The Time Larry David Quit Saturday Night Live And Then Pretended He Didn't
Larry David's comedy writing career got off to an inauspicious start in 1980 when he was hired to appear on ABC's late-night sketch show "Fridays." The series premiered just as "Saturday Night Live" was embarking on its first season without its original cast, which should've worked in its favor. Producer Jean Doumanian had taken the "SNL" reins from Lorne Michaels, and promptly drove the show straight into a ditch with an ill-fitting cast and uninspired writers. It would've been difficult to turn out a more dire product with professional comedic talent.
Alas, "Fridays" — even with such promising young talent as David, Michael Richards and Rich Hall — was only marginally better, which wasn't enough to convince its target viewership to stay home and sacrifice prime bar time. 40 years later, it's a broadcast footnote best remembered for Andy Kaufman's live-on-air refusal to continue performing in a poorly written sketch (which was recreated in Miloš Forman's "Man on the Moon").
When ABC axed the series in 1982, Dick Ebersol tried to recruit the most talented cast members for the struggling "SNL" (which was in the process of being rescued by Eddie Murphy). David and Hall accepted his offer. David, unsurprisingly, was cranky throughout his one season on the show, which led to a quintessentially David outburst that almost knocked him off the series.
How to quit and un-quit with Kramer-esque elan
During a conversation with Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit, Larry David discussed his frustration with Dick Ebersol during the '84-'85 season. Though he felt his sketches were working during the read-through, Ebersol kept cutting them from broadcast (his only skit to make air was relegated to the dreaded 12:50 AM slot). When David saw yet another of his pieces slashed from an episode mere minutes from air, he blew his stack. As David told Carter:
"Ebersol had the headset on in the back near the monitor. I walked up to him and I went, this f***ing show stinks! It's a piece of s***. I'm done! I quit! F*** you! And that was it and then I left."
When David calmed down, he realized he'd made a horrible mistake, at least financially. He needed the dough, and didn't have any immediate opportunities to make up what he cost himself by bolting "SNL." When David ran into his buddy Kenny Kramer, the real-life inspiration for Michael Richards' Cosmo Kramer, he expressed his regret. That's when Kramer offered a very Kramer-esque solution: go back into work on Monday and act like nothing happened. It worked. Per David:
"I went into the meeting on Monday, I took a seat with all the writers. They start going around the room asking each one what they're doing. I said, I'm thinking about doing a sketch about a trapeze artist. And that was it."
If this sounds familiar, that's because it inspired the A-plot in the "Seinfeld" season 2 episode "The Revenge." This is also a reminder that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is practically a documentary of David's life. The man lives to get himself into the most inexplicable fixes.