
Larry Charles drops by and the comedy wisdom flows. The boys dig into his wildest adventures with Sacha Baron Cohen, the mystery of Seinfeld laughter, and what it was really like leaving one of the biggest shows in TV history. They debate the death of...
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Mark Normand
Hey, we're here, folks. We might be drunk.
Sam Morril
We're here with Larry Charles, our best dressed guest ever.
Mark Normand
Thank you. Who died?
Larry Charles
I thought. Yeah, that's exactly. I'm trying to find out.
Mark Normand
Right.
Sam Morril
He's the godfather of Harlem, I think, right here. This is crazy.
Mark Normand
Yeah. The undertaker is here.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Sam Morril
I think we ever had a guest rock a suit. I think this is this classing it up the pie.
Larry Charles
Maybe.
Mark Normand
Maybe starting. Yeah, I guess so. No one's going to wear. I walked in with a bathing suit.
Larry Charles
You got to be crazy. I wouldn't either if I had my.
Mark Normand
Choice to heat wave.
Sam Morril
I have, yeah, the sunglasses on. I feel like I've only seen you in the sunglasses.
Larry Charles
I thought I would take them off and, you know, so we can have some actual eye contact.
Mark Normand
I appreciate it. I prefer them on, but what are you going to do?
Larry Charles
I can put them back on, but.
Mark Normand
From a distance, I would think.
Larry Charles
Hasidic Jew, often mistaken for one.
Mark Normand
Me too, actually.
Larry Charles
I had a black hat, you know, that that would be happening.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
I'd be also putting it to fill in on as well. So I remember.
Sam Morril
I remember Hannibal used to have that joke about he had never seen Hasidic Jews. So he first moved to New York and he's like, why do these Jews. Why do these Amish people have blackberries?
Larry Charles
I fucked up that joke. Sasha and I used to get into arguments actually quite a bit where we'd be doing like a white supremacist scene. And he would like, say, you can't go in there. I go, why? He said, you look too Jewish. And I go, well, have you looked at yourself? You look too Jewish.
Mark Normand
That's true.
Larry Charles
And we'd be arguing outside the white supremacist house about who looked more Jewish. And of course, I was lost because he had to actually go in and do the scene right. And I'd have to stay outside on the porch.
Sam Morril
That is the most Jewish thing. Two Jews bickering outside. A white supremacist.
Larry Charles
That hasn't happened more than once.
Sam Morril
So was that the one? Was that the throw the Jew down the well one?
Larry Charles
No, this was we actually interviewed. This was part of Bruno where he's supposed to get a white supremacist. He starts to flirt with a white supremacist. And this guy was a virulent anti semite. He had Nazi stuff all over his house.
Mark Normand
Oh, wow.
Larry Charles
And he has to get him to flirt with him. And then Bruno's boyfriend's supposed to barge in and go, what's going on here? And, like, catch them, you know, that kind of thing. And it turned into, like, a violent melee.
Mark Normand
Wow.
Larry Charles
And that guy, his name was Glenn Frazier, I believe. Glenn Miller, actually. Orchestra guy. He wound up. But not the orchestra guy. The white supremacist guy got it. And he wound up going. He wound up going to a synagogue in Kansas City. That's where this was. And shooting three people. Whoa. And he went to the synagogue to shoot three Jews. And the three people he killed happened to not be Jews. Oh, my God. Yeah. Jokes on him.
Mark Normand
Damn it.
Sam Morril
What were those non Jews doing at the synagogue?
Larry Charles
Well, he was an idiot to begin with, so I'm not surprised he didn't get that. Right.
Mark Normand
He shouldn't have gone on Saturday.
Larry Charles
Right. Well, also, he had so many. He had me and him. Me and Sasha were there. If he had just shot us.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
He would have been much more, you know, he would have been on target.
Mark Normand
Weird.
Sam Morril
Do you ever hear from people after they got, like, just humiliated in the. In the show or movie or anything like that?
Larry Charles
Usually through their lawyers, like, a lot. We had probably over 150 lawsuits for Borat.
Sam Morril
And who deals with that?
Larry Charles
HBO? I don't know who deals with it, actually. Well, you know, that was made by Fox, actually. Borat, but there was a lawyer involved. And most of those. Only one lawsuit that I know of in the two movies that we did, like, that actually succeeded. And that was actually a terrorist, a Palestinian terrorist that we did on Bruno, where he shows the guy a sex tape that he made, and he's trying to get his opinion about the sex tape, and he's trying to get the guy to kidnap him, you know, and the guy was really clueless, and he wasn't. We had bad research, which is one of the few times. And he wasn't actually currently a terrorist. He was a retired terrorist. And so we identified him as an active terrorist. You don't hear about retirement.
Sam Morril
They moved to Boca.
Larry Charles
I'm done with this.
Mark Normand
They get residuals from the bus bombing.
Larry Charles
A condo development there, but he. He sued and he. He actually won some money. Of all the people won the Jewish lawyers. Yeah, no, I know. That was the one time.
Sam Morril
Wow. What is he suing for defamation or something?
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was in. It was actually in Palestine. We did it in the West Bank. And yet he was able to sue in a. In an American court.
Mark Normand
It's always about the banks.
Larry Charles
But he was actually. He was right. I mean, we had the research wrong. He was not. He was kind of like a shopkeeper.
Mark Normand
Right.
Larry Charles
When we interviewed him, you know, pretty peaceful guy, actually. So he actually got us, but that we, we probably sued like hundreds of times, you know, and none of those other suits worked.
Mark Normand
Well, you get a release. Right. Or how did that work?
Larry Charles
You get a release, but people still try to get past the release. Once the scene's over, they realize they made a horrible mistake by signing the release and so then they wanted to tear up the release. And you know, but they've also. We give them 100 bucks and that. That's like a binding contract then.
Mark Normand
Right.
Larry Charles
And so nothing could be really be done about it. They're really kind of stuck.
Sam Morril
That's your reputation. $100.
Larry Charles
I mean, that's.
Sam Morril
When I see you have guys like Rudy Giuliani, I'm like, how the fuck do they, how are they so stupid to agree to be on camera?
Larry Charles
People, you know, it's two things that I'm sure you run into a lot in your lives. Ego and vanity. People want to be on camera. People want to, you know, they think they're better than they are. They think they're very photogenic, very charismatic. I play as my role, I often play into that. So, you know, you should be on tv. How come you've never done a pilot before? You know, that kind of.
Sam Morril
You should work for Girls Gone Wild.
Larry Charles
Exactly. And, and people will be very seduced by that very easily.
Mark Normand
Oh yeah.
Larry Charles
So it works.
Mark Normand
Man, your, your life is dangerous. I mean, you, you put yourselves in the harm's way quite a bit for a comedic writer.
Larry Charles
I have, I mean, I've been to, you know, I did a show for Netflix called Larry Charles Dangerous World of Comedy.
Mark Normand
Ah.
Larry Charles
Where I went to Somalia because there's comedians in Somalia. I mean, I, I'm in dangerous situations, but being a comedian in Somalia, that's.
Sam Morril
Like, those are the worst cruise ships ever.
Larry Charles
Yeah. They're really bad. They kind of crash into the shore there. But there's a lot of assassinations amongst the comedians that I interviewed. Yeah. I mean, because they really get the government upset and the state run media. So, you know, it's a very tense situation for people in Iraq, but there are comedians in all these places, Liberia, where there was a big civil war. Comedians, you know.
Mark Normand
Wow.
Larry Charles
So I thought that was fascinating that people do comedy because we have it pretty easy here. Sure. But in some places, doing comedy really is risking your life, you know?
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
I thought that was fascinating. Yeah.
Sam Morril
I feel when people call comedians brave here, where we're like, shut the fuck up. There's really no. The More we talk about it, like, even with canceling comedians, it really never sticks when it's a joke or a word. The only ones who have stuck are, like, the sexual assault people.
Larry Charles
Yeah. There's a lot of people in these countries who are constantly under threat, Their lives are under threat and often are killed. So it's a pretty big deal. But they feel it's a really important thing to do, to sort of speak truth to power, to speak out against the government. And they're in these dictatorial. Dictatorial kind of countries, and they want us speak out about them. And people do respond to it also.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
So they are playing a kind of important role and a healing role also for people that are oppressed. They get a chance to laugh, you know, which is kind of a rarity in those places. Here we can laugh pretty much as much as we want. Even as Trump, our dictator, is like, you know, talking. We can still make fun of him. We're sitting here making fun of him.
Mark Normand
So pretty great.
Larry Charles
There's a little bit of freedom.
Mark Normand
It's crazy. We bitch as comedians. We get heckled or a drink thrown at us. These guys are getting killed, maybe all for $28 at a club, you know, maybe.
Larry Charles
Maybe that's their income for the year.
Mark Normand
Drink tickets. That's crazy. The balls on those guys.
Larry Charles
Yeah, that's major balls.
Sam Morril
What's the most scared you've been in one of those situations?
Larry Charles
You know, the weird thing for me, I'm from Brooklyn originally, and a very kind of violent, Lord of the Flies kind of Brooklyn section. And I don't get scared. I mean, I get scared, like, coming on this show. I get nervous about that kind of stuff more than I do. Like I was in Somalia. We got stopped suddenly. All these militia people came out. They all had machine guns. They're all pointing it at the. At the vehicle, you know, and I'm.
Sam Morril
That's insane. You're more scared to be here.
Larry Charles
Yeah, I swear to God, I kind of.
Sam Morril
I'm a big fan of yours. I'm much more scared of the machine guns in Somalia.
Larry Charles
But something happens to me. I don't know why. Maybe I'm a sociopath or something, but my fear level goes down. I get kind of calm. I sort of surrender. It's like, okay, well, this is it. And I'm like. I'm okay with that.
Mark Normand
It's like a race car driver. They say when they're going 800 miles an hour, they're like, I'm weirdly Zen.
Larry Charles
Yes. And that's what happens. To me in those situations. So I've been in a lot of those situations. I'm uniquely suited, in a way to direct a Borat or to go to Somalia to talk to comedians, because in those situations where the guns are being pointed at me, which has happened more than once, I kind of get into that Zen state.
Mark Normand
Interesting.
Larry Charles
And I don't. I don't get. I get. I have more trouble getting to the airport to go to that place than I do when I get to that place. That's. This is.
Sam Morril
It's. It's like the little things are more annoying.
Larry Charles
Exactly.
Sam Morril
I get what I'm saying.
Larry Charles
I have to go to the airport later today. I'm freaking out about that. But when I got to Somalia, I felt okay.
Mark Normand
Well, that's why the shows like Curb or Seinfeld are so resonate, because I feel like minutia to guys like us is way more interesting and more important than the big issues of the day.
Larry Charles
You're right. Yeah.
Sam Morril
When something horrible happens in my life, I kind of like pause and deal with it. But when it's. When it's the little things, I get so angry.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Sam Morril
Like people violating basic social codes. I mean, that. We talk about peeves on this podcast all the time.
Larry Charles
Yeah, I have. I've written down a bunch for you. Don't worry. Yeah.
Mark Normand
All right. Yeah, I think comics are good with that. Like. Well, I was at a restaurant with a comic on the road recently, and I could overhear people talking about Iran and Trump and Elon and all this stuff. And then I. I looked at us, and we were. We were in, like, a 20 minute deep dive on types of toast. You got sourdough, then you got wheat, then you got whole grain, and then you got a muffin and you got a croissant, and we loved it.
Larry Charles
It was riveting. You remind me, my wife insisted we get a toaster oven, you know, to make toast. And. And I said, okay. And. But I have found that you cannot make good toast in the toaster oven. It only toasts one side.
Mark Normand
Interesting.
Larry Charles
They don't toast equally, you know, so there's a. There's a peeve.
Mark Normand
Let me get Jerry on the line. That's correct.
Larry Charles
Yeah. Find out about that toaster oven. Yeah, well, yeah.
Sam Morril
I mean, you direct. She directed Borat, Bruno Religilist, which I saw in theaters with my mom. I was like, I'll go to temple with you if you go to Religilist.
Larry Charles
Did she like it?
Sam Morril
She did. Her critique, which I understood was there. Was that Great scene where he's talking to that politician, another guy, where you're like, how the hell did he get this guy to a community on camera? And I was like, oh, I mean, I wish there were more scenes like that. I think that was her critique, which I heard that because like those are the. When he's talking to people who are like, well, this guy's clearly just a dumb grifter, it's not as interesting, you know, but when you're talking to someone who's like, oh, this guy actually has like political influence and power. To me, that to me as well, that was more like, oh, well, like, yeah, Bill is smart enough to kind of outwit those people. So I wanted to see that more.
Larry Charles
Well, it's always hard to get the truly powerful. You know, that's why, like, that's why getting politicians people. Because people knew better.
Sam Morril
Yeah, but they didn't know. Yeah, they didn't know Borat the character a lot.
Larry Charles
No, but they were still like, they didn't have the need. They didn't have that ego need to be on camera at any cost.
Sam Morril
Right.
Larry Charles
You know, so it's easier unfortunately, to get people who are slightly lower level to, to agree because they want their day in the sun.
Mark Normand
Yeah. You know what a good, good combo, you and Bill. Because I feel like Bill is you're going in front of a tank, but he's going in front of psycho people and just saying crazy shit. He'll. He'll push back on anybody.
Larry Charles
He's great that way. I mean, he's not. He, his, his, his whole thing is he's actually a good listener, which doesn't come through a lot of the time. But he actually listens to what the people say so that he has something to respond to.
Mark Normand
Right.
Larry Charles
You know, and that makes him very dangerous to the person he's interviewing.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
Because he's, he's not just thinking about what the next thing is. He wants to say. He's going to base something on what you just said.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
And sort of pick that apart. And he's very effective that way. Yeah, he'd be a good prosecutor.
Sam Morril
A lot of comedians used to be lawyers. We talked about that.
Larry Charles
Oh, that's interesting.
Sam Morril
I mean, Greg Giraldo is a great stand up, you know, lawyer Demetri Martin. A lot, a lot of comics.
Mark Normand
Mercurio, Al Lubel. Oh, wow. Damn.
Sam Morril
I think. Yeah. A lot of, A lot of good stand ups.
Larry Charles
Yeah. Well, because there's an argumentative quality to being a comedian. You're a contrarian.
Mark Normand
Right.
Larry Charles
You know, and so it makes sense that people who were lawyers would feel sort of hemmed in by that eventually and want to use that same trait on stand up and just be funny about it.
Sam Morril
I mean, can you just picture, like, Chris Rock being an incredible trial lawyer?
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Sam Morril
You know, you just. By the end, you'd be like, fuck, I do think that way.
Larry Charles
I want him to defend me. Absolutely. Yeah. I wonder if you could just hire him anyway, even though he doesn't have a license.
Mark Normand
Yeah, maybe.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Mark Normand
Now what the hell? You did Jackass.
Larry Charles
No, I did not do Jackass. Sorry.
Mark Normand
Who did Jackass? Sorry.
Larry Charles
A guy named Jeff Tremaine. I thought you should have on. Very cool.
Mark Normand
I love Jeff Tremaine.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Mark Normand
But I don't know why I thought you directed that. I felt like a Larry Charles joint.
Sam Morril
First five seasons of Seinfeld.
Larry Charles
Right, right. Which I did not direct, but I was a writer.
Sam Morril
But you wrote the bookman scene, Right?
Larry Charles
I wrote the bookman scene.
Sam Morril
That's maybe my favorite scene.
Larry Charles
It's great.
Sam Morril
I love that actor Philip Baker hall so much.
Larry Charles
Well, one of the cool things about Seinfeld was our influences were not the usual sitcom influences. Like, we were more into like, Abner and Costello or Dragnet or Superman than we were into like Cheers or shows like that. And so that's why that show has such a weird vibe to it. It's not like those other shows because it's not influenced by any of those kind of contemporary shows.
Mark Normand
That's a good point.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Mark Normand
And you did the LA one. Was that you?
Larry Charles
I did the LA one as well.
Mark Normand
Okay. That was a. To be continued.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah. That was actually a three part because the first one is where he lose. Where Kramer loses the keys and he. Which. Which was the end of the season before. Yes, he loses the keys and that's what. That's what sort of propels him to take off for California. And then it's a two parter. California.
Mark Normand
I remember being such a dumb kid. I was in Louisiana, watching this as a child and I was like, wait, my dad told me they shoot in la, but they. On the episode you went to la.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Mark Normand
And I remember being like, they're not in New York all the time. I was so stupid.
Larry Charles
No, no, you know what? Most people. I was always shocked that people actually. Because the New York street that we use was like a back. Was a crappy backstreet studio City. And I was like, we're not. This looks like such. Can I say shit? This looks like some shit, you know? And but yet people believe the illusion and thought the show was shot in New York.
Sam Morril
Those shots of just outside, I mean, we are easily tricked that just the outside of Jerry's apartment, you're like, it's New York.
Larry Charles
Yeah, exactly.
Sam Morril
That's all it took. People brought the illusion over the feather.
Mark Normand
But that is in la.
Sam Morril
Jerry's building is in la.
Larry Charles
Even Jerry's building is in la. It's in Los Feliz. I thought it was in New York. Yeah.
Sam Morril
I did America's Got Talent back in the day. Not bragging, but I remember they had me walk. Pretend to me walking. Walking in New York. And it was some set in la.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah.
Sam Morril
I'm on like a stoop and I'm.
Larry Charles
Just like, there are some that are better than. There are some Backstreet sets that are better than others. Yeah, yeah. That's in Los Feliz.
Mark Normand
That's hilarious.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Sam Morril
Wow.
Larry Charles
We shot an episode. I guess it was the limo, which I wrote also. Yeah. With Murphy.
Sam Morril
Yeah, It's a great episode.
Larry Charles
That backlot is the Paramount backlot, which is a pretty good backlot, actually. It looks. If you shoot from the right angle.
Sam Morril
It could look, by the way, another white supremacist. Like you're writing some. This is dark for network tv, that.
Larry Charles
You'Re writing no notes. There was no notes either, so.
Mark Normand
And the joke was the girl, she's a cute nut.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Mark Normand
And that was. The guy from Six Feet under was in there.
Larry Charles
That's right. That's right. Peter something.
Sam Morril
Oh, and he was on the Sports Night.
Mark Normand
Was that the show he was on?
Larry Charles
Sports? Yeah, yeah.
Sam Morril
Oh, man, that was. And. And they're going to the Knicks game too.
Larry Charles
Right. And that's based on a real story. You know, there was a guy named Mark Jaffe who wrote for Seinfeld, who told us the story of a friend of his who got off the plane and didn't have a ride. And so they used to hold the signs. You know, the drivers would hold the signs. He just said, I'm that guy. And he got out of the car. And I said, what if that guy was a Nazi? And that was. That's how I wound up writing that episode.
Mark Normand
That's comedy.
Larry Charles
Yeah, exactly.
Mark Normand
Let it down. Make a guy a Nazi.
Larry Charles
Yeah, why not? Yeah. There's the guy holding the sign right there.
Mark Normand
No relation to the Woody Allen Jaffe?
Larry Charles
No, not at all.
Mark Normand
Okay.
Larry Charles
Okay. No, this guy was from Cleveland.
Sam Morril
Ah, that is such a great episode. And that's also like one of the great episodes that so much of it's just in one setting. You just. Those were like the Seinfeld episodes where. Like the famous one where they. At the Chinese restaurant, just waiting.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah.
Sam Morril
It's like a play more than a sitcom almost.
Larry Charles
It was like a Beckett play.
Mark Normand
Right.
Larry Charles
Instead of waiting for Godot, you're waiting for a table. So it was. Yeah, that was great. That was Larry David. I mean, he's a brilliant writer.
Mark Normand
Is that you in the parking garage?
Larry Charles
That is me.
Mark Normand
That's another episode with a lot more.
Larry Charles
Ha. Even heavier than I am right now, which is way overweight.
Mark Normand
I gotta ask. I've been watching your work for 30 plus year. Whatever. Did Seinfeld and Larry ever zing you? Just because Seinfeld is so particular about, like tucking in the shirt. And I've hung out with him and he's always like, what is that?
Larry Charles
What is that?
Mark Normand
You gonna shave or you're not gonna shave? You know, like, he must have given you shit.
Larry Charles
Well, Larry David also is a very fastidious dresser. You know, very specific too.
Mark Normand
The quarter zip.
Larry Charles
When you would come in in the morning, you would be critiqued.
Mark Normand
Okay.
Larry Charles
You know, there was a fashion critique going on at all times. You know, I got very used to that. In fact, I mean, at one point and it became an episode. I used to. I was in one room and then they were in like this bigger room that had a bathroom in it. And I used to just kind of go into their bathroom because a lot of time. I spent a lot of time in their office kind of talking about stories. And in the middle of that kind of conversation like this, I would just go to the bathroom. But then I started when I was in my own office, I would just. Whatever they were doing, I would just walk in and go to the bathroom. Sometimes I had a magazine with me. I wasn't just going to take a piss.
Mark Normand
Sure.
Larry Charles
You know. And I'd be in there for a few minutes and I realized they were kind of like looking at me like, what the fuck are you doing? And eventually they didn't. Never said to me. Because neither one of them really wanted confrontation.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
But they eventually wrote an episode in which George starts using the boss's bathroom and gets fired.
Mark Normand
There you go.
Sam Morril
That's the most passive aggressive way to confront you. Instead of just being like, hey, you do that. They're like, we're gonna write the show about that. The most comedian thing. Because we do that to people. I can't imagine how many times, like, we have friends. It gets back to them. We're Like, I have a peeve. And then they're like, was that me?
Mark Normand
Yes, exactly. So true.
Larry Charles
So I stopped doing it after.
Sam Morril
But there's also the George episode where he's taking the books in the bathroom at the bookstore and they flag it.
Larry Charles
A lot of that stuff is true stories of Larry.
Mark Normand
Right.
Larry Charles
The true stories of Larry are also legendary. I mean, there's another George story in a bathroom where he was going to have sex with this woman, and this actually happened to Larry, and he had to go to the bathroom, and it was a small New York apartment, and the bathroom was right off the bed, and he couldn't. He had to. Actually, instead of having sex, he just left. And that was the end of that relationship.
Mark Normand
So. So shooting Curb must have.
Sam Morril
You did some Curbs directed for like, 20 years.
Larry Charles
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Normand
Wow. Okay, so.
Larry Charles
But it's 20 years because, like, Larry would take four years off. You know, that did that. He really spread them out. So.
Mark Normand
But was that a little bit of a breath of fresh air? I mean, with NBC, you got these execs sniffing down your back. With. With hbo, I feel like a little more freewheeling.
Larry Charles
It was. Well, first of all, once Seinfeld. Once Seinfeld became a hit, there were.
Sam Morril
No more notes, you know, notes on the Nazi episode, which NBC is crazy.
Mark Normand
Good point.
Larry Charles
And the contest, which is a famous episode of the outing. Those. Those had no notes. I mean, you never say jack off. Right. Exactly. There's no bad words.
Sam Morril
I mean, but it's wittier to be like, master of your domain.
Mark Normand
King of the castle.
Larry Charles
Exactly. Y. So there was no real notes, but it was still a structured sitcom. It had commercials. It had to be a certain length.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
You know, that could not be. You couldn't waver from that, you know, so Curb was a looser environment. Curb was really fun. It was like we'd be hanging out like this, and then we would just go and shoot the scene, you know, it was just like very loose environment. Probably the most fun I've had on a set. It was really great. Yeah, that was fun.
Mark Normand
It's basically a clean comic versus a dirty comic.
Larry Charles
But you could do whatever you wanted, really. But it's the same comic, right?
Mark Normand
Right.
Sam Morril
So he's kind of. I mean, it's almost like doing a late night set versus an HBO special, you know?
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Sam Morril
To some degree. Which is like.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Sam Morril
So much more fun to be able to say whatever.
Mark Normand
Of course.
Larry Charles
JB Smooth. We were talking before we started here about, like, how there were some clean. There were clean comedians now who Are sort of like. It's almost like a trend in a way. And. But JB Smooth is one of the. Certainly one of the last of the dirtiest comedians around. Yeah. Very filthy and hilarious.
Mark Normand
Also, I opened for a few times, and even I was like, jesus Christ.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Mark Normand
And you. Funny. I think I've told this story before. I did. Caroline's with him, and it was when Kurt was getting hot and he would come out to the. And it was a lot of yarmulkes in the audience. And by the end of his show, there was like, one yarmulke, because they were all exodus, like in the desert. Moses.
Larry Charles
A literal exodus. Wow.
Mark Normand
But he was hilarious. I mean, he's pouring sweat and just doing crazy stuff with a microphone.
Larry Charles
And that was the liberation of Curb. It's like there was no language barrier. There was no time barrier. If you wanted it, should it be 35 minutes? Our original cuts of Curb were often an hour. And I would, like, really lobby Larry to put that hour version out because those were amazing. The weaving of the stories and the other scenes that didn't make it. And he was very tied to keeping it to 30 minutes.
Sam Morril
But there's some episodes that are like, 37.
Larry Charles
Right. Well, eventually he started to loosen up a little bit and allow the episodes to go, because HBO didn't care. HBO would have been happy with hour and a half episodes. They were totally cool with it. So it was really about his level of control.
Sam Morril
Do you think it was like, I mean, similar to the show Seinfeld. So concerned with overstaying their welcome.
Larry Charles
Well, and there is a point to that, I think, also. I mean, Sasha is the same way. I'm not, you know, I like. I like things running long. I like seeing sort of like the stuff that's not necessarily the most hilarious, but is really weird or interesting or compelling in some way. But those guys really want to sort of control how much you see, make you want to come back for more, and also only use the A stuff. You know, what they consider to be the A stuff, which could be a debatable point.
Sam Morril
Was there ever a thing that you really had to fight him to put back in that he reluctantly let back in and you thought really worked?
Larry Charles
I'm sure there was. I can remember situations where there were, but not specifically. Okay, no, a lot of that. I mean, that's the good thing. That's the Talmudic part of this stuff. Like, we're talking about, you know, Jews and comedy and lawyers and all this kind of stuff. There was a talmudic Quality to the editing or even in the story making where you're arguing back and forth about this is funny. Let's try it this way. It would work better that way. And eventually you find that. You hopefully find that synthesis that works.
Mark Normand
Yeah. So how's it going with Larry now? I see a lot of buzz about this documentary. Everybody's talking about it.
Sam Morril
We both read the New York Times article. That's why.
Mark Normand
Well, we're doing our research, you know.
Larry Charles
I mean, we're not talking. Ah, but it's not that big a deal though, really. I mean, but if you called him.
Sam Morril
Right now, would you be good, do you think? If you. If you, like, after the show, like, hey, can we get coffee?
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah, I think so. In the book, you'll see that. I think he comedy Samurai, by the way, quick plug.
Sam Morril
Get anywhere you get books, right? Amazon, the bookstore.
Larry Charles
Yeah, it's everywhere. And I did the audiobook also.
Mark Normand
Nice.
Larry Charles
But because it's like one long monologue in a way. He came to me a couple years before this is in the book, a couple years before this all happened. And I met him for lunch and he said, look, HBO wants to bring some new blood into the directing of the show. And so there were a couple other older directors. David Steinberg, Brian Gordon, Bob Whitey, who had been the original director.
Mark Normand
Oh, yeah.
Larry Charles
And he said, they asked me to let them go. And you're our favorite director. Me? Yeah, you're our favorite director. But I think, will you take a hit for the team? Because I don't want to get rid of all those guys and then keep you. It'll look bad and I'll feel bad. And I was like, of course, at that point I was only really, he's.
Sam Morril
Taking them all to lunch and saying the same thing. Look, you're our favorite.
Larry Charles
I never thought about that. You know what I mean? I thought, well, yeah, I'll take one for the team. And I appreciate the idea of this idea of diversity, you know, like hiring women, hiring people of color to try. See what kind. See what they come up with, you know, why not? And then that season I noticed that Jeff Schaefer, who's a friend of mine and was running the show at that point, he directed almost all the episodes. Ah, boy. So there was no. It was another white guy. And I was like, huh, you know what? I think Larry fired me in his kind of passive aggressive way. And that may have been. And then I was like, kind of upset about that for a minute. And then I thought, well, you know what? I Had lost my temper on the set that season with all the actors, and I just kind of lost my shit one day for a stupid reason that I immediately regretted. But I did lose it, which happens to directors a lot. So much tension.
Mark Normand
Was it garlic?
Larry Charles
No, it wasn't that, actually. No, that would have done it also.
Mark Normand
Okay.
Larry Charles
I'm not saying I wouldn't. It wasn't in this particular case. It was in the episode where Bob Einstein is dating the woman with the bad tap water. Do you remember that? And Larry has the stabbing thing. He picks up the knife and he's like, you know, I really want to stab. It was a really funny scene, but there was something going on in the kitchen in the background that was distracting me. And I thought it was ruining the takes. So I kept on saying, we stopped moving back there. And they were going, nobody's moving. And I'm like, I'm seeing it on the monitor, you know? And so I lost my shit. Very bad behavior. And so I thought, okay, well, if he fired me for that reason, he'd be justified, you know? I mean, that was wrong of me to lose my shit in that situation.
Mark Normand
Okay.
Larry Charles
So to get back to your point, as far as I was concerned, everything was cool. You know, if he fired me for that reason, I understood. If it was a true, like, attempt to diversify the thing and he just didn't do it, that's cool. Larry could be very passive aggressive. We're both emotional cowards when it comes to, like, confronting situations, you know? So that's why a couple years later, when I went to him and said, would you mind if I. Would you. I'd like to interview you. He immediately said, yes.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
And we did the interviews at his house, and they went great. He said they were the best interviews he'd ever done.
Mark Normand
I would love to see this.
Larry Charles
Yeah. And then the guy that shot the interviews, the first half of the interviews, the first two hours actually, he didn't.
Sam Morril
He was a trans Haitian guy. He made sure to get diversity on this one.
Larry Charles
He was doing the sound and the picture, and he didn't do a great job with the picture. And so it was a lot of shakiness, a lot of blurriness. And I was like, oh, wow, it's all ruined. What am I gonna do? And I was really depressed. And then I thought, well, what if I put a clip in here? What if I. And I sort of built it into a regular documentary? And it came out great.
Mark Normand
Okay.
Larry Charles
And so then I did the second part, and I did that with the second part. So we had a four hour thing with Seinfeld, you know, so he would tell the story of what happened to him. And then you see the Seinfeld clip that we used that kind of was. Was from that story. Yeah. You know, and all his influences and all that kind of stuff is a very, very cool documentary. He looked great in it. We talked about all kinds of heavy subjects. He wasn't on, you know, he wasn't on like a comedian. He was himself, which is a much more sort of worldly wise, generous, thoughtful, contemplative person at this stage of his life, you know, and there was a moment where he cried. We talked a lot about death. We talked a lot about family and his jets.
Sam Morril
That's why he cried.
Larry Charles
So I was really happy with it, and he was really happy with it, but there was something about it that he felt that he was exposing himself too much. And so I gave him an opportunity. He gave me notes. I tried to make it, but I knew once this thought was planted in his head, it might never go away. And we actually got to that point where I finished it and it was ready to go on the air the next day. They were marketing it already on hbo, and he called me and said that he wanted a postpone it. And I said, postpone means kill, you know, and. And that was. And that I was actually directing into the movie at that point.
Sam Morril
How much time did you put into this?
Larry Charles
I probably worked. I worked on through the entire pandemic and then after for like. I worked for a long time, you know, and I was. I was upset about it, but I would say, really still not angry. Knowing him and knowing myself, we just needed to have that conversation like two years before, you know, where he was like, I'm uncomfortable with this because then I would have taken the unadulterated footage and put it on YouTube or something like that. Rather than make it polished and nice for hbo, I would have just put it out like that, you know, if I was gonna put it out at all.
Sam Morril
Do you think he's like. He's this old school type of comedian where, like, you know, we've talked about this. Guys like Eddie Murphy, they kind of have mystique to them.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Sam Morril
And kind of the less, you know, the less you see them being super vulnerable. It's better for everything else they do. Do you think that's kind of the school?
Larry Charles
Well, I think that he evolved into that. You have to remember that he had kind of given up stand up when we were doing Seinfeld. And then Curb was his attempt initially to get back into standup, and then it became Curb instead. So he did develop much more of a TV Persona, a comedy Persona that he thinks the audience really wanted to see. They want him to be funny, and they do want him to be funny, and he is funny. But this was more of a kind of a lower key version of him. The version that I knew. I know the guy since I'm like 22 years old, you know, so I've known all those different levels of him. And I think that in some way, he didn't want the audience to see that version of him at this point.
Mark Normand
Sure, I get that.
Larry Charles
That's why he wanted to do a live thing where there would be an audience and then he could get laughs. I saw that, and I wasn't as interested in that personally.
Mark Normand
Can I buy it from you? I just want to see it. Like, how much would it take?
Larry Charles
I have it on the phone. Right?
Mark Normand
Really?
Larry Charles
No, no, I do have it. You know, I have it because I.
Mark Normand
Remember the pull up the. The poster for this, the documentary.
Larry Charles
I remember waiting for it.
Mark Normand
I was pumped.
Larry Charles
What's that?
Mark Normand
What's it?
Larry Charles
The Larry David story.
Mark Normand
I remember going, hey, calling a friend, like, here we go, baby.
Larry Charles
Yeah, let's watch this together. It's great. Actually, the trailer for. It's really good. You get a sense of how. How it. How it worked.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
And even his kids, he told me, my kids love. Loved it, you know, And I thought, well, that's a guarantee, you know?
Sam Morril
But that might work against it comedically. When your kids love it, you're kind of like, well, they love me unconditionally.
Larry Charles
I think that's part of the problem. Was like, there was a. There was too much emotion.
Mark Normand
Right.
Larry Charles
He is like, no hugging, no learning.
Sam Morril
That's like, if my mom says, that's a great picture, you. I'm like, you're my fucking mom.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So there was something about it that he just was not comfortable with, you know?
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Sam Morril
What was it that made him tear up?
Mark Normand
Ooh, good question.
Larry Charles
I think he was talking about his kids, actually. Yeah, he was talking about his kids and how. How much they meant to him. I mean, he had genuine emotion about that. Whereas, course, if you watch him on Curb, it's all about him not having any feelings about anything.
Sam Morril
And no kids.
Larry Charles
And no kids. Right. That was a choice as well. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what it was. It was about his kids.
Mark Normand
Damn. Not the divorce. Not. Yeah, not his childhood.
Larry Charles
Well, we talked about the divorce. We talked about the childhood, but that didn't bring tears to his eyes necessarily. Yeah.
Mark Normand
Wow. But you're a Coney island guy.
Larry Charles
Yes.
Mark Normand
And he's Sheepshead Bay.
Larry Charles
Yes.
Mark Normand
Man. Crazy, the amount of comedy and Woody Allen. I think Seinfeld's from Brooklyn, Queens.
Larry Charles
I thought Seinfeld's from. From Queens originally, then Massapequa, I think. But I would say that the area of Brooklyn that I'm from and that he's from and Brooks is from. Yeah. I mean, that is like the Kingston, Jamaica of comedy.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
It's like. It's like, why reggae sort of became this thing in Kingston, Jamaica? That's like this comedy triangle there.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
It's amazing that all those people. I don't know why.
Mark Normand
I don't either.
Sam Morril
Did you know any of them before comedy or.
Larry Charles
No, no, because I was. I'm younger than Larry and much younger than someone like Mel Brooks and those people. So I only come with Mel Brooks. I did he. First of all, he did a season on Curb.
Mark Normand
Oh, that's right. The producer, David Schwimmer.
Larry Charles
And he was also Mad about you when I was the showrunner of Mad about you.
Sam Morril
I didn't know you were the showrunner.
Larry Charles
Of Mad about you.
Sam Morril
A lot of you were getting residuals, mailbox money.
Larry Charles
It's not worth that much anymore. Only Seinfeld, really.
Mark Normand
Okay.
Larry Charles
Seinfeld is still kind of, like, out there. I make a little bit of money from that. But the things like Mad about you, they're not really in syndication. Syndication doesn't even really exist that much anymore. Everything gets sold off to make Netflix, and there's a buyout and it's over.
Sam Morril
What was your favorite season of Curb?
Larry Charles
My favorite season of Curb was probably. I had a lot of favorite seasons, but maybe the season with the Seinfeld reunion.
Mark Normand
Oh, yeah.
Larry Charles
That was a lot of fun, actually, to work with all those actors and to direct them.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
Was a great experience, actually.
Mark Normand
Yeah, that was big. It was like worlds colliding.
Larry Charles
Yeah. Yeah. That was fun. But the year. There's a season where he dies at the end.
Mark Normand
Oh, yes.
Larry Charles
And he goes to Heaven.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
And I directed that Heaven episode. That was a lot of fun.
Sam Morril
That was a finale. I remember that.
Larry Charles
Yeah. Yeah. So. And there was a season where he. He. He. He had made that deal with Cheryl that if they stayed married long enough, he could have sex with somebody else in Eternity. Yeah.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
And so that had the Survivor in it where there was the. The guy who was on Survivor and the Holocaust Survivor.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
Got into an argument, you know. That's one of my favorite.
Mark Normand
That's gold. I'm a survivor.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Mark Normand
So good, man. I think the old, old seasons were much better.
Larry Charles
I tend to shit on Larry. Right? Exactly. I tend to.
Sam Morril
I love so much. I think my favorite episode ever is Corpse Sniffing Dog.
Larry Charles
Oh, classic. Yeah, those are all gray. Yeah. I mean, some of the idea. And that's the thing. As outrageous as the ideas that Seinfeld had at that time in that context were nothing compared to the ideas that KIRB had. The concepts of Kirb were so outrageous, you know, and they were kind of brilliant. And I think that's. It just releases. It's a cathartic kind of laugh. Those forbidden things, you know, like his mother's buried in the wrong plot or, you know, those kind. You know, that kind of stuff just makes you explode because it's so forbidden to even be laughing at that. It's about. And this is a big part of my kind of comedy is it's something that's not funny and trying to find an angle to make it funny. And Larry sort of taught me. I mean, I was again, 22 years old when I met him, and he sort of taught me that anything could be funny if you do as you know, it's. If you could find the angle, you know, and not always a good angle, but you could. If you look for it. Yes, you'll find an angle for any subject at all. And that can make it funny. Sometimes the audience wants to laugh.
Sam Morril
Sometimes I see a comic, though, and I agree with you. I totally agree with you. But sometimes I'll see young comic kind of finding their way a little bit, and it's all high heat. It's all like, they're throwing like 102, but it's not anywhere near the strike. It's like trans bid, abortion, aids, keto joke.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Sam Morril
And I'm like, none of them are funny. And I'm like, oh, you just need better control. Like, you need to, like, run the strike zone.
Larry Charles
It's like early Nolan Ryan, he used to be hitting people in the stomach.
Sam Morril
He figured it out, you know, I mean, so, yeah, I agree with you. We're super, like, you know, we were always pumped back in the day, Mark and I were comics that wanted to get on late night, but we had a lot of jokes that kind of would, like, push it a little bit for that type of comedy. So we were always pumped to do like Conan show where you could do a little edgier because it Was on tbs.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Sam Morril
But, you know, man, it was tough.
Mark Normand
Late night now is like, oh, it's even squeakier.
Sam Morril
It's. I've. I've never. It's. I think I sent him one. He was like, we don't want to get you back on Fallon. I sent him. And he was like, none of these jokes work. And I was like, all right.
Mark Normand
Yeah. My friend did it. His opening was a. Yeah. You ever have that friend you hate? And they were like, you can't say friend you hate. He's like, he's my friend. I hate him. But they're like, hate's too hard. He's like, hate's too hard. That's not the F word.
Sam Morril
Well, the problem became that you comic are now representing the host.
Mark Normand
Right, right.
Sam Morril
You know, so it's like, so Jimmy's nice, so I have to be nice. I'm like, but that's not how I am.
Larry Charles
I'm a different person than Jimmy. That's so true.
Sam Morril
It just got weird.
Larry Charles
Well, that's also. You're really kind of, like, tapping into how comedy itself has changed. Really?
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
So that's a big thing. The way it's fragmented, where you had, like, you know, tens of millions of people watching the same thing. Now that doesn't happen anymore. The audience is very fragmented. Political correctness has kind of, like, taken over a certain segment, certain segments, and it becomes a little bit more challenging to figure out. In fact, to me, it's like almost like a new language needs to be invented for comedy to reach that mass audience again, which is gonna be very, very hard. I mean, you couldn't. Blazing Saddles, you know, Richard Pryor's concert movies, all those things that I grew up on.
Mark Normand
Yeah, yeah.
Larry Charles
They would not be really allowed, most likely today. They wouldn't be made in the first place.
Mark Normand
No chance.
Sam Morril
We think there's a hunger for that. I think a movie like Clothing Saddles, like, I think. I think there's such a void right now. You know, I think people are dying for a movie like that, but.
Mark Normand
And not everyone's gonna like it, but it's not for them. And they can tweet all they want, but I'm like, just don't watch it and let us enjoy. I'm sure there were people in the 70s who hated blazing Saddles, thought it was gross and inappropriate and irreverent, but they didn't have Twitter.
Larry Charles
But even still, a lot of those people still thought it was funny. People who basically would not think, like, Borat was like, that Also, yeah.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
People thought it was funny. Who would. Not necessarily politically, in the same place that we were. It didn't matter.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
It transcended a lot of the kind of bullshit and just gets to that part of you that makes you laugh.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
Like it makes you cry or makes you scream. It makes you laugh.
Sam Morril
Well, the fact that you started in, like, all these network shows and playing to a broad audience and then going to a place that's a little more irreverent, I mean, that must have worked so well for you because you know how to do the clean stuff, but then you're well equipped to handle the more offensive stuff.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Sam Morril
They always told us to write clean as a start, as a kid, but.
Larry Charles
We were always attracted to, I mean, the Richard Pryor and, you know, that kind of thing. So.
Mark Normand
Yeah, the producers. This fucking Hitler. What is it?
Larry Charles
Right, right, exactly.
Mark Normand
Springtime for Hitler.
Larry Charles
That would be a problem today.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
But again, it's sort of. It was a musical like, you know, he kept it going as a franchise for a long, long time.
Mark Normand
And the Holocaust was what, 20, 18 years before that.
Larry Charles
Right.
Mark Normand
It's like so recent.
Larry Charles
It's actually very. It was very crazy.
Sam Morril
It's like doing a 911 musical now.
Mark Normand
Right, exactly. It's craz. But, you know, it's always funny. Like, I'll have an angry lady at my show yell at me, like, I cannot believe you said, that's horrible to say that. I'm like, that's why I said it. Yeah, that's what I'm going for. I'm trying to make fun of that horrible thing.
Larry Charles
And that person would, at one time, in my opinion, laughed. Even if they felt that was a horrible thing to say, they would still. They would be beside themselves and they would still give it up.
Mark Normand
Right.
Larry Charles
They'd still give up the laugh. And now people get. Immediately they get defensive about it.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
You know, it's very. It's much harder to get the audience to relax and just laugh at it and move on, rather, you know, rather than getting very upset about it, you.
Sam Morril
Know, But I think a lot of people who get offended are the ones who just, like, dip in on social media and know nothing about you.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Sam Morril
The audience you've built up a trust with, you do an abortion joke. Like, 20 minutes into the set, they're like, ah, he's proven he's not a piece of shit, you know? But if they just dip in, it's like they're opening a door and being like, who the fuck's this guy? Well, you weren't meant to see that yet. You know, you came in at a weird. I mean, it's literally like if you just saw a clip of Ving Rhames getting butt fucked in Pulp Fiction, but you didn't know the rest of the movie.
Mark Normand
Right.
Sam Morril
Well, there's a point to everything he's doing there.
Larry Charles
And they're liberally using the N word in that in those movies also, you know, So I noticed. That's one of my favorite Richard Pryor albums that you don't have on the wall. Yeah, it was called that N word is crazy. We can't say that word anymore. Can they even sell that record? I mean, can you. Can you sell that record?
Mark Normand
Kanye's got some pretty crazy records out there.
Larry Charles
That's true.
Mark Normand
Heil Hitler.
Larry Charles
Yeah, right, right.
Sam Morril
Yeah, we used to have his record up too. We took it down.
Larry Charles
One of the great recent comedy albums. I work with Kanye. I did a pilot with Kanye.
Mark Normand
Wow.
Sam Morril
That's what he tried to do.
Larry Charles
A curb, right? Yeah, yeah.
Mark Normand
Oh, do tell.
Larry Charles
He said he. The first thing he ever said.
Sam Morril
That's why I hate Jews. Cuz he.
Larry Charles
That's right. He really did that.
Sam Morril
He.
Larry Charles
Well, I also think about how different his life would have been if the show got picked up.
Mark Normand
Was he the guy who shot the synagogue?
Larry Charles
No, that's very possible. But I mean, the first thing he ever said to me was, I'm the black Larry David. He was a very different person at that time.
Mark Normand
That's crazy.
Larry Charles
He was always putting his foot in his mouth and apologizing to people and he found it hilarious.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
And he was a very, very different. Yeah, there it is.
Sam Morril
Was the show funny?
Larry Charles
The show was pretty funny. JB Smooth was on it. There was a. It was a great cast, actually, and was for hbo. Wyatt Senec was on. It was for hbo. And they passed on it. Yeah, but if they had gone for it, he was. Before Kim Kardashian even, you know, his life might be very different. This is about. He goes to see a Make a Wish kid and then the Make a Wish kid turns out the kid's not dying, you know, and it was. It was pretty funny.
Sam Morril
Could Kanye act at all?
Larry Charles
Kanye could be Kanye, you know, and that's all he needed to be. He was surrounded by very funny people. People.
Mark Normand
Well, my friend told me he knows like one of Kanye's agents or lawyers, and it's all Jews, like the whole team is Jewish.
Larry Charles
So it's ironic.
Mark Normand
It's all an act, I think, obviously. But.
Larry Charles
Yeah, well, he may have Mental issues. I mean, I'm not saying he doesn't, but it was.
Sam Morril
He.
Larry Charles
They obviously had not kicked in at this point. He was a very approachable person, you know.
Mark Normand
Interesting.
Larry Charles
Yeah, he was very cool. We had a great time together. I really enjoyed working with him.
Mark Normand
Well, there's something amazing. Not to bring it back to Larry, but he somehow. Somehow, like, transcends every group. Like, he's this Jewish guy from Brooklyn who's bald with glasses. But black people love him. I'm not Jewish. I love him. Jews love him. He has some weird. He's so authentic seeming that I think everyone is just on board.
Larry Charles
That's a key word, though, authentic. If you could be. If you could project sincerity and authenticity, it will transcend any kind of demographic.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
And I've been, you know, not. Not fully around the world, but I've been to a lot of countries and even Islamic countries. And people love Seinfeld and love Curb and love Bora. And everybody will come to me and say, my friend's just like Kramer. Wow. You'll hear that, like, in Islam, like in Jordan, you know, places like that. And that says something about how it translates. You know, it really does kind of communicate to almost any person who's a human being, who has other human beings around him. You get to connect to those characters, you know?
Mark Normand
Yeah. What's the deal with burkas?
Larry Charles
Well, Jordan, we used to. We were doing Bruno and Jordan. And you would walk down the street in Amman and there would be these street sellers. You know, they have blankets and they'd be selling trinkets or whatever and books and bootleg DVDs. And there was always the same three things on the blanket. There'd be a bootleg DVD of Seinfeld, a bootleg DVD of Borat, and a copy of Mein Kampf. Ah, it was every single person I.
Sam Morril
Feed on two out of three.
Mark Normand
Those are the things I bring on the road. That's crazy. Well, that's gonna be kind of flattering for you.
Larry Charles
I was very flattered, actually. I bought the. I had a copy of Mein Kampf already, so I didn't need it. But I would buy the Borat DVDs. Really crappily made, but they were. They were there all the time.
Mark Normand
I saw Borat. That's all right. I saw more at the theater, and it was. It was pure mayhem. People jumping, falling out the chairs, popcorn flying. I mean, it was a real event.
Larry Charles
Yeah, that's what it's meant to be. I mean, again, we had, like, the arrogance to say let's try to make the funniest movie ever.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
And see what happens. And also, I tend to think of it as, like, my approach to it. The dynamic was more like a horror movie. Like, I love going to a great horror movie. This doesn't happen anymore either. But I remember going to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre when it first came out and the audience just flipped out. People were screaming and jumping up in their chairs, and I was like, if I can get people to laugh like that, that would be a triumph, you know? And Borat did that. Instead of bringing you to the place where you would scream, it brought you to the place where you would laugh. But I would watch from the back. Sasha and I would watch from the back during the naked fight, and you would just see bodies flailing, you know, just with laughter, out of control. That was a really greatly satisfying feeling.
Mark Normand
Yeah. That's incredible.
Sam Morril
What makes me sad a little bit is, like, I feel like that just doesn't happen.
Mark Normand
I know.
Sam Morril
I mean, we're lucky enough that people come to see us on the road, and live comedy is doing well right now. But, you know, I miss that movie theater experience of seeing, like, Borat or the Hangover in the theater and just how hard people were laughing.
Larry Charles
Well, that's why the standup, I think, is doing well, because the country, they do need it. People need to laugh. And there are not these. The TV shows and the movies are not providing that kind of laughter. But standups are more unfettered, more uncensored. And you're making a real direct communication, you know, with the audience, which I think really counts.
Mark Normand
There's no committee. There's no notes.
Larry Charles
That's right. There's no notes. Exactly. Exactly.
Mark Normand
Is refreshing.
Larry Charles
I think so as well.
Mark Normand
I'm sorry, did you guys want to do peeves?
Sam Morril
I know that we. I don't know if I have a good. Do you have any good peeves?
Mark Normand
I got one.
Larry Charles
I wrote down a bunch, actually.
Sam Morril
I'm excited because I don't even have anything.
Mark Normand
I'll throw one at while you look.
Larry Charles
Okay, please give me one second.
Mark Normand
You ever have this one where you go. You go. You're at the restaurant and you go, I'm thinking about getting the noki. And they go, oh, I would get the carbone or whatever the. Yeah. He's like, the carbonara is. That's the way to go. And I'm in my head, I'm like, I don't want carbonara. But I'm like, I'm thinking about Noki, and he's like telling you the noki's okay, but that carbonara is unbelievable. And I'm like, how do I get out of this one? Because I want the noki, but he keeps pushing the carbon era. And he's already told me that the noki's mediocre, but the carbonaire is the way to go.
Sam Morril
No part of you is doubting your brain because I doubt my brand. But maybe I'm an idiot.
Mark Normand
Well, of course I do that too, But I just craved the Noki.
Larry Charles
Yeah. And as you get to Noki, then you. And you love it, then what's this guy gonna say?
Mark Normand
But is that an insult to him? He's like, it's okay, but this is the way to go. And I'm just going, I disagree with you completely.
Larry Charles
You.
Mark Normand
I'm getting the Noki. I don't know. It just feels hard to. To turn it on him.
Sam Morril
Like, my fear is getting the Nioki and it sucks.
Mark Normand
Yeah, that's a possibility. But I don't like the. The too much persuasion with a waiter. Even after I've said I want one thing, he's like, this is better. You should get this. And I'm like, but I want this.
Larry Charles
Yes.
Mark Normand
I'm not you.
Sam Morril
It's weird. If you ask, it's weird to just unsolicited be like, you shouldn't get that.
Mark Normand
Yeah. He could sense my insecurity about it, and I think he was trying to prey on that, and that's what was pissing me off.
Larry Charles
Yeah. And then he's gonna judge you afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. You have the judgment.
Sam Morril
Did he get it?
Mark Normand
I got the Noki, and it was. It was not great. But I could just tell he went back to the kitchen. Like, I can give the guy feel like he was rolling his eyes.
Larry Charles
He was offensively bad. Exactly. You couldn't possibly have liked the Noki.
Mark Normand
So that was a peeve.
Larry Charles
Mine are much more lame, I think, actually, I'm excited to hear them going slow in the fast lane.
Mark Normand
The worst. The worst.
Larry Charles
I don't understand what the logic is.
Sam Morril
Behind also the slow walkers.
Mark Normand
Same. Same slow walkers. How about the guy on the. On the airport moving walkway who's, like, all over the thing? Just get to the side.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah. Make it. Make a choice.
Mark Normand
Yeah, it's not that hard. Make a choice.
Larry Charles
Speeding up when you're trying. When you're trying to get on the freeway and. Or trying to get in a lane and the person decides to speed up to not let you in. Oh, you know, how angry is that?
Sam Morril
These are Very LA peeves.
Larry Charles
These are la. So so far, they're all on the freeway.
Mark Normand
These Malibu fires.
Larry Charles
I was texting these as I was, like, news them. Like, oh, like, here's. Here's another LA one. Stopping at a yellow light when they had plenty of time to go through.
Mark Normand
Ah.
Larry Charles
What is that? You know, you got it just turned yellow. Why are you stopping?
Mark Normand
Live a little. You.
Larry Charles
Yeah, knew. It's a short street. It's not a big bull.
Sam Morril
This is why I don't drive. I'm all your peeves right here.
Larry Charles
Or the person who doesn't make the left on the red as it's like. As it's changing from yellow to red.
Mark Normand
You gotta do that.
Larry Charles
They wait.
Mark Normand
They wait.
Larry Charles
They wait.
Mark Normand
Coward. Live. Damn it.
Larry Charles
There's also the people who don't pull over for the ambulance. Have you seen them?
Mark Normand
Yeah, yeah.
Larry Charles
You guys are actually both guilty of that.
Mark Normand
No, no, I saw that today. That's what I was thinking. We had that fire truck go by and people weren't getting out of the way, so just honking like a mad.
Larry Charles
Yeah, I'm sorry.
Sam Morril
Also, I'm so, like, desensitized to. I mean, like, New York ambulance sounds. You just become desensitized to anyone else's suffering that you just hear it. And I'm just like. I'm trying to listen to a podcast. You're, like, annoyed by the siren.
Mark Normand
I got.
Sam Morril
Terry, Keep it down.
Larry Charles
Yeah, there's a lot of people also, and this is an LA thing, too, who use the ambulance to have an excuse to go fast.
Mark Normand
Oh, yeah, I've done that.
Larry Charles
They get behind the ambulance and they speed up. Yeah.
Mark Normand
Yeah. My dad was an ambulance chaser.
Larry Charles
Oh, there you go. Yeah. Having worked on sitcoms for years, one of the worst things that used to really annoy me was fake laughter. You know, when people. Because the writers would know that if the joke didn't get a laugh, it would be cut. So they would all fake laugh to try to fool the network executives.
Mark Normand
Interesting.
Larry Charles
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Normand
Can I add something to that?
Larry Charles
Yes.
Sam Morril
I've seen every episode of Seinfeld maybe 40, 50 times each. I hear a really strong laugher in there.
Larry Charles
I'll tell you who it is. Is it.
Mark Normand
Is it Kramer?
Sam Morril
Is it Michael Richards? I always thought it was Michael Richards.
Larry Charles
No, it's not. Michael Richards doesn't laugh.
Mark Normand
Oh, whoa.
Larry Charles
He never laughs. I've never heard him laugh in my life.
Mark Normand
Actually, it might have helped him with one set if he threw a laugh.
Larry Charles
Yeah, it would have. I believe it was Glenn Padnick. Who was the head of castle Rock. He had a kind of wow. Yeah. Squawking laugh.
Sam Morril
I almost thought he was doing that to spur on laughter to the audience. Audience being like, laugh now.
Larry Charles
You know, it seems like that. But that was actually some people, like Eddie Murphy. Some people have weird laughs. And that was his laugh.
Mark Normand
You know, Pull up a pad dick. See if you can find one.
Larry Charles
Okay. Yeah, good luck. You could hear it. It's very clear.
Mark Normand
That'll keep him busy for a few hours.
Larry Charles
People.
Sam Morril
Handed one of those little paddle ball things.
Mark Normand
The ball at the cup.
Larry Charles
I'm sure you can. Guys have done a lot of Q and A's and there's always people at Q and A's who want to ask a question just to hear themselves talk. They don't really have a question. They just want to have a moment.
Mark Normand
I saw that during the Larry show.
Sam Morril
Oh, my God. Everyone would try to make. They'd be like, hey, do this joke. And he's like, fuck you. It was funny to see him say, like, you to people and it would just kill. And you're like, oh, man.
Larry Charles
Well, when he did his stand up, that's how he was also, he was very hostile with the audience. If he didn't get the laugh he liked to. He would throw the microphone down and walk off. Yeah, I've seen him spit at the audience, you know, like Johnny Rod. Yeah. I mean, I don't think he actually rather spitting on anybody, but just like spit in anger, you know, like he walked off quite a bit. Yeah.
Mark Normand
Damn spitting. Never done that one.
Larry Charles
People who don't realize you're in a hurry and monopolize your time.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Sam Morril
I'll add to that one. When you're already like 10ft down and they go, oh, one more thing. Oh, so close.
Larry Charles
I was so close to getting away. You were out and they pulled you back in. People who lie about that plastic surgery, you know, it's like a lot of stars.
Sam Morril
Another la one for sure.
Larry Charles
Yeah, Right, right. No, you look great. Oh, really? Thank you.
Sam Morril
You know, or epic on that too.
Larry Charles
Yeah, exactly.
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Larry Charles
People who talk with food in their mouth and this is something that I'm guilty of, you know, that I. I tried. My wife's constantly trying. She's like, close your mouth.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
You know, it's like, I'm trying, you know, I'm trying. I can't breathe, you know?
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
So. But that is. I don't like it when I see people doing that.
Mark Normand
No, no. The Lewis Black episode of Queens and Cars getting coffee. It's hard to watch because he's such a gross eater. And we've had Lewis on. He's a great guy. I love Lewis.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mark Normand
Even Simon. I was like, dude, he said something. Yeah. He's like, what are you doing? Like, watching you eat is really, really off putting, or so he says something like that.
Larry Charles
People who went to Harvard and always mention in every conversation.
Mark Normand
That's a big one. That's a big one.
Larry Charles
And finally accusing someone of a pet peeve that you're actually guilty of. That's one of my biggest pet peeves.
Mark Normand
Way to tie it all up.
Larry Charles
Thank you very much.
Mark Normand
Well done. Boy, look who does the homework. This is why you're successful.
Larry Charles
Well, I was. I felt pressure, you know. I told you. This is where I feel the pressure. It's like to be on your show. They said. They said, well, you have some pet peeves. And I, like. I don't think I have any. And then I started working on it.
Sam Morril
You know, Literally had guns drawn on him. And you felt pressure with it?
Larry Charles
Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I'm glad I did it, though. I feel much better now.
Mark Normand
Yeah. Now, how did you get in with the. Because you're a Brooklyn guy, you started on Fridays. Was that how you met Larry, I assume.
Larry Charles
Yes, that's right.
Mark Normand
Michael Richards.
Larry Charles
Yes.
Mark Normand
Wow, that's. That must have been a big get when you landed that gig Friday.
Larry Charles
I was a bellhop. What? I was a bellhop before I was a TV writer. That was my last job. And I was also writing for a few comedians. And there was one of the comedians, this guy Darrow was the black comedian on Fridays. And his wife was an editor of Chic magazine, which was kind of like a Larry Flynt publication. And I had written for Screw magazine when I was a teenager.
Sam Morril
Your credits got way better.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah. I used to write humor, like porn humor for Screw. And I was really happy about it. I got published and I got paid and everything. I wrote porn novels, which was a big thing at that time.
Mark Normand
Never heard of Screw.
Larry Charles
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it was. I don't think it's out anymore, unfortunately. It Was pretty. Pretty interesting.
Mark Normand
Nice.
Larry Charles
But I wrote. I wrote comedy stuff for that. And. And so I thought, well, I'll write some porn humor for she. For Larry Flynt stuff. And I called her up because I'd already been writing for Darrow. And Darrow was in the office when I called her up to pitch the porn humor. And he said, hey, I just got cast on this TV show. I told him about you. I don't know what happened to you. I haven't heard from you for a year. Why don't you get your material together? They'll read your material. So I didn't even have a typewriter. I mean, this is all handwritten stuff. And I hitchhiked to the interview and they liked my material.
Mark Normand
Hitchhiked?
Larry Charles
Yeah, I hitchhiked and I gave them handwritten material.
Mark Normand
Wow.
Sam Morril
What was like your best bet? Do you remember any of that stuff?
Larry Charles
No, not. I really don't remember, actually, right now. That's such a long time ago. And I said to them at the end of the interview, it's in the book, actually, that, look, I don't care if I don't get. I don't know what propelled me to say this to them, but I said, I don't care if I get this job or not. You know, all I care about is don't hang me up. You know, tell me that I have it or I don't have it. I can handle the rejection.
Mark Normand
I like that.
Larry Charles
And I left. I hitchhiked back to my apartment on Cherokee and Hollywood Boulevard. And the phone was ringing. It was Jack Burns, who was the producer. And he said, I have good news and bad news. The good news is I'm getting back to you. And my heart sunk. And then the bad news is you're hired. That's how I got hired, you know. So I went from being like, literally a bellhop to being a TV writer.
Mark Normand
Now, when you hitchhiked, did you look like the Larry we know with the beard and the glasses?
Larry Charles
I. I was. Had just been a bellhop. So I was actually clean shaven because.
Mark Normand
I can see if people are going, we're not picking up.
Larry Charles
I had to go out and get a shirt, though. I didn't have a. I had like all of my white. My black and whites. That's all I had from being like a bellhop, you know.
Mark Normand
Right.
Larry Charles
It was also a parking valet. Those are the kind of jobs that's what I was going to do for my life. I didn't see any way out, you know. And then this came along. And I got very lucky for a Brooklyn guy.
Mark Normand
Good amount of driving.
Larry Charles
A lot of driving. Yeah. A lot of accidents that people didn't know about. Also, check the other side of your car when you valet, because it's the passenger side where the dents take place.
Sam Morril
I'm a New York guy. I cannot really drive at all.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Sam Morril
Really. Got it.
Mark Normand
But.
Sam Morril
So you go from Fridays to Seinfeld?
Larry Charles
No, I go for about seven years after Fridays. I thought, oh, this is it. I'm in. I'm in show business. And then I didn't get a job for seven years.
Mark Normand
Wow.
Larry Charles
And just kind of, like, bummed around and, you know, worked here and there. I wrote for Richard Belzer. I wrote for David Steinberg.
Sam Morril
What was Belzer?
Larry Charles
Belzer was great. He was a really cool person. Except, you know, because he. He was, like, so spontaneous on stage. He wasn't really good with material. You know, he wasn't really good at the memorizing and all, you know, working it out. He liked to just come on stage and wing it.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
And he was really good at that. But for a long time, he. So he didn't have that kind of level of stardom like Robin Williams. All these guys used to come and watch him. He was. And, like, Larry was like that also.
Mark Normand
Wow.
Larry Charles
They were like cult comedians, you know?
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
So. But he was very cool to me, very warm to me, and very mentorish to me. So he had an interesting life himself. So he was great. So I did stuff like that. I wrote for people like Steinberg also. I used to write Steinberg's Johnny Carson appearances. So I got to meet Johnny Carson and all that kind of stuff.
Sam Morril
What was Carson like to you?
Larry Charles
Carson was just like. He was on tv. Except if you met him in person, he was like a big, strapping, like an army sergeant or something. Yeah. He looks so slight on tv.
Mark Normand
Yeah, he does.
Larry Charles
But he was really kind of like. He would, like, kick your ass. He was actually like that.
Mark Normand
He's a Midwest guy.
Larry Charles
Midwest guy. Very, very straight, very erect person.
Mark Normand
Interesting.
Larry Charles
But then I got a job finally on Arsenio, and that's where I wrote jokes for Arsenio for a year. And after about six months, he stopped using my jokes. He was getting so much hate mail about being just a black person on tv. This is before the Internet. That. And I used to write pretty controversial.
Sam Morril
Luckily, it's all gotten much better.
Mark Normand
Right, right.
Larry Charles
Of course. Yeah. The Internet's really made that okay.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
But he. I used to write pretty controversial jokes for him, and he couldn't do them anymore. So I went six months without getting a joke on the air. Damn. And then I finally got fired. And then after that, I got a chance to work on In Living Color. Went to meet Keaton Ivory Wayans, and he stood me up.
Mark Normand
Up. Ouch.
Larry Charles
And it was an accident, as it turned out, but I lost my shit. I used to be very temperamental that way. And instead of going, oh, could we reschedule? I went, oh, fuck him. And I stormed out of the place. And when I got home, Larry David called me and he's like, you know, I'm doing the show and it'll get canceled and we'll make a little bit of money. And. And I was like, I needed a job. And I said yes. And that's how I got on Seinfeld.
Sam Morril
That's also such a Larry David thing to do, to be like, fuck you. And then it somehow worked out, though.
Mark Normand
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Larry Charles
No, I. Again, very lucky. Totally lucky. A lot of synchronicity.
Sam Morril
What were the feelings of season one of Seinfeld? I mean, did you just think, this is not gonna make it?
Larry Charles
I think Larry really begged for it not to work, you know, because I don't think he wanted to get involved in something like that. And what that did was liberate us to like, okay, fine, it's gonna go off the air anyway. Let's just do what we wanna do. Let's make it as funny as we can. What we think is funny. Don't worry about the audience. Don't worry about the network. Let's just something we think is funny. And in a way, that was the key to the success of the show.
Mark Normand
I love that. Yeah, but you also. You had to have. Was it Ludnick? What was that guy's name?
Larry Charles
Yeah, Glenn. Well, there was Glenn Padnick and Rick Ludwin Ludwig. You put those together? I put them together, yeah. Yeah, he. They were like one person, but he.
Mark Normand
Let you breathe a little. He let the show evolve and find itself failed.
Larry Charles
Was failing in the ratings. We were losing to Jake and the Fat man and, you know, all these really lame shows and put it away. I don't even know. Can you.
Sam Morril
I don't even know what that is.
Larry Charles
Yeah, you should check it out sometime. It's basically a great premise. It's about a fat cop. Yeah, that's the premise.
Mark Normand
You know, look at the fat man.
Larry Charles
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Normand
That was Jake.
Larry Charles
He's the fat man. Yeah.
Mark Normand
No, I'm just kidding. Yeah.
Larry Charles
So there's Jake on top. Joe Penny, his name Was, man, this.
Mark Normand
Showing up, it'd be Jake and the body positivity, man.
Larry Charles
Jake and the guy who's trying to lose the weight. But yeah, so we were losing to shows like that, but they had nothing else to put on. And they left it on a little while. And then they finally had the idea of moving it after Cheers on Thursday nights, which was that Must See TV time. And Larry's response to that, I remember very well. Warren Littlefield said, we want to move the show to Thursday night after Cheers. And Larry said, anybody who's not watching it on Wednesday can go fuck themselves. And everybody went, no, no, wait, wait. And they talked him into doing it, and the show immediately exploded.
Sam Morril
Did he not realize they're trying to happen? Like, it's like it's a good lead in.
Larry Charles
Right. He's a very stubborn guy. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam Morril
Damn. So what season was that when they moved it behind?
Larry Charles
That was. I think in this. See, again, I get to see. Because it was a pilot, then there was four episodes, then there was 13 episodes. That's how long it sort of dragged on for. Until finally the 22 episode year. And I think it was either that year or the season after that it moved to Thursday nights. I can't really remember any.
Mark Normand
Yeah. What a run. I mean, you were part of, I would say, the best sitcom of all time.
Larry Charles
Well, the fact that it's still two of them.
Mark Normand
Yeah, true.
Larry Charles
The fact that it still has resonance, that's huge. Shocking part that people still treat it as if it's a current show.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
You know.
Mark Normand
Right.
Larry Charles
And be. People quote the lines. It's like when I was young, the Godfather was like that.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
Everybody used to quote the Godfather all the time. Keep your friends close, could your enemies close, whatever that was.
Mark Normand
Refused.
Larry Charles
Yeah, exactly. And that's how Seinfeld is now, you know, not that there's anything wrong with that. Yada, yada, yada. I mean, those things have become part of the lexicon.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
You know, it's just an amazing phenomena.
Mark Normand
You know, my wife is younger than me. She could say she's 11, but she. She watches Seinfeld every day.
Larry Charles
It's very courageous of you to admit that.
Mark Normand
Thank you. Well, you know, I'm Islamic, but she. She watched it every day to go, like to start getting ready for bed and just in the house. And it's just part of. And I think that's part of the big part of the country.
Larry Charles
It's like church. It's like you go to church every Sunday, you hear the same sermon or Whatever. It's like, that's what Seinfeld people want to, like, check in again.
Mark Normand
Yes. And there's no cell phones in it. There's no Teslas or EVs or whatever. But it still resonates, plays a very.
Larry Charles
Important role in comedy, I think, though I agree. Like, there was no cell phones at that time. How different the show would be. Oh, my God. With cell phones. You know, it'd be a whole new.
Mark Normand
Bag of mishaps with cell phones.
Sam Morril
When you left in season five, what was the reason for leaving? And did they kind of try to keep you there?
Larry Charles
Yeah, I mean, I was, like, locked in. I mean, I could have stayed forever there. I mean, I was like, you know, senior person already at that point. But I'm also, like, kind of a gambler and a risk taker. And I had a couple of things happened. One was it had started to get a little bit more bourgeois for me. Like, I loved it when it was much more of a lower class, people struggling kind of show, you know, Kramer's underworld, you know, and all that kind of stuff. Stuff. But then, you know, as they hired new writers from Harvard and places like that, they came from better families, they came from better economic circumstances, and so their stories reflected that. And I related to that a lot less. You know, it just didn't seem like the Charles Bukowski kind of world that I was kind of interested in. You know, the other thing was I had, you know, I had kind of run out of stories. You know, I hit the wall. And creatively, I felt like I was already pushing, you know, and I felt like I didn't. I wanted to try something different. I wanted to tap into a different muscle. And that's why I went to Mad about yout, which was more. Less funny, but more emotional, more real. I was in, like, kind of a troubled marriage. I wanted to sort of reflect that in that show, and that was I wanted to try something different.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
And I never did anything, you know, I never went into show business for security. You know, it's like, that's not what it was about for me, you know, so. And. Or for money, really, for that matter. So I thought, I want to try something different. And that's okay. I've done Seinfeld. I have the credit. You know, I could afford to go do something else now.
Mark Normand
Hear, hear. Good answer.
Sam Morril
Yeah, that's good. I read a think piece about Seinfeld, the show, and it said that the.
Larry Charles
Use of black people, they were used.
Sam Morril
In positions of power. Was that intentional?
Larry Charles
I do I don't think so, actually. I think there was maybe, like, again, the idea that there was so much intention to the show I think is mistaken. Because every week you're trying to come up with a story, you know, and any story might work. You know, I mean, I had some. Some scripts that were actually canceled. You know, I wrote a script about Elaine buying a gun. And that was a show that we cast everybody and we built the sets and there was a few people that were very uncomfortable and they canceled that episode. I also wrote an episode about Mario. I don't know. Do you guys know Mario Joyner?
Mark Normand
Yeah, sure.
Larry Charles
Yeah. So Mario Joyner's a good friend of Jerry's. And I thought, I'll use him in the show. And so I had a scene in the coffee shop where he ordered a salad and George says, wow, I've never seen a black person order a salad before. And that upset everybody also. So I don't think there was too much of that kind of intentionality in terms of who played what. It was just like, who's the funniest? What's the story gonna be? There was a desperation every week to come up with a good Seinfeld story.
Sam Morril
Is it true that Elaine came in or. Sorry, Julia. Louis Dreyfus came in and said she didn't like her plots in the beginning.
Larry Charles
I was in the room when this happened, and she was, you know, people. We were with, like, three guys and we did not write women well and we didn't really know how to write women. And so Julie was kind of a foil for the guys. And she wasn't really getting meaty stuff. And she was great, but she wasn't getting the meaty stuff. And she came in one day to the office where the three of us were sitting and she started weeping. And she's like, you guys, you're wasting me. You're not using me. And we being guys, when a girl cries, you feel guilty.
Mark Normand
Yeah. Yeah.
Larry Charles
And we're like, okay, we'll take care of it. But she was right. She was completely right. And so we did two things. One thing was we had a whiteboard on the wall and we had all the characters on there. And after that, Larry would. We'd have to check off every character to make sure every character had a story.
Sam Morril
This time, Elaine's gonna ask a black guy, why do I.
Mark Normand
Exactly.
Larry Charles
Exactly. She's gonna buy the gun. And then the other thing was. This was the brilliant thing that really changed everything was the decision to give Elaine a George story.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
I heard that there's so many George stories, you know, like, because Larry had a million stories. And so there was a story, it was a true story about Larry had a girl coming to stay with him for a weekend from out of town and he was really excited. And then by the end of the weekend he wanted to get rid of her and she decides she wants to stay longer and he's got to try to get rid of her somehow, you know. And so that was a George story, a very traditional George story. And we decided to give that story to Elaine.
Mark Normand
Whoa.
Larry Charles
And she so. And suddenly she had the darkness, the pettiness, the small mindedness, the neurosis of the guy characters. And that liberated that character.
Mark Normand
I love it. And now she's maybe the greatest comedy character of all time. Just with Veep and then this other show.
Larry Charles
No, she was incredibly talented. And finally that got tapped into and now she's like the first lady of comedy now.
Mark Normand
I really.
Larry Charles
She's really kind of evolved into that.
Sam Morril
But that character really, like, how many other women in comedy got that type of opportunity? Especially like in the 80s?
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Mark Normand
Like, holy shit. And she brought so much to it. Like, you know, she would say a line that maybe isn't that great on paper, but she's like, I mentioned the bisque or he took it out. Like all those little pauses and rhythms. That's.
Larry Charles
She was willing to be undignified. She was willing. Like even the women that were like Mary Tyler Moore or those. Those kind. There was a certain dignity to those parts. But she was willing to let it all hang out. And that really tapped into a need that again, the audience. We didn't know the audience needed that, but the audience needed that kind of character to reach that catharsis for them.
Mark Normand
Yeah, yeah.
Larry Charles
And really responded to it. And that really allowed her. It also made it much easier to write for her at that point. So that made a big difference.
Mark Normand
She's a dream. We just had you to hopefully get to her.
Larry Charles
Yeah. No, I mean, good luck. Luck.
Mark Normand
She's. Yeah, she's tough. Get. But I do. I know you got to go in in a minute, but I do feel. Don't you find it strange how people get mad when you. If you say you couldn't make a lot of these episodes today, like Seinfeld has come out publicly and been like a lot of these episodes we couldn't have done. Now people like yell at him and I'm like, well, don't you think he might know more about TV than you? You know, also, like, why does that make people so angry. Angry that that statement.
Larry Charles
You know. To tell you the truth, I don't worry about it. Comedy has its time. And like, we don't need to make Seinfeld today because that Seinfeld, well, she is still relevant today. You know. And that's what the phenomena is to me. I don't really think about, like, the time frame for comedy or the context for comedy. If something's funny, in my opinion, if I think it's funny, I'm going to assume. And I think you guys are the same. You could assume somebody else is gonna find it funny. You know.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Larry Charles
Or you're gonna hope. Yeah, someone's gonna find it funny.
Sam Morril
You find. I mean, that's the funny thing about Stand up is like, I had all these ideas last night just threw at the wall and like, oh, I thought that was really funny. Nothing I like you know, immediately.
Larry Charles
Right.
Sam Morril
But. But to go off what you're saying is. I mean. Yeah. I mean, Seinfeld had its place and it's still relevant. But I feel like the stuff that gets greenlit these days is not just existing ip. But then, like, aren't they remaking the Office again?
Larry Charles
They're doing another Naked Gun.
Sam Morril
That's what I mean. These are not. These are not fresh ideas. Like, I feel like they want. Not fresh ideas.
Mark Normand
They want, like, safe.
Sam Morril
They're so safe that. But it's like. But all the things that we love were original.
Mark Normand
Were original at one point.
Larry Charles
I totally agree with that. How do you guys feel about the rehearsal?
Mark Normand
I love.
Sam Morril
I gotta watch it.
Mark Normand
I think it's amazing.
Larry Charles
Yeah. I mean, the second season with the av, I didn't see the first masterpiece piece. Yeah. I mean that. It just taps into what you're talking about. It's original.
Mark Normand
Yeah.
Sam Morril
I love him.
Larry Charles
Nothing like it. You know? And that I do appreciate.
Mark Normand
By the way.
Sam Morril
Quick Wreck. I started the Sagura wreck. 000. Oh, excellent.
Mark Normand
Oh, really? Yeah.
Sam Morril
On Amazon. Awesome. Awesome. Cartel show. But yeah. Rehearsals next. That's for sure.
Mark Normand
I actually watched the Bin Laden doc off of his wreck and that was great. Unreal. They have footage of Killing Bud la. It's worth watching.
Larry Charles
Right. Right. That was funny.
Sam Morril
So what. Is there any. What do you want to do next? Like, what's the book? Yeah, we got the book.
Larry Charles
I'm just looking. You know, I'm writing all the time. I'm looking for cool stuff to do, stuff that makes me laugh, that could get made. You know. And I'm hoping to do a movie this summer, which I'm not going to talk about because it probably won't happen. But if it does happen, that'll be cool and I'll come back and happily talk about it. But I'm just looking for stuff that's cool, you know, either, either self generating or something that I excited about that somebody brings me, you know, So I don't have any, I don't have a career. I've never thought of myself as having a career. I just kind of gravitate and I've been lucky enough to gravitate to cool things that I think are good, definitely. And I just do those things and that's my life life, you know, And I haven't had like a plan of any kind.
Mark Normand
That's cool.
Larry Charles
I just been sort of like a pinball just banging against the walls.
Mark Normand
You're like kung fu. You're just kind of going through life.
Larry Charles
Comedy samurai.
Mark Normand
Yeah, there you go, there you go. I would say maybe now feel free to kick me in the balls here, but the Rick Rubin of comedy.
Larry Charles
Well, Rick Rubin.
Mark Normand
But you've, you've, you've worked with these amazing comedic. Just like they work with Tom P. Work Tom Petty and the Beastie Boys and yes, you're right. And all these guys.
Larry Charles
Ruben and I were very tight at one time also. We were very good friends actually.
Sam Morril
Don't tell me there's another gay to falling out with.
Larry Charles
Yes, for part two, it is me.
Sam Morril
He's gonna leave this pod to be like, those guys suck.
Larry Charles
When you read the book, you'll see what an I am. I promise.
Mark Normand
All right.
Sam Morril
We hope you and Larry make up because that's such a, that's such a unique friendship.
Larry Charles
He's the most important, I would say really, he's the most important person in my adult life. He's done more to change my life than anybody. So call him up, you know. Well, maybe I will. Maybe at some point I will. You know, I don't hate him. I love him actually. And like I said, he made me a writer, he made me a director, you know, and he, I was like again a young guy when I met him and he kind of showed me about integrity and discipline and the craft. I mean, he really kind of like laid it all out for me. And so I have deep gratitude towards Larry David. And I always.
Mark Normand
Well, it's a part of this business. It's, it's a business like you and Larry, your artists, your writers, your creators. But the business part makes people have to get fired and disconnect. Like me and him shot a show and then some. Some guy bought it, and they're like, well, what do we need him for? And I'm like, no, we got to keep him in. So we're trying to keep him in, but it's the whole thing. Because it's business now.
Larry Charles
Yeah, well, business has a lack of ethics.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
And artists. Artists have ethics.
Mark Normand
Isn't that weird?
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Mark Normand
Should be the other way around.
Sam Morril
I think your friendships in this. I mean, that's literally why we started of this pod. It's like Mark and I were open micrs together. We've been friends forever. And now we. After reading your interview in the New York Times, we were talking about. We're like, man, I hope we're. We're friends when we're. When we're older.
Mark Normand
Right, right, right.
Sam Morril
Because the friendships in this are so important. The business is one thing, but, like, you know, you and Larry have made incredible stuff together and been friends for 40 years.
Larry Charles
Yeah, long, long time.
Mark Normand
So this is a blip. This is a hiccup.
Larry Charles
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Sam Morril
And the fact that the documentary got, you know, killed sucks. But, like, you know, you got. I hope you guys figure it out.
Mark Normand
You'll figure it out 100%.
Larry Charles
Well, like I said, I don't think there's any hostility, really. You know, it's just like the way, you know, life, you know, I'm sure you guys have friends, that you've drifted apart for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes people die, but it's not always that. Sometimes you just drift apart for one reason or another. Somebody marries somebody you don't like or, you know, that's another pet peeve thing, maybe, but shit happens, you know, and that's really true. And so. So that's sort of the situation here, you know, and so by the same token, things could, as they unravel, they.
Mark Normand
Could reravel, definitely reraveling.
Larry Charles
So. Yeah.
Mark Normand
What'd you say?
Sam Morril
Oh, I was gonna say that Sam had a girlfriend that disliked Mark for a while. Oh, yeah. And I was like, mark, are you afraid this is gonna drive a wedge between you two? He's like, I'll be around when she's gone.
Mark Normand
I'm not going anywhere. I'm here.
Larry Charles
And this is what's great about Seinfeld. Also, not to come back to that, but I mean, we did an episode. Larry had a girlfriend who nobody really liked and wouldn't say anything, and then he broke up with her, and everybody just exploded with, like, oh, we hated her. And then he got back together with her again, you know, and so I Wound up marrying her, actually.
Mark Normand
The environmental chick?
Larry Charles
Yes.
Mark Normand
Oh, I can tell she was divorced.
Larry Charles
Anyway at some point. But that's. That's a big universal problem now.
Sam Morril
You get to be like, I was right.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Mark Normand
She went all the way to the bed bank.
Larry Charles
That's right.
Mark Normand
You got that. That Seinfeld money.
Larry Charles
That's right.
Sam Morril
The book is Comedy Samurai. Larry Charles. I'm definitely going to check it out. Awesome to talk to you. Awesome.
Mark Normand
Yes.
Larry Charles
Oh, man, it was great to meet you. Great to meet you guys. Thank you so much.
Mark Normand
You've shaped my whole comedy influence.
Sam Morril
Well, we'll do when he leaves because he's got an out, but. All right.
Mark Normand
Thank you, Larry.
Larry Charles
Thank you. Really appreciate it.
Mark Normand
Yeah, thanks, man. Good luck with the. With the bris.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Sam Morril
August 7th, I'll be at the Wilbur and Bar, Boston, August 24th through 2022. 24th, I'll be in Irvine, California at the Improv. The next weekend, I'm in Oklahoma City at Bricktown Comedy Club. September 19th, I'm in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Venetian. Then we got Rochester, New York, and then we got Chicago theater. October 4th, Winnipeg, Canada, October 5th. And we just are adding now a Euro tour that month. So it's not. It might. It should be on my website now when this comes out. But we got linked like Barcelona, I believe, Lisbon, Paris, Amsterdam, Holy London, Dublin, Manchester, and Berlin. So I'll be all over. So that's why we're back loading pods here. But all over Europe tickets on my site. Then we got Salt Lake City, Reno, at the Atlantis. And then I will be at Carnegie Hall, New York City, December 4th. So please buy tickets. I can't wait. Wait.
Mark Normand
No, no. Iran, no. Tehran.
Sam Morril
I'm working on it.
Mark Normand
All right. All right. Bunker buster. Hey, I'm at the Cape Cod Melody Tent. It's. It's an honor to play there. It's like a legendary spot in Hyannis. Then we got Foxwoods, Connecticut, Ben, Salem, Pennsylvania at the Parks Casino. Then we're off to New Zealand, Melbourne, Sydney, we're adding shows. Adelaide, Perth. Then we're off in the Hamptons for bit a little, little, little fun in the sun. Calgary, Vegas at the Palazzo Theater at the Venetian. And Dallas, we got a bunch of the Improv and Akron, Dayton, Halifax, Ottawa, Huntsville, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Boulder. Come out to Boulder. We're gonna shoot that for hopefully a special. We're gonna try to get it in two. And then we're off to Europe for a little, little fake shows. Oslo, Helsinki, Dublin. Then we're back in Valley Center, California at the Harrah's resort and then magoobies to write a new hour so gotta go to work. Back to work baby you don't give.
Sam Morril
Yourself a moment no, no yeah, yeah.
Mark Normand
Athens to Timonium Washington D.C. at the Lincoln Love that room and you know you the markdomancommy.com we're on. Punch up bodega cat. You come guzzling Nazis get yourself a drink. Live it up and have a have a fun summer.
Sam Morril
Love you guys.
Larry Charles
Comedy Sunday's the day for my next offender. A bit of piva wreck. You know the fear juice. Close. I've had a little too much burping and Norman's talking shit about the Pope and I get down in the same way I found the roof like a cop's coming and naked Samuel is feeling dangerous I'm out to lunch here in New Orleans this woman doesn't look like.
Mark Normand
I remember her and I get down.
Larry Charles
In the same way we might be true.
Podcast Title: We Might Be Drunk
Episode: Ep 240: Larry Charles (Seinfeld & Curb Your Enthusiasm)
Hosts: Sam Morril and Mark Normand
Guest: Larry Charles
Release Date: July 14, 2025
In Episode 240 of "We Might Be Drunk," hosts Sam Morril and Mark Normand welcome the legendary comedy writer and director, Larry Charles, renowned for his pivotal work on iconic shows like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, as well as films like Borat and Bruno. The episode delves deep into Larry's illustrious career, his experiences in the comedy world, personal anecdotes, and his perspectives on modern comedy.
The conversation kicks off with a light-hearted banter about their guest, Larry Charles, highlighting his impeccable dressing sense. Mark Normand jokes, "We might be drunk," setting a casual tone.
Larry Charles shares his early days before television, mentioning his stint as a bellhop and his initial foray into writing for comedians like Richard Belzer and David Steinberg. He recounts how his persistence led him to Seinfeld, emphasizing the serendipitous nature of his career path.
Notable Quote:
Larry Charles [57:31]: "I went from being a literally a bellhop to being a TV writer."
Larry delves into his significant contributions to Seinfeld, discussing memorable episodes like the "Bookman Scene" and the "Parking Garage Episode." He explains the creative process behind these episodes and the collaborative environment with Larry David.
Larry Charles highlights the unique influences behind Seinfeld, noting, "We were more into like, Abner and Costello or Dragnet or Superman than we were into like Cheers or shows like that."
The hosts reminisce about the show’s enduring legacy, with Larry expressing pride in how Seinfeld has permeated popular culture, making it feel like a "church" for many viewers.
Notable Quote:
Larry Charles [65:18]: "And that's how Seinfeld is now, you know, not that there's anything wrong with that. Yada, yada, yada. I mean, those things have become part of the lexicon."
The discussion shifts to Curb Your Enthusiasm, where Larry shares his experiences directing and writing for the show. He emphasizes the creative freedom HBO provided compared to network television, allowing for more outrageous and unfiltered content.
Larry Charles recounts the collaborative dynamics on set, the challenges of directing celebrity guests like Jeff Tremaine and Larry David, and the show's evolution over time.
Notable Quote:
Larry Charles [46:27]: "Curb was a looser environment. It was really fun. It was like we'd be hanging out like this, and then we would just go and shoot the scene, you know, it was just like very loose environment. Probably the most fun I've had on a set."
Larry provides insights into his work on Borat and Bruno, discussing the creative liberties taken and the controversial nature of these projects. He shares anecdotes about interacting with extreme characters and the real-world consequences of their on-screen actions.
A poignant moment arises when Larry discusses a white supremacist featured in Bruno, leading to tragic real-life events, highlighting the unpredictable impact of their comedy.
Notable Quote:
Larry Charles [02:43]: "He wound up going to the synagogue to shoot three Jews. And the three people he killed happened to not be Jews. Oh, my God. Yeah. Jokes on him."
Larry details his endeavor to create a documentary about Larry David, reflecting on the challenges faced during production. He explains how technical issues and personal comfort levels led to the documentary's postponement and eventual cancellation.
Despite setbacks, Larry expresses gratitude for the opportunity to explore deeper emotional narratives, even if it meant the project didn't come to fruition as planned.
Notable Quote:
Larry Charles [28:47]: "He wasn't on, you know, he wasn't on like a comedian. He was himself, which is a much more sort of worldly wise, generous, thoughtful, contemplative person at this stage of his life."
The conversation shifts to Larry's views on how comedy has evolved over the years. He critiques the current state of television and film, noting a lack of originality and increased political correctness that stifles bold humor.
Larry reminisces about the raw, unfiltered comedy of past decades, advocating for the authenticity and cathartic power that such humor brought to audiences. He expresses concern that modern platforms, saturated with social media influence, hinder comedians from taking creative risks.
Notable Quote:
Larry Charles [38:13]: "It was very crazy. It's like, it's always funny. Like, I'll have an angry lady at my show yell at me, like, I cannot believe you said, that's horrible to say that. I'm like, that's why I said it. Yeah, that's what I'm going for."
In a lighter segment, the trio engages in a classic "peeves" discussion. Mark Normand shares his frustration with restaurant waiters pushing specific menu items, while Larry Charles and Sam Morril add their own annoyances, ranging from slow walkers to fake laughter on TV shows.
This segment highlights the comedians' sharp observational skills and their ability to find humor in everyday irritations.
Notable Quote:
Larry Charles [56:33]: "Did you guys want to do peeves? I know that we. I don't know if I have a good. Do you have any good peeves?"
As the episode wraps up, Larry reflects on the nature of friendships in the comedy industry, emphasizing the importance of maintaining personal relationships despite professional challenges. He shares his ongoing projects, including potential film work and continuous exploration of new comedic ideas.
The hosts express their deep admiration for Larry, acknowledging his profound influence on their own comedic journeys. They conclude with a heartfelt farewell, encouraging listeners to explore Larry's works further.
Notable Quote:
Larry Charles [76:17]: "He was the most important person in my adult life. He's done more to change my life than anybody. So call him up, you know. Well, maybe I will."
Creative Freedom vs. Network Constraints: Larry emphasizes the importance of creative freedom, contrasting his experiences on network shows like Seinfeld with the more liberated environment of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Impact of Comedy on Society: Through anecdotes from Borat and Bruno, Larry illustrates how comedy can intersect with real-world events, sometimes unpredictably influencing societal behaviors.
Evolution of Comedy Standards: The discussion reveals a tension between traditional, raw comedic approaches and contemporary standards of political correctness, highlighting a shift in what is considered acceptable humor.
Personal Growth and Authenticity: Larry's journey underscores the significance of authenticity in comedy, advocating for staying true to one's unique voice despite external pressures.
The Power of Pet Peeves: The light-hearted segment on pet peeves showcases how everyday annoyances can serve as fertile ground for comedic exploration, reflecting the hosts' sharp observational talents.
This episode of "We Might Be Drunk" offers an in-depth look into Larry Charles' profound influence on modern comedy, his personal experiences navigating the entertainment industry, and his candid thoughts on the evolving landscape of humor. Through engaging conversations and memorable anecdotes, listeners gain valuable insights into the craft of comedy and the resilience required to thrive within it.
Disclaimer: All quotes and timestamps are based on the provided transcript and are included to enhance authenticity and engagement in the summary.