Larry Charles (Seinfeld, Curb, Borat) on the State of Comedy and Being a "Comedy Samurai"

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00:00How are you, Jim? Nice to see you.

00:02Comedy Samurai is such a cool book,

00:03but I have to start with something

00:04that I don't think most people are going to touch on.

00:06I cannot believe you are a writer for Mad About You

00:09that so doesn't fit.

00:11Yeah, I worked, I was a showrunner, actually,

00:13on Mad About You,

00:14so I kind of was in charge of the entire show.

00:17That came off of Seinfeld.

00:19I had done Seinfeld for a few years.

00:21I had kind of hit the wall creatively.

00:23I could have stayed there forever,

00:25but I'm a gambler, and I wanted to roll the dice

00:27and do a new challenge,

00:30and I was in the middle of kind of a difficult marriage,

00:33quite honestly,

00:34and here was a show about a marriage

00:36that was kind of ideal that I just didn't buy.

00:40Like, whose marriage is like that?

00:43No one's.

00:44It was like a fantasy,

00:45and I thought, what if I could do

00:47like a kind of a scenes from a marriage,

00:49like a sitcom that isn't necessarily as funny as Seinfeld,

00:52but gets into the reality and the truth

00:55of what being married is about,

00:57and the two actors, Paul and Helen,

01:00were great, and they were totally into it,

01:03and that's what we did for the couple of years

01:04that I was there.

01:05I love it.

01:06I love it.

01:06This book is so cool.

01:07I have so many questions,

01:08but there's a theme through here I wanted to touch on.

01:10I was thinking about,

01:12you talk about counterculture comedians

01:14when they're at their best.

01:14You kind of push the envelope.

01:16Like, you know, growing up for me,

01:17it was Richard Pryor,

01:19and my dad used to listen to Red Fox in the car,

01:22and I don't think people understood.

01:24His stand-up was, wow.

01:26Yeah.

01:26He really pushed it,

01:28and, you know, you go back to Carlin.

01:30When I watched Shane Gillis go on SNL,

01:32and half the room is like,

01:35he made him so uncomfortable during that.

01:37Do you, as a writer and as a comedian,

01:40do you appreciate what he did?

01:41I'm not, you know,

01:44I'm not afraid of people crossing the line,

01:47of people offending people.

01:48I remember, and I'm sure you do too,

01:50when Andrew Dice Clay was on Saturday Night Live,

01:52and Nora Dunn walked off the show.

01:56That's kind of what's supposed to happen in comedy,

01:59in my opinion.

02:00You know, you're supposed to risk offending people

02:03because your ideas are so radical

02:05that some people are going to be uncomfortable with it,

02:08and right or wrong,

02:09I think that is the role of comedy,

02:11is to push that barrier.

02:13And so you talk about Richard Pryor and George Carlin,

02:15but there's a lot of comedians,

02:17Sam Kennison, Clay, you know,

02:20maybe Shane Gillis is an example of that today,

02:23who are pushing those boundaries in one way or another,

02:27and you're not going to get universal acclaim.

02:30That's not a bad thing.

02:31Think about Andy Kaufman, you know?

02:33The great comedians risk that alienation with the audience.

02:38I think it's necessary to find the new language of comedy.

02:42I thought Mulaney,

02:43when he talked about his rehab and his issues,

02:46for a guy who was really, I wouldn't say milquetoast,

02:49but a very safe, kind of fun comedian,

02:51for him to go where he went,

02:52that took a lot of courage,

02:54because he could have just grenaded his whole career

02:55by doing that.

02:56Well, it's very analogous, don't you think,

02:58to George Carlin,

02:59when George Carlin was doing that straight stuff

03:01on Ed Sullivan, the hippy-dippy weatherman,

03:04and then suddenly he was doing

03:05the seven words you can't say on TV.

03:07So comedians, like musicians, like artists,

03:10evolved, some of them do,

03:12and those are the ones that we usually

03:15have the most kind of personal connection to.

03:18Were you guys aware,

03:19when you were working on Seinfeld,

03:20that I wouldn't say you aspired to stir things up,

03:24but it always, there was an undercurrent

03:26to watching Seinfeld going,

03:28there's an edge to this show,

03:30and the men and women who are writing this

03:32know exactly what the hell they were doing.

03:34Well, I will tell you that at the beginning

03:37of the show, you know, Larry David said to me,

03:40you know, we'll do 13 episodes,

03:41we'll make a little money,

03:43it'll get canceled,

03:44then we'll move on with our lives, you know?

03:46And throughout the entire show,

03:47while I was there,

03:48Larry wanted the show to get canceled,

03:50he couldn't take it anymore.

03:52So, you know,

03:54we didn't worry about what the impact was,

03:56we were just worrying week to week

03:58of what we were going to write,

03:59what the story was going to be,

04:01but we were attracted

04:02because we didn't have any sense of it succeeding,

04:05we were attracted to the things that made us laugh,

04:08and as it turned out,

04:09the things that made us laugh

04:11made the world laugh too,

04:12and it worked out.

04:14Yeah, what's the old thing as a parent,

04:16is sometimes it's easier to ask for forgiveness

04:17than permission?

04:18Was that kind of the mindset

04:20when you were writing that stuff?

04:21Well, our motto was,

04:24no hugging, no learning.

04:25So that was kind of,

04:27we were free in a way

04:29to write what we thought was funny,

04:31and because the show wasn't doing well,

04:33it was losing in the ratings to Jake and the Fat Man,

04:36which you remember also,

04:38we felt like, you know,

04:39we're just going to do what we think is funny

04:41and try to do the funniest show we can

04:43and not worry about the consequences.

04:45And then only in retrospect did we realize,

04:47oh, wow, this became Seinfeld, you know?

04:50This show became Seinfeld.

04:52Seinfeld did everybody,

04:53the institution of Seinfeld.

04:55So, Larry, in the book,

04:56you talk about Borat, obviously.

04:57I mean, that's one of those movies,

04:5850 years from now,

04:59we'll be watching and laughing our ass off.

05:01And I was thinking about

05:02the anniversary of Spinal Tap.

05:04Now, Spinal Tap, a mockumentary,

05:06they knew what they were doing.

05:07Everything were set scenes.

05:09Everyone was in on it.

05:10You're going around the country.

05:12How do you direct that?

05:14How do you, I mean,

05:15you have to pretend you're really filming a documentary.

05:18That had to be challenging and scary at the same time.

05:23Yeah, I mean, Spinal Tap,

05:24I love Spinal Tap,

05:25but everybody in Spinal Tap was an actor.

05:27Right.

05:28There was no risk of violence or police action.

05:31When we did Borat,

05:33there was only one person,

05:35Sasha,

05:35who actually was somewhat scripted

05:38and only somewhat scripted.

05:40We didn't know what these other people

05:41were going to say.

05:42We didn't know how they were going to react.

05:43And that unpredictability,

05:45that volatility comes off the screen.

05:49And I think that's one of the reasons

05:50the audience related to it so much.

05:52It's like, this is more than a movie.

05:54This kind of spills out

05:55outside the screen itself.

05:57And I think the audience really appreciated

05:59a humor, a comedy,

06:02a new sort of voice of comedy,

06:04a new language of comedy,

06:06which is what that was.

06:08Your book to me is,

06:09I call them coffee books.

06:10Sometimes I get a good book

06:11that I want to sit down and read,

06:13get a nice cup of coffee,

06:15turn my phone off,

06:16and just disappear.

06:17And I'm not going to kindle this.

06:18I need the book itself, Larry.

06:20I want to read this.

06:20Comedy Samurai,

06:22The Mostly Epic Quest

06:23of a Mostly On-Time Jewish Comedian.

06:25That's a great title.

06:26That's a great title, man.

06:28There's so much in this book to think about.

06:30And you got me thinking about comedians

06:32more and more as well.

06:33Do you like the direction we're going

06:36with comedy, with podcasting?

06:38Are we getting back to maybe people

06:39being a little more aggressive,

06:41for lack of a better word?

06:42Or are we still in a cancel culture?

06:44Well, you know,

06:45the way I look at it,

06:46I see very little true,

06:49funny comedy in TV and movies.

06:54I think because they have to be filtered

06:56through this kind of corporate culture now

06:58with a lot of people,

07:00you know, a lot of cooks,

07:02as they say.

07:03It gets sanitized,

07:05and it gets flattened out,

07:06and it gets very derivative.

07:08And so the only place that I actually see

07:10comedy with integrity,

07:12people trying to push those boundaries,

07:14is in stand-up.

07:15I think stand-up is flourishing right now

07:18because it is free.

07:20It's much a freer medium

07:22than TV or movie comedies are right now.

07:26My son is 21.

07:27He is a big film, movie, music guy.

07:30We talk, I always,

07:31he always asks me,

07:32he goes, give me a movie.

07:33And he's a college student,

07:34and I'll send him stuff.

07:35I had him watch the movie MASH,

07:38and he texted me back and went,

07:40this is nothing like the TV show.

07:42I'm like, yeah.

07:44Yeah, you, it's totally different,

07:45but that's to your point, Larry.

07:47I mean, you can't do that movie now.

07:49You can't even touch that movie now.

07:51Right, but you can get on stage

07:53and talk about anything.

07:54Exactly, yeah.

07:55That's the difference now, I think.

07:58You know, and the live audience,

07:59once again, as I've been saying,

08:00the live audience really appreciates

08:02the liberation of hearing somebody

08:05talk the truth in some kind of venue,

08:08and stand-up is where you hear that.

08:10Seinfeld was a place where that happened.

08:12Borat was a place that that happened.

08:14Curb was a place that that happened.

08:16But it's very rare today to see it

08:18on a TV screen or a movie screen.

08:20But if you go to see stand-up,

08:22you will see some very liberating comedy.

08:25When someone says,

08:26thank you for your service,

08:27I'm a veteran.

08:28When they say it, I say thank you.

08:29But at the same time,

08:30in the back of my head,

08:31I laugh my ass off

08:32because of the Curb moment.

08:33That's one of the funniest things.

08:35To your point,

08:36you got to know where you're going with that,

08:38or you're going to really

08:38piss off a lot of people.

08:40Yeah, no, that became,

08:41and that's Larry.

08:42You know, Larry is somebody who,

08:44you know, I think that's an important point.

08:45With Seinfeld,

08:47with Curb,

08:47with Borat,

08:48with things like that,

08:49questioning the common wisdom.

08:52You know,

08:52like, thank you for your services.

08:53It had a lot of meaning at one time,

08:56and now it's kind of lost its meaning.

08:58It's almost become a cliche.

08:59It's a crutch.

09:01And so that's why Larry in that episode

09:03was, you know,

09:03didn't bother saying it.

09:04He just said hello.

09:05And he was more sincere

09:07than all the people that said,

09:08thank you for your service.

09:10But it had consequences.

09:12You're awesome.

09:13Larry, I really do appreciate the time.

09:15You get me thinking about stuff.

09:16I like books that make me step back

09:17and digest it

09:18and what you're doing

09:19with Comedy Samurai.

09:20You're always welcome here

09:21in the Motor City.

09:22You know that.

09:23And I'd love to talk more, man.

09:25I know our time is short,

09:26but yeah, this is a great read.

09:27Congratulations on the book.

09:29Thank you so much, Jim.

09:30And I can't wait to come out to Detroit

09:31and see you in person.

09:33Come on.

09:33Come on to Ridley's.

09:34We'll set it up.

09:35Talk to you soon.

09:35That's good.

09:36Thanks.

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