Live From New York - James H. Miller [144]
BILLY CRYSTAL:
There was another thing Larry got on which he’s forgetting. We wrote a thing that became a running character which was a big hit named Lou Goldman, a weatherman. He was an old crazy Jewish weatherman who would give the forecast only for where his family lived. It was very funny. And the forecasts were, “Monday is feh, Tuesday continued feh, Thursday and Friday — don’t be a big shot, take a jacket.” Then he’d do “Miami, where my sister Rose is —” And then he just went off on rants. And we did that two or three times. Larry and I did those.
BOB TISCHLER:
We let the new cast members read the new writers that were coming in, and I remember Chris Guest, in particular, not getting Larry’s stuff at all. I liked his stuff; I don’t remember what Dick’s position was. But he came on. It wasn’t a total unanimous decision to put him on. He came on, and because of who Larry is — and one thing Larry is is always true to himself — he did not compromise. Even though you could tell immediately that he was a really good writer, it was more stuff about him than it was about stuff that the cast members could do as characters. Some people are just not meant to write for Saturday Night Live. Larry was one of them.
He was certainly not meant to work for Dick Ebersol. They locked horns immediately, and their relationship was just horrible. I think some of Larry’s sketches were prejudged. Some of the sketches I wanted to put on, but Dick didn’t want to put on, and Dick won out. It got to be almost a personal thing between the two of them. If it just had the name Larry David on it, Dick shied away from it. These are two people who were very far apart. I felt sorry for Larry. Everybody — but Dick — did.
ELLIOT WALD:
Part of my job that year was going to Larry David and trying to explain to him why his pieces didn’t get in. Larry’s and Dick’s senses of humor were just completely different. Larry would write pieces that, you know, we’d just be falling on the floor over. Some of those became great Seinfeld episodes. The one about trying to get some-one’s apartment at a wake? Elaine did that in Seinfeld, but Larry wrote it first as a sketch. And we were falling down laughing. And Dick would say, “That’s not going on the air; that’s not funny.” And it’s like, Whoa! So we were what — faking our laughter? And so my job became commiserating with Larry. And he’s so smart and so funny.
LARRY DAVID:
I think Dick Ebersol did the best he could for what he wanted to get out of the show. What’s he going to do? He doesn’t have a comedy background. He was a good guy, a decent guy, and I don’t have any problem with him. I do remember this, though: It was the day before read-through, which was, let’s see, Tuesday, around seven o’clock, and I’d been there maybe three weeks to write material. And so for that first read-through I had already written maybe two or three sketches and maybe two news pieces for the “Update” thing. So I was all set.
So I’m waiting for the elevator to go home, and I remember Dick came out of the elevator, and I said, “Good night,” and he said, “What are you doing?!?” I said, “Oh, I’m going home.” And he looked at me like I was out of my mind. He said, “What do you mean, going home?” I said, “Well, I’ve written three sketches and two news pieces and that’s it, you know.” And he goes, “But we stay up all night.” I go, “What for?” He says, “To write the show. That’s when we write the show.” I said, “But I’ve already written