (27:14):
Shooting the Free no children, no children, no children, no
Jeff and Cheryl fighting.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Each other, and no children, no children. Those were two majors.

Speaker 4 (27:23):
And we also know no hugs.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, those are the two major changes that I noticed.
That you and Cheryl were not, you know, enemies, and
that there was no children. And then it was pretty
much besides cutting out all the doc style, the Colonel
was there was already there.

Speaker 5 (27:38):
The clay had started to be molded, right and by
by the way, I don't know why that's so clever,
but the clay had started to be molded, and then
first season molded even more.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
Even now we.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Chip off this and do this and do and the
thing you mentioned before about the kid who wanted the recommendation,
that was the classic curb callback that started the episode
in the very beginning, right, the kid who wants Larry
to recommend him for a writing job.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
And it was the almost the last scene, how it
just completed.

Speaker 5 (28:06):
Call it classic curb. I would call it Larry's influences
and one of his main influences. And I pointed this
out to him. He's like, yeah, yeah, Yeahnat hiken net
hiking created Bill. Yeah, Ned Hiking was a writer who
created the show Sergeant Bill Coo or what was the
other title? You something about you?

Speaker 4 (28:27):
You never know?

Speaker 5 (28:29):
You'll never get rich was the other title? Fifty four
Where are You? And those shows the scripts like Curb
and No shows in between. It's like you tap a
domino like you'd see on the Tonight Show, and the
dominoes would go in different directions and then they would
end up at this place that you didn't even.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
Know it was going to end up. That's Curb.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (28:52):
Every week it starts somewhere you don't know where it's going,
and they'll be closure but not what you're expecting.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Also, he did that in this pilot in the special
with the guy with the Guy, But what he ended
up doing in the series is more than one of
those several per episodes.

Speaker 5 (29:10):
Well you would just we had no idea we're going
to do more. No I if I thought to myself,
I knew it was great to do for my career.
The best thing in the world is when you can
do things creatively that really help you in whatever ways.
But the bottom line for me is always is it
creative and interesting, not how much money I'm but you.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Still didn't answer the question, at what point in shooting
this did you know that there was a series coming
or did you not?

Speaker 4 (29:40):
At no point?

Speaker 3 (29:41):
At no point so when you finished this special.

Speaker 7 (29:43):
Still it was not until a few months later before
it aired, before.

Speaker 5 (29:50):
It aired, where Larry said, I'm gonna go talk to
HBO about doing this as a series. But there was
our Emmanuel, my helf and Larry on the first pitch,
second pitch was just Larry. Ari may have may have
been there, but I didn't go. There was no need
for me to go.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Ari was his agent agent.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yes, Michael Patrick King, by the way, in this episode,
and tell people who he is.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
Michael Patrick King. His show ran Sex and the City.

Speaker 5 (30:19):
Wait, I love you just said tell people who Michael
Patrick King is, and then you go on to tell people,
but Michael Patrick King all that. I've known Michael Patrick
King since I was twenty. He had a comedy team
King and Men Day, you remember back then. So I
met him when I was twenty years old, and I've
known him and developed the friendship. He's one of Marla's

(30:40):
that's my wife, of your best.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Best friends I know.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
And so he played Patrick the HBO. Yes, and he
was the showrunner for all those years for Sex and
the City and now show means producer writer, producer.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Writer and what is it called it now this? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (30:58):
He Alisa Kudro.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, the comeback, which comeback was awesome. But I thought
he was amazing in this episode.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
He was just brilliant.

Speaker 5 (31:07):
The idea that he tells us in the limo this gossip,
and then he mentions mal that she fucked two guys
to death, which is absurdness. And then he starts explaining
with a big grin on his face, well that let
Larry and I know, don't trust this guy. Don't trust
this guy.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
And then to me, that was not scripted, correct, I
mean that that was all Michael Oh.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
When I say scripted, I mean outlined.

Speaker 5 (31:37):
No, so much of it wasn't outlined. That may have
been my suggestion to say that Malay Shannon fucked two
guys to death.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Either way, the joy that he felt and telling.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
He was such a charismatic performer.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
It's unfortunate that he just writes doesn't because that was
the fun of this is see.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
You know, there was so many comedians that we came
up with.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Alan Hayes and Mike Reynolds no longer, but just seeing
all of these people was very, very going down memory
lane for me.

Speaker 5 (32:07):
By the way, Michael Patrick King makes what I think
is the best scene of the pilot special by far. Yes,
Larry David comes down and goes over the bill and
he realizes that it's all porn charges and I get
very upset.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
I go, let me see this.

Speaker 5 (32:25):
You're not paying for this, and I kept saying HBO
pays for the porn and that I thought that'll be
a catchphrase and not in the moment, but later on
when we cut it, I went wow, and I kept
saying it. And then Michael Patrick come comes over, gouse
what and I go, doesn't HBO pay for the porn?

Speaker 4 (32:41):
Pay for the porn?

Speaker 5 (32:42):
And all he does goes, oh, HBO pays for the
porn because you can see him just he's gonna tell
people that Larry David watches a lot.

Speaker 7 (32:49):
Of porns because he's just the best scene I look
at now, and it truly was a classic curb scene.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Totally classic.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
And people mention that you mentioned that that episode, and
people say, HBO paste, and I think that that was
also for your character not to be psychoanalytic, but that
was one of the keys to your by the way
you protect client at all.

Speaker 5 (33:16):
By the way, if we were doing that scene now,
it wouldn't be very different. And by the way, to me,
the funniest thing and the scene is at the end
of the scene the button is Larry looking at me
and going shut the fuck up. And to me, that's
the hardest I laughed. That's the hardest I laughed. And
that's all it takes sometime, is that little shut the
fuck up that Larry David says, and the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
And by the way, do you know, do you know
the funniest thing One of the funniest things that struck
me on that was you saying, why do you waste?

Speaker 3 (33:44):
Why do you waste? That struck Oh.

Speaker 4 (33:46):
Yeah, yeah, why do you waste? If it is funny.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
Because that's it's such a thing of our parents, you
know why you Joe, you know.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
The big wasting.

Speaker 5 (33:55):
But I wanted to say something you asked me earlier,
and I realized I didn't address how did I come
up with a character?

Speaker 4 (34:01):
I didn't. I didn't come up with a character. I
just did it.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
You just did it.

Speaker 5 (34:05):
When I say, outside of the suits, there was no
thought process put into that character at all. Zero, not
even that one out of a hund you know zero.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
I'll talk about it next episode, but I pretty much
am the same. I came up with how I wanted
her to dress, and that was it. The rest was
just it's well not but I want to say.

Speaker 5 (34:25):
Yes because I have a thought on that. But yeah,
so I never thought of anything. It just became. And
then as I did it the first season, like maybe
towards the end of the season, I went, oh, I
know who this reminds me of. But it was organic.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
And I don't want to say yeah, but it's a
person and a manager and an agent all mixed into
the list because because you'll come up with it, because
my experiences with them certainly colored my character.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
But I know that I have a question.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
When you shot at Caroline's in New York, had you
already had you shot the stand up in LA already?

Speaker 3 (35:01):
They told you we shot in order in order, Okay,
So if we went to New York to.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
Shoot something and see La, I could see us flying.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
Across the I'm saying that is because I just noticed
as a performer, how and I know that Larry hadn't
performed in years, and I noticed by the time he
got to New York how much more comfortable he was
on stage, very much.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
It was really noticeable to me.

Speaker 5 (35:25):
And by the way, the show, as I mentioned last,
was based on my time helping develop John Stewart's on
Levin Yes and Dennis Larry's Lock and Load. So what
I did with them this is actually embarrassing yet funny.
What I did with John Stewart and what I did
with Dennis Larry. I had a different approach with both.

Speaker 4 (35:45):
John. I kind of had to lead him to a way.

Speaker 5 (35:48):
Of more performance because he was such a great writer,
to just how to fill a room, and that's what
we worked on and worked on with Dennis.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Who was much more of a performer, much more of
a and.

Speaker 5 (36:00):
I wanted him to get to the real person that
I know. That's what I wanted, you know, the stories,
you just let people know the real not the Yeah.
So we were filming this special, which I thought there'd
be more stand up. Every night after the stand up scenes,
we go back to the hotel and I would give

(36:20):
him notes on his stand up and he took some
in the nodded and then at a certain point he
just looked at me, Oh, I don't want to do this, Moore,
not the special. He didn't want me to give him notes, which,
by the way, one hundred percent right, and they weren't
even like real. Oh there, and see Larry. There's Larry
walking over there.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
We're on set.

Speaker 5 (36:40):
We didn't even mention that we're in Elisagundo in an
office building. And that's all I can say, not allowed
to say. But Larry David is walking by. And by
the way, even if we waved to him, he would
never notice. He would never know.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
Day one day a lot.

Speaker 4 (36:57):
But yeah, but he was walking along.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
Was he got a coffee there, probably a tea, wearing
a blazer and a blue sweater.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
Yeah, moving along. He's a Larry David. You all know.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
The other thing also looking at him and looking at
you now, and same thing when I watched the first
episode of Myself Were so young.

Speaker 5 (37:16):
Oh well, let's talk about that. But just to get
back to Larry said, I don't want to do this anymore.
And he said that he was irritated, and I looked
at him and went, yep, we should not be doing this.
Why am I trying to help him because the reason
I did was you show the making of a special.
It can go either way depending on Larry's mood when

(37:38):
we get to the end. Do you want to shoot
a real special or do you want to have it
end with you saying I don't want to do a special.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Having seen it now, it's obvious he's never going to
do the special without it was not obvious the first
time I saw it, though, I didn't know, and I
was actually looking forward to, thinking, oh, I'm going to
see more of his stand up.

Speaker 5 (37:55):
Well, it wasn't clear to me while we were shooting it,
So I approached it like I'm helping him developed, which
is good for it was almost like doing homework to
prepare it to be better for the scene.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
Once that caricature comes down on that big stage and
you look at it, and the scene with Alan Wasserman
telling him about his stepfather, it's.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Just a funny at the end of it.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Yeah, my step that's.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
A great scene.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
It's just him getting out of it, and that really
sets up the entire series of him getting out of
things for twelve seasons.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
Yes, but by the way, that's Larry David. Though. If
you want to know a real version of Larry David.
That's it.

Speaker 5 (38:34):
He loves getting out of things, doesn't want to do
them in the first place. By the way, that's my instinct.
I have social anxiety, get health, amongst my many.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Nothing makes me happier than when people cancel. COVID was fantastic.

Speaker 5 (38:46):
By the way.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
It built an excuse for everything.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
Yeah, cancel, canceled, cancel.

Speaker 5 (38:51):
It's like that one episode when Larry, because of his
mom's death, uses it an excuse, which is one of
my favorite pan that I know. But it's one of
my fair performances. So I'm looking at anything else. Oh well,
by the way, how long we've been on.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
For about forty minutes.

Speaker 5 (39:06):
Okay, so let's wrap up. Let me see if I
have any other things. Yeah, nope, nope, this would be
I want you to include all this people love. When
I say, nope, nope, nope, nope, no no, no, no, no, no, no, nope, nope. Stepfather,
I'm already at the end seat can't coordinate. Oh the
stepfather died from hitting a pole. Yeah, yeah that was

(39:30):
And by the way, to me, the funniest line in
the whole episode not set by me, not said by Larry,
but Judy Toll, who when Larry's explaining about what's going
on and they're upset that he's not going to be
doing a special him. No, no, no, no, there's no
bad people. She says that amongst which is like part

(39:52):
of the discussion yet a complete non sequitor. And the
way she said there's no bad people.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
That is an example of a many instincts. Well, she
was a great comedian of just knowing. And it's a
great loss time.

Speaker 5 (40:05):
It is God, you know, I learned a lot more
what a loss it was Judy Toll when I went
to her memorial and they showed all this video of
her that I'd never seen, and I was like, wow,
she was truly a genius.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
And just I hate when funny people die. They can't
be reported well.

Speaker 5 (40:19):
By the way, you know, the thing about comedians, it's
like people may not dig me, people may not dig you,
but whatever comedian you do dig there's a personal connection
that cannot be with any actor, any musician, even though
people look it's just with comedians. I don't know what
that is, because I know I've experienced that when my

(40:40):
heroes have passed away.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Well, and what people don't know or they do, is
that you're wearing a Richard Pryor shirt. I'm wearing a.

Speaker 5 (40:46):
Richard which, by the way, go to Richard Pryor dot
com and there are a bunch of stuff and they're
amazing t shirts, including the one I'm wearing, and all
the money goes to the prior family. It's like their
own Richard Pryorce, a right enterprise, whatever it is.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
I love them. So there you go. So we're so
we're good.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
And next episode we're going to start with the series.

Speaker 5 (41:09):
Yes, season season one. This was a two parter and
then there'll be no more two parters.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Yeah, coming up the Pants Tent.

Speaker 4 (41:16):
Oh yeah, the first episode is the Pants Tent.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
I love that all right, Bye bye, and thank you.

Speaker 5 (41:23):
So much for listening. It's so appreciated for those of
you are listening. For those of you using us as
background sounds, that's delightful too.