Ep 240: Larry Charles (Seinfeld & Curb Your Enthusiasm)

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 the movie theater, the beauty of undignified characters, and why pet peeves make the best punchlines. Plus, tales of Johnny Carson, toaster oven rage, and the evolution of comedy—from network notes to full creative freedom. Sponsored by: 🛍️ Start your $1/month Shopify trial https://www.shopify.com/DRUNK 💨 Get 20% off your first Lucy order with promo code DRUNK https://www.lucy.co/DRUNK 🏠 Save an average of $800/month with American Financing Call 855-581-5828 or visit http://www. AmericanFinancing.net/Drunk NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org 🎧 Subscribe to We Might Be Drunk: https://bit.ly/SubscribeToWMBD 🛒 Merch: https://wemightbedrunkpod.com/ 🎬 Clips Channel: https://bit.ly/WMBDClips Sam Morril: https://punchup.live/sammorril/tickets Mark Normand: https://punchup.live/marknormand/tickets ⸻ 🎙️ Check out That Sounds Right — the comedy panel show hosted by the producer of WMBD: https://www.youtube.com/@thatsoundsrightshow Produced by Gotham Production Studios: https://www.gothamproductionstudios.com @GothamProductionStudios | Producer: https://www.instagram.com/mrmatthewpeters #WeMightBeDrunk #MarkNormand #SamMorril #LarryCharles #Shopify #Lucy #AmericanFinancing #ComedyPodcast #StandUpComedy #Seinfeld #BodegaCatWhiskey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Mark Normand?

  Hey, we're here, folks. We might be drunk.

• 0:08Sam Morril?

  We're here with Larry Charles, our best dressed guest ever.

• 0:11Speaker 02

  Thank you, thank you.

• 0:12Mark Normand?

  Yeah, who died?

• 0:13Speaker 02

  I thought I... Yeah, that's exactly... I'm trying to find out, right?

• 0:17Sam Morril?

  He's the godfather of Harlem, I think, right here. This is crazy.

• 0:20Mark Normand?

  Yeah, The Undertaker is here.

• 0:22Sam Morril?

  I was thinking, if we ever had a guest rock a suit, I think this is... This classing it up the pod.

• 0:26Speaker 02

  Really? This might be a trend, maybe.

• 0:27Mark Normand?

  Maybe, starting. I guess so. No one's gonna wear a suit. I walked in with a bathing suit on.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  No, you gotta be crazy. I wouldn't either if I had my choice.

• 0:34Mark Normand?

  It's a heat wave.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  This is all I have.

• 0:36Sam Morril?

  And you have the sunglasses on. I feel like I've only seen you in the sunglasses.

• 0:39Speaker 02

  Right. I thought I would take them off and, you know, so we could have some actual icons.

• 0:42Mark Normand?

  I appreciate it. I prefer them on, but what are you gonna do?

• 0:46Speaker 02

  I can put them back on.

• 0:47Mark Normand?

  But from a distance, I would think, uh, Hasidic Jew.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Often mistaken for one.

• 0:52Mark Normand?

  Uh-huh, me too, actually.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  If I had a black hat, you know that that would be happening.

• 0:56Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  I'd be also putting a tefillin on as well, so...

• 0:59Sam Morril?

  I remember Hannibal Buress 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 have... Why do these Amish people have blackberries?"

• 1:10Sam Morril?

  I fucked up that joke.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  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." And I'd go, "Why?" He'd say, "You look too Jewish." And I'd go, "Well, have you looked at yourself?"

• 1:22Mark Normand?

  Ah!

• 1:22Speaker 02

  "You look too Jewish," you know?

• 1:24Mark Normand?

  That's true.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  And we'd be arguing outside the white supremacist's house about who looked more Jewish.

• 1:29Mark Normand?

  That's hilarious.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  And of course, I was lost because he had to actually go in and do the scene.

• 1:32Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  And I'd have to stay outside on the porch.

• 1:34Sam Morril?

  That is the most Jewish thing, two Jews bickering outside a white supremacist.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that happened more than once.

• 1:41Sam Morril?

  So was that the one, was that the throw the Jew down the well one?

• 1:43Speaker 02

  No, this was, uh, we actually interviewed, uh, this was part of Bruno, where he's supposed to get a white supremacist, um, he's start to flirt with a white supremacist. And this guy was a virulent... Anti Semite, he had Nazi stuff all over his house. Oh, wow. 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. Wow. And that guy, his name was Glenn Frazier, I believe, Glenn Miller, actually. Orchestra. He wound up, not, but not the orchestra guy, the white supremacist guy. Got it.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  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. Yeah, and the three, 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, yeah. Joke's on him. Yeah. Damn it. What were those non-Jews doing at the synagogue? Well, he was an idiot to begin with, so I'm not surprised he didn't get that right. He shouldn't have gone on Saturday. Right. Well, also we had somebody, we had me and him, me and Sasha were there. Right. If he had just shot us. Yeah. It would have been much, you know, he would have been on target. Weird. Did you, did you ever hear from people after they got like just humiliated in the, in the show or movie or anything like that? Usually through their lawyers. Ah.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Like a lot, we had probably over 150 lawsuits for Borat. And who deals with that, HBO? Yeah, 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. Hmm. 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 a few times, and he wasn't actually currently a terrorist.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  He was a retired terrorist and so, and we identified him as an active terrorist. You don't hear about it, they moved to Boca. They're like, "Come on, don't do this." Do they get residuals from the bus bombing? A condo development there. But he, um, he sued and he, he actually won some money of all the people. What? Wow. The terrorist one, he couldn't beat the Jewish lawyers? Yeah, no, I know, that was the one time. Wow. What is he suing for defamation or something? Yeah, yeah. That's hilarious. And it was in, it was actually in Palestine, we did it in the West Bank. Wow. And yet he was able to sue in a, in an American court. It's always about the banks. But he was, but he was, actually, he was right. I mean, we had the research wrong. He was not, he was kinda like a shopkeeper. Right. When we interviewed him, you know, pretty peaceful guy, actually.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Uh, so, uh, he actually got us. But that, we, we probably sued like hundreds of times, you know, uh, and none of those other suits worked. Well, you get a release, right? You get a, you get a release, but people still try to get past the release. Right. Once the scene's over, they realize they made a horrible mistake. Mmm. By signing the release. And so then they wanna tear up the release and, you know, but they've also, we give them a hundred bucks. And that, that's like a binding contract then. Right. And so, nothing could really be done about it. They're really kinda stuck.

• 5:02Sam Morril?

  That's, that's your reputation, one hundred dollars.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:05Sam Morril?

  I mean, that's 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?

• 5:10Speaker 02

  People, you know, it's two things that I'm sure you run into a lot in your lives, ego and vanity. People wanna 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 kinda stuff.

• 5:31Sam Morril?

  You should work for Girls Gone Wild.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Exactly. And, um, and people will be very seduced by that, very easily. Oh, yeah. So, it works. Man, your, your life is dangerous. I mean, you, you put yourselves in harm's way quite a bit for a comedic writer. I, I have. I mean, I've been to, you know, I did a show for Netflix called Larry Charles Dangerous World of Comedy. Ah. Where I went to Somalia, uh, because there's comedians in Somalia. Ah. I mean, I, I'm in dangerous situations, but being a comedian in Somalia, that's like-

• 6:01Sam Morril?

  Those are the worst cruise ships ever.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, really bad. They kinda crash into the, the shore there. Horrible food. But there's a lot of assassinations amongst the comedians that I, that I interviewed. Yeah, I mean, because they really get the government upset. And, um, and the state-run media, so, you know, it's, it's a very tense situation for people in Iraq, but there are comedians in all these places. Crazy. Liberia, where there was a big civil war, comedians, you know. Wow. So, I thought that was fascinating, that people do comedy, because we have it pretty easy here, you know. Um, but in some places, doing comedy really is risking your life, you know. Yeah. I thought that was fascinating.

• 6:36Sam Morril?

  Yeah, I saw when people call comedians brave here, where it was like, shut the fuck up.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:40Sam Morril?

  There's really no, we, the more we talk about it, like, even with canceling comedians, it really never sticks when it's a joke or a word.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  No.

• 6:47Sam Morril?

  The only ones who have stuck are like the sexual assault people.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a lot of people in these in these countries who are constantly under threat. Uh, their lives are under threat and and often are, you know, are killed. So it's a it's a pretty big deal, but they they feel it's a really important thing to do to sort of speak truth to power.

• 7:06Mark Normand?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  To speak out against the government and they're in these dictatorial dictatorial kind of countries and they want to speak out about them. And people do respond to it also.

• 7:16Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  So they're they are playing a kind of important role and a healing role also for people that are oppressed.

• 7:21Mark Normand?

  Sure.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  They get a chance to laugh, you know, which is kind of a rarity in those places. Here we can laugh as 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.

• 7:33Mark Normand?

  Yeah, pretty great.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a little bit of freedom.

• 7:36Mark Normand?

  It's crazy. We bitches comedians, we get heckled or a drink thrown at us. These guys are getting killed, maybe all for twenty eight dollars at a club, you know, chicken wings.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Maybe that's their their their their income for the year, actually, is twenty eight dollars.

• 7:49Mark Normand?

  Couple of drink tickets?

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:51Mark Normand?

  That's crazy. The balls on those guys.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's major balls.

• 7:55Sam Morril?

  What's the most scared you've been in one of those situations?

• 7:59Speaker 02

  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 uh section. And um I don't get scared. I mean, I get scared like coming on this show.

• 8:13Mark Normand?

  Ah, God.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  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 like.

• 8:27Sam Morril?

  That's insane. You're more scared to be here.

• 8:29Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  I swear to God, I kind of.

• 8:31Sam Morril?

  I'm a big fan of yours. I'm much more scared of the machine guns in Somalia.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  But something happens to me. I don't know why. Maybe I'm a sociopath or something. But I my my my fear level goes down. I get kind of calm. I sort of surrender. It's like, OK, well, this is it, you know, and I'm like, I'm OK with that.

• 8:47Mark Normand?

  It's like a race car driver. They say when they're going eight hundred miles an hour, they're like, I'm weirdly zen.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  Uh, 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 boar at 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.

• 9:09Mark Normand?

  Interesting.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Um, and I don't I don't get I get I have more trouble. Getting to the airports to go to that place than I do when I get to that place.

• 9:18Mark Normand?

  Wow.

• 9:19Sam Morril?

  That's, this is, it's, it's like the little things are more annoying.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 9:23Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  I get what you're saying, yeah. I have to go to the airport later today. I'm freaking out about that.

• 9:27Mark Normand?

  Ah.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  But when I got to Somalia, I felt okay.

• 9:30Mark 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.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  You're right, yeah.

• 9:41Sam Morril?

  When something horrible happens in my life, I, I kinda like pause and deal with it, but when it's, when it's the little things, I get so fucking angry.

• 9:47Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 9:47Sam Morril?

  Like people violating basic social codes. I mean, that, we talk about peeves on this podcast all the time.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have, I've written down a bunch for you. Don't worry, yeah.

• 9:55Mark 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. It was riveting.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  You remind me, my wife insisted we get a toaster oven, you know, to make toast, and, um, and I said, okay, and, but I have found that you cannot make good toast in the toaster oven. It only toasts one side.

• 10:30Mark Normand?

  Interesting.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  They don't toast equally, you know, so there's a, there's a peeve.

• 10:33Mark Normand?

  Let me get Jerry on the line. That's great.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, find out about that.

• 10:37Mark Normand?

  Toaster oven.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:38Sam Morril?

  Well, yeah, I mean, you directed, so you directed Borat Bruno, Religulous, which I saw in theaters.

• 10:44Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 10:44Sam Morril?

  With my mom. I was like, I'll go to temple with you if you go to Religulous with me.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Did she like it?

• 10:49Sam Morril?

  She did. I heard, 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 agree to be on camera? And I, I was like, oh, I mean, I wish there were more scenes like that. I think that was her critique, which I, I, I heard that.

• 11:02Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 11:03Sam Morril?

  Because like, those are the- When he's talking to people who are like, well, this guy's clearly just a dumb grifter.

• 11:08Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 11:08Sam Morril?

  It's not as interesting, you know? But when he's talking to someone who's like, oh, this guy actually has like political influence and power.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 11:14Sam Morril?

  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.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Well, it's always hard to get the truly powerful on camera. That's why, like, that's why, um, getting politicians, people kind of know better, yeah.

• 11:30Sam Morril?

  But they didn't know.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:31Sam Morril?

  They didn't know Borat, the character, a lot of these people.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  No, but they were still like, they didn't have the need, they didn't have the ego need to be on camera at any cost.

• 11:39Sam Morril?

  Right.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  So it's easier, unfortunately, to get people who are slightly lower level to, to agree. Cause they, they want their day in the sun.

• 11:47Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  You know?

• 11:48Mark Normand?

  What a good, good combo, you and Bill. Cause 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.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  He's great that way. I mean, he's not, he, his, his, um, his whole thing is, he's actually a good listener. Which is, 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.

• 12:09Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  You know, and that makes him very dangerous to the person he's interviewing.

• 12:13Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Cause he's, he's not just thinking about what the next thing is he wants to say. He's gonna base something on what you just said.

• 12:19Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  And sort of pick that apart. And he's very effective that way.

• 12:23Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  He'd be a good prosecutor.

• 12:25Sam Morril?

  A lot of comedians used to be lawyers. We talked about that.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 12:29Sam Morril?

  Uh, I mean, Greg Giraldo is a great stand-up, you know, lawyer, Dimitri Martin, a lot, a lot of comics.

• 12:35Mark Normand?

  Mercure.

• 12:35Sam Morril?

  Al Lubel.

• 12:36Mark Normand?

  Oh, wow, damn.

• 12:37Sam Morril?

  I think, yeah, a lot of, a lot of good stand-ups.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, because it's, there's an argumentative quality.

• 12:42Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  To being a comedian, you're a contrarian.

• 12:45Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  You know, and so it makes sense that, that people who were lawyers would, would feel sort of hemmed in by that eventually. And want to use that same, uh, trait in, on stand-up and just be funny about it.

• 12:57Sam Morril?

  I mean, can you just picture like Chris Rock being an incredible trial lawyer?

• 12:59Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 13:01Sam Morril?

  You know, you just by the end, you'd be like, fuck, I do think that way. It's horrible.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  I'd want him to defend me, absolutely, yeah. I wonder if you could just hire him anyway, even though he doesn't have a license.

• 13:10Mark Normand?

  Yeah, maybe. Now, what the hell? You did Jackass.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  No, I did not do Jackass.

• 13:15Mark Normand?

  Ah, dude.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  Sorry, sorry.

• 13:16Mark Normand?

  Who did Jackass? Sorry.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  Um, a guy named Jeff Tremaine.

• 13:20Mark Normand?

  I thought you would have won.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Very cool.

• 13:22Mark Normand?

  I loved Jeff Tremaine.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:23Mark Normand?

  But I don't know why I thought you directed that.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  No, I did not.

• 13:25Mark Normand?

  It felt like a Larry Charles joint.

• 13:26Sam Morril?

  First five seasons of Seinfeld?

• 13:28Speaker 02

  Right, right, which I did not direct, but I was a writer.

• 13:30Sam Morril?

  But you wrote the bookman scene, right?

• 13:32Speaker 02

  I wrote the bookman scene.

• 13:33Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 13:33Sam Morril?

  That's maybe my favorite scene.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  It's a great scene.

• 13:35Sam Morril?

  I love that actor, Philip Baker-Hall, so much.

• 13:37Mark Normand?

  Oh, he's the man.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Well, one of the cool things about Seinfeld was our influences were not the usual sitcom influences. Like, we were more into like Abbott 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.

• 14:01Mark Normand?

  That's a good point.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:02Mark Normand?

  And you did the LA one, was that you?

• 14:04Speaker 02

  I did the LA one as well, yeah.

• 14:05Mark Normand?

  Okay, that was a to be continued, yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was actually a three-part, because the first one is where Kramer loses the keys, and he, which was the end of the season before.

• 14:16Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  He loses the keys, and that's what, that's what sort of propels him to take off of California. And then it was a two-parter.

• 14:23Mark Normand?

  Uh-huh.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  In California.

• 14:24Mark 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.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:34Mark Normand?

  And I remember being like, they're not in New York all the time? I was so stupid.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  No, no, you know what? Most people, I was always shocked that people actually, because the New York street that we used was like a back, was a crappy backstreet in Studio City. And I was like, we're not, this looks like such, can I say shit? This looks like such shit. You know, and, but yet people believed the illusion and thought the show was shot in New York.

• 14:59Mark Normand?

  Ah, yeah.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  It wasn't just you.

• 15:01Sam Morril?

  Exteriors, 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.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 15:07Sam Morril?

  That's all it took.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  People bought the illusion.

• 15:09Mark Normand?

  Which could have knocked me over the feather, but that is in LA. Jerry's building is in LA.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Even Jerry's building is in LA, it's in Los Feliz.

• 15:16Mark Normand?

  I thought it was in New York.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:17Sam Morril?

  I think I did, I did America's Got Talent back in the day, not Reagan, but I remember they had me walk, pretended me walking in New York, and there was some set in LA.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:26Sam Morril?

  Like, I'm stewing, I'm like, I'm on like a stoop, and I'm just like...

• 15:29Speaker 02

  There are some that are better than, there are some backstreets uh uh sets that are better than others.

• 15:34Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's in those feelers.

• 15:36Mark Normand?

  That's hilarious.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:37Sam Morril?

  Wow.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  We shot, we shot an episode, um, I guess it was the limo, which I wrote also. Yeah. With Murphy, yeah.

• 15:44Mark Normand?

  It's a great episode.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  That backlot is the Paramount backlot, which is a pretty good backlot, actually. It looks, if you shoot from the right angle, it could look real.

• 15:52Sam Morril?

  By the way, another white supremacist, like, you're writing some, this is dark shit for network TV that you're writing.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got no notes, there was no notes either, so.

• 16:00Mark Normand?

  And that joke was the girl, she's just a cute Nazi.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 16:05Mark Normand?

  And that was the guy from Six Feet Under was in that.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  That's right, that's right.

• 16:08Mark Normand?

  Forgot his name.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Peter, Peter something.

• 16:10Sam Morril?

  Oh, and he was on uh, the, ah, Sports Night, was that the show?

• 16:13Speaker 02

  He was on Sports Night also.

• 16:15Sam Morril?

  Yeah, he was a great guy, man, yeah.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:16Sam Morril?

  Oh, man, that was a, and they're going to the Knicks game too, right?

• 16:20Speaker 02

  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, of the, uh, 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.

• 16:37Mark Normand?

  Ah.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  And he got in the car, and I said, what if that guy was a Nazi? And that was, that's how I wound up writing that episode.

• 16:44Mark Normand?

  That's comedy.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 16:46Mark Normand?

  When in doubt, make a guy a Nazi.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, why not? Yeah, there's, there's the guy holding the sign right there.

• 16:50Mark Normand?

  No relation to the Woody Allen Jaffe?

• 16:53Speaker 02

  No, not at all.

• 16:54Mark Normand?

  Okay, okay.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  No, this guy was from Cleveland.

• 16:56Mark Normand?

  Ah.

• 16:57Sam Morril?

  That is such a, 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're just in one, I mean, those are like the Seinfeld episodes where, like the, the famous one where they, at the Chinese restaurant, just waiting. It's like, it's like a play more than a sitcom, almost.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  It was like a Beckett play.

• 17:14Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  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.

• 17:21Mark Normand?

  Is that you in the parking garage?

• 17:22Speaker 02

  That is me.

• 17:23Mark Normand?

  That's another episode.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  With a lot more hair and even heavier than I am right now, which is way overweight.

• 17:27Mark Normand?

  I gotta ask, I've been, I've been watching your work for thirty plus years, whatever, did Seinfeld and Larry ever zing ya? 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? What is that? What are you, you gonna shave or you're not gonna shave? You know, like, he must have given you shit.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Well, Larry David also is a very fastidious dresser.

• 17:46Mark Normand?

  Yes, yes.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Very specific, too.

• 17:48Mark Normand?

  The quarter zip.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  When you would come in in the morning, you would be critiqued.

• 17:51Mark Normand?

  Okay.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  There was a fashion critique going on at all times, you know? So I was, 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. Cause 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. Right? 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.

• 18:25Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  I wasn't just going to take a piss.

• 18:27Mark Normand?

  Sure.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  You know, and I'd be in there for a few minutes and, and they, I realized they were kind of like looking at me like, what the fuck are you doing?

• 18:34Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  And eventually, they didn't, never said to me, because neither one of them really wanted confrontation.

• 18:39Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  So, but they eventually wrote an episode in which George starts using the boss's bathroom and gets fired.

• 18:47Mark Normand?

  There you go.

• 18:48Sam 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.

• 18:53Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 18:54Sam Morril?

  The most comedian thing, cause we do that to people.

• 18:56Mark Normand?

  Totally.

• 18:57Sam Morril?

  I can't imagine how many times, like, we are friends, it gets back to them, we're like, I have a peeve, and then they're like, was that me?

• 19:02Mark Normand?

  Yes, yes, exactly. So true.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  So I stopped doing it after.

• 19:07Sam Morril?

  Well, there's also the George episode where he's taking the, the books in the bathroom at the bookstore.

• 19:12Mark Normand?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:13Sam Morril?

  And they flag it.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. A lot of that stuff is, is, is true stories of Larry.

• 19:18Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  The true stories of Larry are also legendary. I mean, there's another George story in a bathroom where he was gonna have sex with this woman.

• 19:25Mark Normand?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  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.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  And that was the end of that relationship.

• 19:42Mark Normand?

  So, so Shooting Curb must have, you did some curbs.

• 19:45Sam Morril?

  Directed for like 20 years, right?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:47Mark Normand?

  Wow, okay, so.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  But it's 20 years because like Larry would take four years off.

• 19:51Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  You know, that, that, he really spread them out, so.

• 19:55Mark 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 you're a little more freewheeling.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  It was, well, first of all, once Seinfeld, once Seinfeld became a hit, there were no more notes.

• 20:10Mark Normand?

  Oh, okay.

• 20:10Sam Morril?

  And he had no notes on the Nazi episode, which is, for NBC, is crazy.

• 20:13Mark Normand?

  Good point.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  And the contest, which is a famous episode of The Outing, those, those had no notes. I mean-

• 20:18Sam Morril?

  Cause you never say jack off.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Right, exactly. There's no bad words of any kind.

• 20:22Sam Morril?

  But it's wittier to be like, master of your domain.

• 20:24Mark Normand?

  Yes, king of the castle.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Exactly. So there was no real notes, but it was still a structured sitcom. It had commercials. It had to be a certain length.

• 20:32Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  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.

• 20:49Mark Normand?

  It's basically a clean comic versus a dirty comic.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Right. But you could do whatever you wanted, really.

• 20:54Sam Morril?

  But it's the same comic.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:56Mark Normand?

  Right, right.

• 20:57Sam Morril?

  I mean, it's almost like doing a late night set versus an HBO special, you know?

• 21:00Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 21:01Sam Morril?

  To some degree, which is like, man, it's so much more fun to be able to say whatever.

• 21:04Mark Normand?

  Of course.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  JB Smoove, we were talking before we started here about like, how there were some clean, there were clean comedians now, who were sort of like, it's almost like a trend in a way. And, but JB Smoove is one of the, certainly one of the last of the dirtiest comedians around. Yeah, very filthy and hilarious also.

• 21:22Mark Normand?

  I opened for him a few times, and even I was like, Jesus Christ.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:26Mark Normand?

  And you know, it's funny, I think I've told this story before, I did Carolines with him, and it was when Curb was getting hot, and he would come out to the ba-da, ba-da. And it was a lot of yarmulkes in the audience, and by the end of his show, there was like, one yarmulke. Cause they would all do Exodus, like in the desert with Moses.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  A literal Exodus, yeah. Wow.

• 21:46Mark Normand?

  But he was hilarious. I mean, he's pouring sweat and just doing crazy stuff with the microphone.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  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 have been 35 minutes. Our original cuts of Curb were often an hour.

• 22:01Mark Normand?

  Wow.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  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-

• 22:09Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  That didn't make it. And he was very tied to keeping it to 30 minutes.

• 22:14Sam Morril?

  But there's some episodes that are like thirty seven.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Right, well, eventually he started to loosen up a little bit.

• 22:18Sam Morril?

  Hmm.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  And allow the, the episodes to go, because, because HBO didn't care. HBO would have been happy with hour and a half episodes.

• 22:24Sam Morril?

  Whoa.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  They were totally cool with it, so, uh, it was really about his level of control over things.

• 22:30Sam Morril?

  Do you think it was like, I mean, similar to the show Seinfeld, so concerned with overstaying their welcome?

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Well, and, and there is a point to that, I think, also. I mean, Sasha's the same way. I'm not.

• 22:42Sam Morril?

  Yeah.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  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.

• 23:00Sam Morril?

  Yes, yes.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  What they consider to be the A stuff, which could be a debatable point.

• 23:05Sam Morril?

  Was there ever a thing that you really had to fight him to put back in that, that he reluctantly let back in and, and you thought really worked?

• 23:11Speaker 02

  I'm sure there was. I can remember situations where there were, but not specifically.

• 23:16Sam Morril?

  Okay.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, a lot of that, I mean, that's the good thing. That's the Talmudic part of the 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 where, 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.

• 23:41Sam Morril?

  Yeah. So how's it going, uh, with Larry now? I see a lot of buzz about this documentary. Everybody's talking about it.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  We both read the New York Times article, that's why.

• 23:50Sam Morril?

  Right, right, right. Well, we're doing our research.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  You know, I mean, um, we're not talking.

• 23:55Sam Morril?

  Ah, you hate to hear that.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  But it's, it's not that big a deal, though, really. I mean.

• 23:59Sam Morril?

  But if you called him right now, would you be good, do you think? If you, if you like after the show, like, hey, can we get coffee?

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I think so. In the book, you'll see that. I, I, I think he, he came to be comedy samurai.

• 24:10Sam Morril?

  Quick plug, uh, get it anywhere you get books, right? Amazon, the bookstore.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's everywhere. Um. And I did the audiobook also. Oh, nice, nice. But, because it's like one long monologue in a way. Sure. The audiobook. He came to me a couple of years before, this is in the book. A couple of years before this all happened, and he's, 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 of other older directors, David Steinberg, Brian Gordon, Bob Whitey, who had been the original director. Oh, yeah. And he said, they asked me to let them go. And you're our favorite director. Me. Yeah. You're, you're our favorite director, but I, I think, will you take a hit for the

• 24:59Speaker 02

  team, because I don't want to get rid of all those guys and then keep you, it'll look bad. Yeah. You know, and I'll feel bad. And I was like, of course, at that point, I was only really. He's saying them all at lunch and saying the same thing. Look, you're our favorite. 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, 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. Yeah. And that may have been, and then I was like, kind of upset about that for a minute,

• 25:44Speaker 02

  and then I thought, well, you know what, I had lost my temper on the set. That season. Oh, shit. 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. Was it Garland? No, it wasn't that, actually, in that case. All right, all right, he can be a lot. No, that could, that would have, that would have done it also. Okay, okay. I'm not saying I wouldn't. It wasn't in this particular case. It was in the episode where Bob Einstein, Bob Einstein is, is dating the woman with the bad tap water. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. 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. Yeah.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  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, will you stop 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. Sure. 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. Okay. So, 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 he, if it was a true like attempt to diversify the thing and he just didn't do it, that's cool.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Larry can be very passive aggressive. We're both emotional cowards when it comes to like confronting situations, you know? Yep. So that's why a couple of 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. Yeah. And we did the interviews at his house and they went great. He said they were the best interviews he'd ever done. I would love to see this. Yeah. And then the guy that shot the, the interviews, uh, the first half of the interviews, the first two hours, actually. He didn't do- He was a trans Haitian guy. He made sure to get diversity on the sound. He was, he was doing the sound and the picture. Yeah. And he didn't do a great job with this, with the picture.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  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. Okay. And so then I did the second part and I did that with the second part. So we had a four hour thing. Wow. 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.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  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.

• 28:43Sam Morril?

  Jesus.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  We talked a lot about family and his parents.

• 28:46Sam Morril?

  He brought up the Jets, that's why he cried.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  So, so I was really happy with it and he was really happy with it. But there was something about it that he, he felt that he was exposing himself too much.

• 28:58Sam Morril?

  Ah.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  And, and so I gave him an opportunity, he gave me notes. I, I tried to make it, you know, I, but I knew once this thought was planted in his head, it might never go away.

• 29:10Sam Morril?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  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.

• 29:17Sam Morril?

  Oh, I remember.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  On HBO.

• 29:19Sam Morril?

  Wow.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  And he called me and said that he wanted to postpone it.

• 29:23Sam Morril?

  Mmm.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  And I said, postpone means kill.

• 29:26Sam Morril?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  And, um, and that was the, and that, I was actually directing another movie at that point.

• 29:31Sam Morril?

  How much time did you put into this?

• 29:32Speaker 02

  I probably worked, I worked on it through the entire pandemic and then after for like another, 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. Cause then I would have taken the unadulterated footage and put it on YouTube or something like that.

• 29:56Sam Morril?

  Yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  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.

• 30:03Sam Morril?

  Do, 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 a mystique to them.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:11Sam Morril?

  And, and, uh, kind of the less you know, or 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 system?

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Well, I think that he evolved into that. You, 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 stand-up. And then it became Curb instead, you know? Uh, so he did develop much more of a TV persona, a comedy persona, that he thinks the audience really wanted to see.

• 30:43Sam Morril?

  Right.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  They want him to be funny and he, 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.

• 30:55Mark Normand?

  Wow.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  You know, so I've known all those different levels of him. And I think that in some way, he, he didn't want the audience to see that version of him at this point.

• 31:06Mark Normand?

  Sure, I get that.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  That's why he, he wanted to do a live thing where there would be an audience and then he could get laughs.

• 31:12Mark Normand?

  I saw that.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  And I wasn't as interested in that personally, you know.

• 31:15Mark Normand?

  Can I buy it from you? I just want to see it. Like, how much would it take?

• 31:18Speaker 02

  I have it on the phone right now.

• 31:19Mark Normand?

  Really?

• 31:20Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 31:20Mark Normand?

  Oh, I've been by you.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  I do have it, you know, I have it.

• 31:23Mark Normand?

  Cause I remember the, pull up the, the poster for this, the documentary. I remember waiting for it. I was pumped.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  What's that?

• 31:29Mark Normand?

  What's it?

• 31:30Speaker 02

  The Larry David story.

• 31:32Mark Normand?

  I remember going, hey, I'm calling a friend like, here we go, baby.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:36Mark Normand?

  Let's watch this together.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  It's great, actually. The trailer for it's really good. You get a sense of how, how it, how it worked.

• 31:42Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Um, and his, even his kids, he told me, my kids love, loved it.

• 31:48Mark Normand?

  Ah.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  You know, and I thought, well, that's a guarantee, you know. But that might work against it comedically. When your kids love it, you're kind of like, well, they love me unconditionally. I think that's part of the problem was like, there was, it was too much emotion. Right. He is like, no hugging, no learning. That's a Seinfeld. Like if my mom says, that's a great picture you, I'm like, you're my fucking mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was something about it that he just was not comfortable with, you know.

• 32:13Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  What was it that made him tear up?

• 32:17Mark Normand?

  Ooh, good question.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  I think he was talking about his, his kids, actually.

• 32:21Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  He was talking about his kids and how, how much they meant to him. And he had genuine emotion about that. Whereas of course, if you watch him on Curb, it's all about him not having any feelings about anything. And no kids. Right, and no kids. Right. That was a choice as well. Yeah. So, um, yeah, that's what it was. It was about his kids.

• 32:40Mark Normand?

  Damn, not the divorce, not, not his childhood.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  Well, we talked about the divorce, we talked about the childhood, but that didn't bring tears to his eyes necessarily, yeah.

• 32:48Mark Normand?

  Wow. But, you're a Coney Island guy.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:51Mark Normand?

  And he's Sheep's Head Bay?

• 32:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:53Mark Normand?

  Ah. Man, crazy, the amount of comedy in Woody Allen. I think Seinfeld's from Brooklyn. Queens, I thought.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Seinfeld's from, from Queens originally, and then Massapequa, I think.

• 33:02Mark Normand?

  Ah-ha.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  But I would say that the area of Brooklyn that I'm from and that he's from, and Mel Brooks is from... Yeah, I mean, that is like the Kingston, Jamaica of comedy.

• 33:10Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  It's like, it's like, why reggae sort of became this thing in Kingston, Jamaica? That's like this comedy triangle there in Brighton.

• 33:17Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  It's amazing that all those people, I don't know why.

• 33:20Mark Normand?

  I don't either.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Did you know any of them, uh, before comedy, or no? No, because I was, uh, I, I'm, I'm younger than Larry and much younger than someone like Mel Brooks and those people, so I only cut it... What did you work on with Mel Brooks? I did, uh, he, first of all, he did a season on Curb.

• 33:36Mark Normand?

  Oh, that's right, the producer, David Schwimmer.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  And he was also on Mad About You, and I was the showrunner of Mad About You. Wow, I didn't know you were the showrunner of Mad About You. Wow, you've done a lot of, you were getting residuals.

• 33:46Mark Normand?

  Mailbox money.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  It's not worth that much anymore, believe me. Only Seinfeld, really.

• 33:51Mark Normand?

  Okay.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  Seinfeld is still kind of like out there, and I, 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 really exist that much anymore.

• 34:01Mark Normand?

  Sure.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  Everything gets sold off to Netflix and there's a buyout and it's over. What was your favorite season of Curb? My favorite season of Curb was probably, um, I, I had a lot of favorite seasons, but maybe the season with the Seinfeld reunion.

• 34:15Mark Normand?

  Oh, yeah, the eye toilet.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  That was a lot of fun, actually, to work with all those actors again and to direct them.

• 34:19Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  Was a great experience, actually.

• 34:21Mark Normand?

  Yeah, that was big, it was like worlds colliding.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that was fun. But the year, there's a, a season where he dies at the end.

• 34:28Mark Normand?

  Oh, yes.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  And he goes to heaven.

• 34:30Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  And I directed that heaven episode, that was a lot of fun. That was the finale, I remember that one, that was great. So, and there was a season where he, um, he, he, he had made that deal with Cheryl that if they stayed married long enough, he could have sex with somebody else.

• 34:44Mark Normand?

  In eternity.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:46Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  And so, uh, that had the Survivor in it, where there was the, the guy who was on Survivor and the Holocaust Survivor.

• 34:53Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  Got into an argument, you know, that's one of my favorites.

• 34:55Mark Normand?

  That's gold. I'm a survivor, yeah, yeah.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly.

• 34:59Mark Normand?

  So good, man, I think the old, old seasons were, were much better.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  I I tend to.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  Not to shit on Larry. Right, exactly. I tend to, I tend to.

• 35:08Sam Morril?

  I love, I love so much, but I think my favorite episode ever is Corp Sniffing Dog.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Ah, classic. Those are all great, yeah. I mean, some of the idea, and that's the thing, there, as outrageous as the ideas that Seinfeld had at that time in that context, were nothing compared to the ideas that Curb had. The concepts of Curb were so outrageous, you know, and they were, 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. A hundred percent. His mother's buried in the wrong plot, or, you know, those, 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.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  And Larry sort of taught me, I mean, I was, again, twenty-two years old when I met him, and he sort of taught me that anything can be funny if you do, as you know, it's. I agree, I agree. If you can 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.

• 36:12Sam Morril?

  Sometimes I'll see.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  Because the audience wants to laugh.

• 36:14Sam Morril?

  Sometimes I'll 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 a hundred and two, but it's not anywhere near the strike zone. It's like trans bit.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, abortion, AIDS.

• 36:29Sam Morril?

  Yeah, 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.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  It's like early Nolan Ryan. He used to be hitting people in the stands.

• 36:38Sam Morril?

  But he figured it out, you know, I mean, so, yeah, I, I agree with you, I'm, 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.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 36:58Sam Morril?

  But, you know, man, it, it was tough. Late Night, Late Night Now is like.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Oh, it's even squeakier.

• 37:03Sam Morril?

  It's, I've, I've never, it's, I think I sent him one, he was like, we want to get you back on Fallon. I sent him, and he was like, none of these jokes work, and I was like, alright.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, my friend did it, they, he, his opening was.

• 37:13Mark Normand?

  Yeah, you ever have that friend you hate? And they're 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.

• 37:22Sam Morril?

  Well, the problem became that you as a comic are now representing the host.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:27Sam Morril?

  You know, so Jimmy's nice, so I have to be nice. I'm like, but that's not how I am.

• 37:31Mark Normand?

  I'm a different person than Jimmy.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  That's so true.

• 37:33Sam Morril?

  It just got weird.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Well, that's also, you're really kind of like tapping into how comedy itself has changed, really.

• 37:38Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  So that's a big, 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.

• 37:53Mark Normand?

  Certain segments, yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  And, uh, 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.

• 38:01Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  For comedy to reach that mass audience again.

• 38:04Mark Normand?

  Interesting.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  Which is to be very, very hard. I mean, you couldn't, Blazing Saddles, you know, Richard Pryor's concert movies. All those things that, that I grew up on.

• 38:12Mark Normand?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  Are, are, you know, they would not be really allowed, most likely today. They wouldn't be made in the first place, you know?

• 38:18Mark Normand?

  No chance.

• 38:19Sam Morril?

  We think there's a hunger for, like, I think a movie like Blazing Saddles, like, I think there's such a void right now, you know? I think people are dying for a movie like that, but...

• 38:27Mark 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 seventies who hated Blazing Saddles and thought it was gross and inappropriate and irreverent, but they didn't have Twitter.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  But even still, they, a lot of those people still thought it was funny. People who basically would not think, like, Bora was like that also.

• 38:48Mark Normand?

  Yes, yes.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  People thought it was funny who were not necessarily politically in the same place that we were, it didn't matter.

• 38:54Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  It transcended a lot of the kind of bullshit.

• 38:57Mark Normand?

  It's so splintered.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  And just gets to that part of you that makes you laugh.

• 39:01Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 39:01Speaker 02

  Like, it makes you cry or makes you scream and makes you laugh.

• 39:04Sam 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.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:12Sam Morril?

  I mean, that must have worked so well for you because you know how to do the clean stuff, but then you're, you're well equipped to handle the more offensive stuff.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:20Sam Morril?

  Because they always told us to write clean as a start, as a comic.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  But we were always attracted to, I mean, Richard Pryor and, you know, that kind of thing, so...

• 39:27Mark Normand?

  Yeah, the producers, this fucking Hitler, what is it?

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Right, right, exactly.

• 39:31Mark Normand?

  Springtime for Hitler.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Right, that would be a problem today.

• 39:33Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  But again, it's sort of, it was a musical, it was like... You know, he kept it going as a franchise for a long, long time.

• 39:40Mark Normand?

  And the Holocaust was what, 20, 18 years before that?

• 39:44Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 39:45Mark Normand?

  It's like so recent.

• 39:45Speaker 02

  It's actually very, it was very immediate at that point.

• 39:48Sam Morril?

  It's like doing a 9/11 musical now.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Right, exactly.

• 39:50Mark Normand?

  Yeah, yeah. It's crazy, 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."

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:59Mark Normand?

  That's what I'm going for. I'm trying to make fun of that horrible thing.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  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.

• 40:12Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  They'd still give up the laugh. And now people get, immediately they get defensive about it.

• 40:16Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  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 know?

• 40:25Sam Morril?

  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.

• 40:31Mark Normand?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:32Sam Morril?

  I think the audience that 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?"

• 40:43Mark Normand?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:43Sam Morril?

  Like, "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.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:53Sam Morril?

  Like, well, there's a point to everything he's doing there, you know?

• 40:56Speaker 02

  And they're liberally using the N-word in that, in those movies also, you know? So, I noticed that that's one of my favorite Richard Pryor albums that you don't have on the wall.

• 41:04Sam Morril?

  Yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  It was called "That N-word is crazy."

• 41:06Mark Normand?

  Crazy.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  But we can't say that word anymore. I wonder, can they even sell that record? I mean, can you, can you sell that record?

• 41:12Mark Normand?

  Well, I mean, Kanye's got some pretty crazy records out there.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  That's true, that's true.

• 41:15Mark Normand?

  Heil Hitler, yeah.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 41:17Sam Morril?

  Yeah, we used to have his record up too. We took it down.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  One of the great recent comedy albums. I worked with Kanye, I did a pilot with Kanye.

• 41:25Sam Morril?

  Wow, that's why he tried to do a curb, right?

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:28Mark Normand?

  Whoa, do tell.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  He said, the first thing he ever said to me-

• 41:31Sam Morril?

  It didn't go, that's why I hate Jews, because he is.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. He really did that. He, well, I also think about how different his life would have been if the show got picked up.

• 41:39Mark Normand?

  Was he the guy who shot the synagogue? No.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  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.

• 41:49Mark Normand?

  Whoa, that's crazy.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  He was always putting his foot in his mouth and apologizing to people and he found it hilarious.

• 41:55Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  And he was a very, very different, yeah, there it is.

• 41:59Sam Morril?

  Was his show funny?

• 42:00Speaker 02

  The show was pretty funny. JB Smooth was on it. Um, there was a, it was a great cast, actually. And was for HBO? Wyatt Sennec was on it.

• 42:08Mark Normand?

  Oh, I know Wyatt.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. 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.

• 42:22Mark Normand?

  Oh, I love it.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  And then the Make-A-Wish kid turns out the kid's not dying, you know, and it was, it was pretty funny. Could Kanye act at all? Kanye could be Kanye, you know, and that's all he needed to be. He was surrounded by very funny people.

• 42:36Mark 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, so it's all, it's all an act, I think, obviously, but yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Well, he may have mental issues. I mean, I'm not saying he doesn't. But it was, he, they obviously had not kicked in at this point. He was a very approachable person, you know?

• 42:55Mark Normand?

  Interesting.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was very cool. We had a great time together. I really enjoyed working with him.

• 42:59Mark Normand?

  Well, there's something amazing, not to bring it back to Larry, but he 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 had just on board.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  That's a key word, though, authentic. If, if you could be, if you could project sincerity and authenticity, it will transcend any kind of demographic group.

• 43:25Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  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 Kerb and love Borra. And everybody will come to me and say, my friend's just like Kramer.

• 43:39Mark Normand?

  Wow.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  You'll hear that like in Islam, like in Jordan, you know, places like that. And that, that says something about how it translates. You know, it really does kind of, uh, communicate to almost any person who's a human being, who has other human beings around them. You're gonna connect to those characters, you know?

• 43:57Mark Normand?

  Damn, what's the deal with burkas?

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Well, Jordan, we used to, we were doing Bruno in Jordan, and you would walk down the street in Amman, and there would be these, uh, street sellers, you know, they'd 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. It was always, it was every single person on the street always had that. You wrote two out of three.

• 44:29Mark Normand?

  Yeah, that's exactly, those are the things I bring on the road. That's crazy. Well, that's gotta be kinda flattering, for you.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  I was very flattered, actually. I bought the, I had a copy of Mein Kampf ready, 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.

• 44:46Mark Normand?

  I saw Borat, that's sorry, I saw Borat in the theater, and it was, it was pure mayhem, people jumping, falling out the chairs, popcorn flying, I mean, it was a real event.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what it was meant to be. I mean, again, we had like the arrogance to say, "Let's try to make the funniest movie ever," and see what happens. And also, I, I tend to think of it as, uh, like, uh, the, 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 it 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,

• 45:37Speaker 02

  you know, just with laughter, out of control. That was a really greatly satisfying feeling.

• 45:43Mark Normand?

  Yeah, that's incredible.

• 45:44Sam Morril?

  What makes me sad a little bit is like, I feel like you, that just doesn't happen.

• 45:47Mark Normand?

  I know.

• 45:48Sam Morril?

  Like, they don't, I, I mean, we're lucky enough that people come to see us on the road, and live comedy i- is, is doing well right now, but... You know, I miss that movie theater experience of seeing like Borat or The Hangover in the theater.

• 46:00Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Sam Morril?

  How hard people were laughing.

• 46:02Mark Normand?

  I know.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Well, that's why the stand-up, I think, is doing well because the country, they do need it.

• 46:06Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  People need to laugh and there are not these, the TV shows and the movies are not providing that kind of laughter. But stand-ups are more unfettered, more uncensored, and you're making a real, direct communication, you know, with the audience.

• 46:19Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Which I think really counts.

• 46:20Mark Normand?

  There's no committee. There's no notes.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 46:22Mark Normand?

  It's just one person.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly.

• 46:25Mark Normand?

  That is refreshing.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  I think so as well.

• 46:27Sam Morril?

  Did you guys, oh, sorry, Mike, 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?

• 46:32Mark Normand?

  I got one.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  I wrote down a bunch, actually.

• 46:35Sam Morril?

  I'm excited because I don't think I have anything.

• 46:37Mark Normand?

  I'll throw one out while you look.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Okay, please.

• 46:39Mark Normand?

  Uh.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Give me one second.

• 46:40Mark Normand?

  You ever have this one where you go, uh, you go, you're at the restaurant and you go, I'm thinking about getting the gnocchi. And they go, oh, I would get the, uh, the, the car- carbon or whatever.

• 46:53Sam Morril?

  The, the waiter says that?

• 46:54Mark Normand?

  Yeah, like he's like, the carbo- carbonara, 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 gnocchi. And he's like, tell you, the gnocchi's okay, but the carbonara is unbelievable. And I'm like, how do I get out of this one? Because I want the gnocchi. But he keeps pushing the carbonara and he's already told me that the gnocchi's mediocre, but the carbonara is the way to go.

• 47:13Sam Morril?

  No part of you is doubting your brain, because I doubt my brain, but well, maybe I'm an idiot.

• 47:17Mark Normand?

  Well, of course, I do that too, but I just craven the gnocchi.

• 47:20Sam Morril?

  Yeah.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  And if you get the gnocchi, and then you, and you love it, then what's this guy going to say at that point?

• 47:26Mark 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. Fuck you. I'm getting the gnocchi. I don't know. It just feels hard to, to, to turn it on him like that.

• 47:35Sam Morril?

  My fear is getting the gnocchi and it sucks.

• 47:38Mark Normand?

  Yeah, that's a possibility.

• 47:39Sam Morril?

  Fuck, he warned me.

• 47:40Mark Normand?

  That's a possibility, but I don't like the, 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. I'm not you.

• 47:50Sam Morril?

  It's weird, if you ask, it's weird to just unsolicited be like, you shouldn't get that.

• 47:55Mark Normand?

  Yeah, he could sense my, uh, insecurity about it. And I think he was trying to prey on that. And that's what was pissing me off.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then he's going to judge you afterwards also.

• 48:03Mark Normand?

  I know.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, you have the judgments.

• 48:04Sam Morril?

  Did he get it?

• 48:05Mark Normand?

  I got the nokey and it was, it was not great.

• 48:08Mark Normand?

  I could just tell he went back to the kitchen like, fuck, give the guy a nokey, like he was rolling his eyes. He was offended he spit in your food.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, right, exactly. You couldn't possibly have liked the nokey.

• 48:17Mark Normand?

  But that was a peeve.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Mine are much more lame, I think, actually.

• 48:19Sam Morril?

  I'm excited to hear them.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Uh, going slow in the fast lane.

• 48:22Mark Normand?

  The worst, the worst.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  I don't understand what the logic is behind that.

• 48:27Sam Morril?

  Also, the slow walkers.

• 48:28Mark Normand?

  Same, same.

• 48:30Sam Morril?

  The slow walkers.

• 48:30Mark Normand?

  How about the guy on the, on the airport moving walkway who's like all over the thing?

• 48:34Sam Morril?

  Oh my god.

• 48:35Mark Normand?

  Just get to the side.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, make a, make a choice.

• 48:37Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  It's not that hard.

• 48:39Mark Normand?

  Make a choice.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  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.

• 48:47Mark Normand?

  Oh, that's blatant.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  What, how angry is that person?

• 48:51Sam Morril?

  These are very LA peeves.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  These are LA, so, so far, they're all on the freeway.

• 48:55Mark Normand?

  Malibu fires, uh...

• 48:57Speaker 02

  I was texting these as I was driving.

• 48:59Sam Morril?

  He's like, news them? We're like, oh shit.

• 49:01Mark Normand?

  Ice raids?

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Here's another LA one, stopping at a yellow light when they had plenty of time to go through.

• 49:07Mark Normand?

  Ah, yeah.

• 49:08Speaker 02

  What is that? You know, you gotta, it's just turned yellow, why are you stopping now?

• 49:12Mark Normand?

  Live a little, you coward.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, go through, it's a short street, it's not a big boulevard.

• 49:15Sam Morril?

  This is why I don't drive, I'm all your peeves, right here.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Well, the person who doesn't make the left on the red, as it's like, as it's changing from yellow to red.

• 49:23Mark Normand?

  Oh, you gotta do that.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  They wait.

• 49:24Mark Normand?

  They wait.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  They wait.

• 49:25Mark Normand?

  Coward, live, damn it.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  There's also the people who don't pull over for the ambulance.

• 49:30Mark Normand?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:32Sam Morril?

  That happened yesterday.

• 49:33Speaker 02

  You guys are actually both guilty of that.

• 49:34Mark Normand?

  No, no, I saw that today, that's why I was thinking we had that fire truck go by and people weren't getting out of the way, so it was just honking like a madman.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, and there's also, I'm sorry.

• 49:41Sam Morril?

  I'm so like, desensitized to, I mean, like, New York ambulance sounds, you just become desensitized that anyone else is 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?

• 49:51Mark Normand?

  I got Terry Gross here.

• 49:52Sam Morril?

  Keep it down.

• 49:53Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  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.

• 50:00Mark Normand?

  Oh, I've done that, I've done that.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  They get, they get behind the ambulance and they speed up, yeah.

• 50:04Mark Normand?

  Yeah, my dad was an ambulance chaser.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  Oh, there you go, yeah. Um, having worked on sitcoms for years, one of the worst things that used to really annoy me was fake laughter. You know, when people, cause, cause the writers would know that if the, the joke didn't get a laugh, it would be cut, so they would all fake laugh to try to fool the network executives.

• 50:24Mark Normand?

  Interesting.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Can I add something to that?

• 50:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 50:27Speaker 03

  I've seen every episode of Seinfeld, maybe forty, fifty times each. I hear a really strong laugher in there.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  I'll tell you who it is.

• 50:35Speaker 03

  Is it Kramer? Is it Michael Richards? I always thought it was Michael Richards.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  No, it's not Mi- Michael Richards doesn't laugh. Oh. Whoa. He, I, he never laughs. I've never heard him laugh in my life, actually. It might have helped him at once then if he threw a laugh at him.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it would have, I believe. Softened it. It was Glenn Padnik, who was the head of Castle Rock. He had a kind of a...

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Wow. Yes.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  Wow. Yeah, squawking laugh.

• 50:58Speaker 03

  I almost thought he was doing that to spur on laughter to the audience, being like, "Laugh now!"

• 51:03Speaker 02

  You know, i- i- it seems like that, but that was actually, some people like Eddie Murphy, some people have weird laughs. And that was his laugh, you know? Pull up a Padnik, see if you can find one.

• 51:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 51:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. Good luck. You could hear it. It gets, it's very clear. That'll keep him busy for a few hours. People...

• 51:21Sam Morril?

  Hand him one of those little paddle ball things.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  The ball with the cup?

• 51:26Speaker 02

  I'm sure you guys have done a lot of Q and As, and there's always people at Q and As who want to ask a question just to hear themselves talk. Yes, yes. They don't really have a question, they just want to have a moment. Totally, totally. I saw that during the Larry Show.

• 51:39Sam Morril?

  Oh my god, everyone would try to make, they'd be like, "Hey, do this joke," and he's like, "Fuck you."

• 51:43Speaker 02

  I know.

• 51:44Sam Morril?

  It was funny to see him say like, "Fuck you" to people, and it would just kill, and you're like, "Oh man."

• 51:47Speaker 02

  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, he would throw the microphone down and walk off. Yeah. I've seen him spit at the audience, you know, like, like Johnny Rotten, yeah. I mean, I don't think it's, he's actually one of them spitting on anybody, but just like spit in anger, you know? Like, "Tuh." He walked off quite a bit, yeah. Damn. Spitting? Never done that one. People who don't realize you're in a hurry and monopolize your time. Yes.

• 52:15Sam Morril?

  I'll add to that one. When you're already like 10 feet down, they go, "Oh, one more thing." You're like, "Oh, we're so close."

• 52:20Speaker 02

  I know.

• 52:21Sam Morril?

  "We're so close to getting away."

• 52:22Speaker 02

  You were out and they pulled you back in. Pulled it back in. Um, people who lie about their plastic surgery. You know, it's like a lot of stars.

• 52:29Sam Morril?

  It's another LA one for sure.

• 52:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, right, right. No, you look great. Oh, really? Thank you, you know.

• 52:34Sam Morril?

  Oh, it's so emphic on that, too.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 52:37Mark Normand?

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• 55:46Speaker 02

  People who talk with food in their mouth, and this is something that I'm guilty of. I've tried, my wife's constantly trying, she's like, "Close your mouth." It's like, I'm trying, you know, I'm trying. I can't breathe, you know? But that is, I don't like it when I see people doing that.

• 56:01Mark Normand?

  No, no, the Lewis Black episode of Communities 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.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:11Mark Normand?

  Even Simon was like, "Dude, you're 50."

• 56:13Speaker 02

  He said something?

• 56:14Mark Normand?

  Yeah, he's like, "What are you doing? Watching you eat is really, really off-putting." Or he says something like that.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  People who went to Harvard and always mention every conversation.

• 56:22Mark Normand?

  Yes, that's a big one. That's a big one.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  And finally accusing someone of a pet peeve that you're actually guilty of. That's one of my biggest pet peeves.

• 56:30Mark Normand?

  Way to tie it all up, Claire.

• 56:32Speaker 02

  Thank you very much.

• 56:33Mark Normand?

  Well done. Boy, look who does the homework. This is why you're successful.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  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'm like, "I don't think I have any." And then I started working on it, you know?

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, literally had guns drawn on him and you felt pressure with this.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. But I'm glad I did it, though. I feel much better now.

• 56:55Mark 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?

• 57:02Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, that's right.

• 57:03Mark Normand?

  And Michael Richards?

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 57:05Mark Normand?

  Wow, that must have been a big get when you landed that gig.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  Friday, I was a bellhop. What? I was a bellhop before I was a TV writer. That was my last job. And I, 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.

• 57:31Sam Morril?

  Your credits got way better.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  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. Nice. I wrote porn novels, which was a big thing at that time. Never heard of Screw. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was, I don't think it's out anymore, unfortunately. It was pretty, pretty interesting. Nice. But I wrote, I wrote comedy stuff for that. And, um, and so I, I thought, well, I'll write some porn humor for she, for Larry Flynt stuff. And I called her up, cause I'd already been writing for Darrow and she, 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 them 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.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  And I hitchhiked to the interview and they liked my material. Hitchhiked? Yeah, I hitchhiked and I gave them handwritten material. Wow.

• 58:23Sam Morril?

  What was, what was like your best bit? Do you remember any of that stuff?

• 58:26Speaker 02

  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, um, look, I, 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. I like that. And I left, I hitchhiked back to my apartment on Cherokee and Hollywood Boulevard. And the phone was ringing and 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.

• 59:05Mark Normand?

  Ah, that's great.

• 59:07Speaker 02

  And so I went from being like literally a bellhop to being a TV writer.

• 59:11Mark Normand?

  Now, when you hitchhiked, did you look like the Larry we know with the beard and the glasses?

• 59:15Speaker 02

  I was had just been a bellhop, so I was actually clean shaven.

• 59:19Mark Normand?

  Cause I can see if people go on, we're not picking up.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  I had to go out and get a shirt, though. I didn't have a, I had like all in my white, my black and whites. That's all I had from being like a bellhop, you know?

• 59:28Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  I was also a parking valet, and those are the kind of jobs, that's what I was gonna do for my life. I didn't see any way out, you know? And then this came along and I got very lucky.

• 59:37Mark Normand?

  For a Brooklyn guy, good amount of driving.

• 59:39Speaker 02

  A lot of driving, yeah. A lot of accidents that people didn't know about also. Check, check the other side of your car when you valet.

• 59:46Mark Normand?

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Cause it's the passenger side where the dents take place.

• 59:49Sam Morril?

  I'm a New York guy, I cannot really drive at all.

• 59:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:53Sam Morril?

  I've really got it, but, uh, so you go from Fridays to, to Seinfeld?

• 59:58Speaker 02

  No, I, I go for about seven years. After Fridays, I thought, oh, this is it, I'm in. You know, I'm in show business, you know, and then I didn't get a job for seven years.

• 1:00:06Sam Morril?

  Wow.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  And just kind of like bummed around and, you know, worked here and there. I wrote for Richard Belzer. I wrote for David Steinberg.

• 1:00:14Sam Morril?

  What was, uh, Belzer like?

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Belzer was great. He was a, um, really cool person, except, you know, because he, uh, 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.

• 1:00:32Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  And he was really good at that, but for a long time, he, um, so he didn't have that kind of level to start. I'm like Robin Williams, all these guys used to come and watch him. He was, and like Larry was like that also.

• 1:00:43Mark Normand?

  Wow.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  They were like cult comedians, you know?

• 1:00:45Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  So, uh, but he was very cool to me and very warm to me and very mentorish to me. So, uh, he had an interesting life himself. Um, so he was great. So I did stuff like that. I wrote for people like Steinberg also. I used to write Steinberg's, uh, Johnny Carson appearances. So I got to meet Johnny Carson and all that kind of stuff.

• 1:01:03Sam Morril?

  What was Carson like to you?

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  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, he looked so slight on TV.

• 1:01:14Mark Normand?

  Yeah, he does.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  But he was really kind of like, uh, he would like kick your ass. You know, he was like that, actually like that.

• 1:01:20Mark Normand?

  He's a Midwest guy.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Midwest guy, very, very straight, very erect person, you know?

• 1:01:25Mark Normand?

  Interesting.

• 1:01:27Speaker 02

  But then I got a job, uh, finally on Arsenio. And that's where I wrote jokes for Arsenio for a year. And, 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 was before the internet that, um, and I used to write pretty-

• 1:01:46Mark Normand?

  Luckily, it's all gotten much better.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  Right, right, of course, yeah. The internet's really made that okay.

• 1:01:51Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:52Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:01:59Mark Normand?

  Damn.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  And then I finally got fired. And then after that, I got a chance to work on In Living Color.

• 1:02:04Mark Normand?

  Ooh.

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  Went to meet Keaton Ivory Wayans and he stood me up.

• 1:02:07Mark Normand?

  Ouch.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  And it was an accident, it's 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 this 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.

• 1:02:31Mark Normand?

  That's also such a Larry David thing to do, to be like, fuck you. And then it somehow worked out though?

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm, again, very lucky, totally lucky. A lot of synchronicity.

• 1:02:41Mark Normand?

  What, what were the feelings of, of season one of Seinfeld? I mean, did you just think this is not gonna make it?

• 1:02:46Speaker 02

  I think Larry really begged for it not to, not to work, you know? Cause I don't think he wanted to get involved in something like that. Uh, and what, 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 do something we think is funny. And in a way, that was the key to the success of the show.

• 1:03:10Mark Normand?

  I love that. But you also, you had to have, what was it, Ludnick? What was that guy's name?

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, Glenn, well, there was Glenn Padnik and Rick Ludwin.

• 1:03:16Mark Normand?

  Ludwin, sorry.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  You put those together.

• 1:03:18Mark Normand?

  I put them together.

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:19Mark Normand?

  He-

• 1:03:19Speaker 02

  They were like one person.

• 1:03:20Mark Normand?

  But he let you breathe a little. He let the show evolve and find itself.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  Well, the show failed, was failing in the ratings. We were losing to Jake and the Fat Man and, you know, all these really lame shows. And but in a way-

• 1:03:32Mark Normand?

  I don't even, can you, I don't even know what that is.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, you should check it out sometime. It's basically a great premise. It's about a fat cop.

• 1:03:38Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  That's the premise, you know?

• 1:03:40Mark Normand?

  Look at the fat man.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:42Mark Normand?

  That was Jake.

• 1:03:42Speaker 02

  He was the fat man, yeah.

• 1:03:43Mark Normand?

  No, I'm just kidding. Um, yeah.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  So there's, there's Jake on top. Joe Penny, his name was.

• 1:03:50Mark Normand?

  Man, this show would not, it'd be a Jake and the Body Positivity Man.

• 1:03:57Speaker 02

  Jake and the guy who's trying to lose the way.

• 1:03:59Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:04:24Mark Normand?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:25Speaker 02

  And everybody went, no, no, wait, wait. And they talked him into doing it and the show immediately exploded.

• 1:04:30Sam Morril?

  Did he not realize they're trying to help? Like it's like a, it's a good lead in, right?

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  He's a very stubborn guy.

• 1:04:34Sam Morril?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Sam Morril?

  Damn.

• 1:04:36Mark Normand?

  I guess so.

• 1:04:36Sam Morril?

  So that, what season was that when they moved it behind?

• 1:04:39Speaker 02

  That was, I think in this, see again, I get the season, 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.

• 1:04:49Mark Normand?

  Wow.

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  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 anymore.

• 1:04:58Mark Normand?

  Yeah. What a run. I mean, you were part of, I would say the best sitcom of all time.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  Well, the fact that it still has.

• 1:05:05Sam Morril?

  You could say two of them.

• 1:05:05Mark Normand?

  Yeah, true.

• 1:05:07Speaker 02

  The fact that it still has resonance, that's the shocking part, that people still treat it as if it's a current show.

• 1:05:13Mark Normand?

  Yes, right.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  And people quote the lines. It's like when I was young, The Godfather was like that.

• 1:05:18Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  Everybody used to quote The Godfather all the time, you know? Keep your friends close, keep your enemies close, whatever that was.

• 1:05:24Mark Normand?

  You can't refuse.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. All that stuff was, 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.

• 1:05:33Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:33Sam Morril?

  It's incredible.

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  Why? You know, it's just an amazing phenomenon, you know?

• 1:05:36Mark Normand?

  My wife is younger than me. She's, she's 11. But she, she watches Seinfeld every day.

• 1:05:42Speaker 02

  It's very courageous of you to admit that.

• 1:05:44Mark Normand?

  Thank you. Well, you know, I'm Islamic. But she, she watches it every day to go like to start getting ready for bed. And it's just in the house, bam, bam, bam, bam. And it's just part of, and I think that's part of the, the big part of the country.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:06:05Mark Normand?

  Yes, yes. There's no cell phones in it, there's no Teslas or EVs or whatever, but it still resonates.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, technology plays a very important role in comedy, I think, though.

• 1:06:14Mark Normand?

  I agree.

• 1:06:15Speaker 02

  Like, there was no cell phones at that time. How different the show would be with cell phones, you know.

• 1:06:20Mark Normand?

  It would be a whole new bag of mishaps with cell phones.

• 1:06:23Sam Morril?

  What, um, when you left in season five, what was the reason for leaving and did they kind of try to keep you there?

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  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 happen. 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. 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.

• 1:07:13Speaker 02

  You know, I had 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 You, 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.

• 1:07:36Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  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 can afford to go do something else now.

• 1:07:53Mark Normand?

  Here, here. Good answer.

• 1:07:54Sam Morril?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 1:07:55Speaker 03

  I read a think piece about Seinfeld, the show, and it said that the use of black people, they were used in positions of power. Was that intentional?

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  I don't, 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, um, we, 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 Mari- I don't know, do you guys know Mario Joyner? Yeah, sure. 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.

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  And George says, "Well, I've never seen a black person order a salad before." And that upset everybody also. So, um, I, 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.

• 1:09:08Sam Morril?

  Is it true that Elaine came in, or sorry, Julie Louis-Dreyfus came in and, uh, said she didn't like her plots in the, in the beginning?

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  She, I was in the room when this happened and she was, um, 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 and she, 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. Yeah, yeah. And we're like, "Okay, we'll take care of it." And, but he, but she was right. She was completely right. And so we did two things. One thing was, we had a whiteboard on the board, on the wall.

• 1:10:00Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:10:10Mark Normand?

  Oh.

• 1:10:10Sam Morril?

  This time Elaine's gonna ask a black guy why he's ordering a sandwich.

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  That's right, exactly, 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.

• 1:10:26Mark Normand?

  Yes, I heard this.

• 1:10:27Speaker 02

  There were so many George stories, you know, like, cause Larry had a million stories.

• 1:10:31Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  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 gotta 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.

• 1:10:55Mark Normand?

  Whoa.

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:11:06Mark Normand?

  I love it. Now she's maybe the greatest comedy, uh, character of all time, just with Veep and then this.

• 1:11:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And her other show. No, she was incredibly talented, and finally that got tapped into.

• 1:11:18Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  And now she's like the first lady of comedy now.

• 1:11:21Mark Normand?

  I agree.

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  Really, she's, uh, she's really kind of evolved into that.

• 1:11:24Sam Morril?

  But that character really, like, how many other women in comedy got that type of opportunity, especially like in the eighties?

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:11:33Mark Normand?

  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 great.

• 1:11:46Speaker 02

  She was willing to be undignified, she was willing, like, even the women that were, like, Mary Tyler Moore, or those kind.

• 1:11:51Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  You know, there were always, there was a certain dignity to those parts.

• 1:11:54Mark Normand?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:11:55Speaker 02

  But she was willing to, like, let it all hang out.

• 1:11:57Mark Normand?

  Right.

• 1:11:58Speaker 02

  And that, that really tapped into a, a need, that again, the audience, we didn't know the audience needed that, but the audience needed that kind of, that kind of character to reach that catharsis for them, you know?

• 1:12:09Mark Normand?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  And it really responded to it, and that really allowed her, it also made it much easier to write for her at that point.

• 1:12:15Mark Normand?

  Sure.

• 1:12:16Speaker 02

  So that made a big difference.

• 1:12:17Mark Normand?

  She's a dream. We just had you to hopefully get to her.

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I mean, good luck.

• 1:12:22Mark Normand?

  She's a, yeah, she's a tough get. But I do, I know you gotta go in, in a minute. But I do feel, don't you find it strange how people get mad when you, if you say, uh, you couldn't make a lot of these episodes today? Like, uh, Seinfeld has come out publicly and been like, "A lot of these episodes, we couldn't have done that."

• 1:12:38Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:12:39Mark Normand?

  And 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? That, that statement.

• 1:12:49Speaker 02

  I, you know, I, I tell you the truth, I don't worry about it. Comedy has its time and like, so, uh, we don't need to make Seinfeld today because that Seinfeld-

• 1:12:58Mark Normand?

  Well, sure.

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  Is still relevant today, you know? And that's what the phenomenon is to me. I, I don't really think about like the, the timeframe for comedy or the context for comedy. If something's funny, in my opinion, if I think it's funny, I'm gonna assume, and I think you guys are the same, you're gonna assume somebody else is gonna find it funny, you know?

• 1:13:17Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:17Speaker 02

  Or you're gonna hope-

• 1:13:18Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Speaker 02

  That someone's gonna find it funny.

• 1:13:20Sam Morril?

  But you find, I mean, that's the funny thing about stand-up is like, I had all these ideas last night, I just threw it to the wall and like, "Oh, I thought that was really funny, nothing." But I like that you know immediately.

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:13:29Sam Morril?

  But, but to go off what you're saying is, I mean, yeah, I mean, Seinfeld had its place and, 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?

• 1:13:44Mark Normand?

  Are they?

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  They're doing another Naked Gun.

• 1:13:46Sam Morril?

  That's what I mean.

• 1:13:47Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 1:13:48Sam Morril?

  These are not, these are not fresh ideas. Like, I feel like they want not fresh ideas. They want, or like-

• 1:13:53Mark Normand?

  It's safe.

• 1:13:54Sam Morril?

  They're so safe, but it's like, but all the things that we love were original.

• 1:13:57Mark Normand?

  Were original at one point.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  I totally agree with that. Well, how do you guys feel about, uh, the rehearsal?

• 1:14:02Mark Normand?

  I love it.

• 1:14:03Sam Morril?

  I gotta watch it. I, I-

• 1:14:04Mark Normand?

  I think it's amazing.

• 1:14:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the, the second season with the AVI, I didn't see the first season.

• 1:14:09Mark Normand?

  Masterpiece.

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that, you, it just taps into what you're talking about. It's original.

• 1:14:13Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:14Sam Morril?

  I love him, I love Nathan for you.

• 1:14:15Speaker 02

  There's nothing like it, you know, and that I do appreciate.

• 1:14:17Mark Normand?

  HBO, that's off HBO.

• 1:14:19Sam Morril?

  By the way, Quick Rec, I started the Segura Rec, uh, 000.

• 1:14:23Mark Normand?

  Oh.

• 1:14:23Sam Morril?

  Excellent.

• 1:14:23Mark Normand?

  Oh, really?

• 1:14:24Sam Morril?

  Yeah, on Amazon.

• 1:14:25Mark Normand?

  Okay.

• 1:14:25Sam Morril?

  Awesome, awesome cartel show. But yeah, I'm, that rehearsal's next, that's for sure.

• 1:14:29Mark Normand?

  I actually watched the Bin Laden doc off of his rec and that was great. Unreal. They have- footage of Killing Ben Laden, it's worth watching.

• 1:14:36Speaker 02

  Right, right, that was funny.

• 1:14:41Sam Morril?

  So what is there any, what do you want to do next? Like, what's the next?

• 1:14:45Mark Normand?

  We got the book.

• 1:14:45Sam Morril?

  Yeah, we got the book.

• 1:14:46Mark Normand?

  Get the book.

• 1:14:46Sam Morril?

  Comedy Samurai, wherever you get books.

• 1:14:48Speaker 02

  I'm just looking, you know, I'm, I'm, 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, I'm not going to talk about. Cause 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 um, I'm just looking for stuff that's cool, you know, either, either self generating. Or something that I'm 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.

• 1:15:26Mark Normand?

  Definitely.

• 1:15:26Speaker 02

  And I just do those things and that's my life, you know, and I haven't had like a plan of any kind.

• 1:15:33Mark Normand?

  That's cool.

• 1:15:33Speaker 02

  I've just been sort of like a pinball, just banging against the walls, you know.

• 1:15:36Mark Normand?

  Kung fu, you're just kind of going through life.

• 1:15:38Speaker 02

  I'm comedy Samurai.

• 1:15:39Mark 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.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  Well, Rick Rubin.

• 1:15:48Sam Morril?

  You're saying because of the beard?

• 1:15:48Mark Normand?

  No, no, but you've, you've, you've worked with these amazing comedic, just like they work with Tom, he worked Tom Petty and the Beastie Boys and uh,

• 1:15:56Speaker 02

  Yes, you're right.

• 1:15:57Mark Normand?

  Jay-Z and all these guys.

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  Rick Rubin and I were very tight at one time. Also, we're very good friends, actually.

• 1:16:02Sam Morril?

  Don't tell me there's another guy to fall in out with.

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 1:16:04Sam Morril?

  Did you really?

• 1:16:05Mark Normand?

  What is it you, Larry?

• 1:16:06Speaker 02

  That's for part two. It is me.

• 1:16:08Mark Normand?

  Okay.

• 1:16:08Speaker 02

  It is me, absolutely.

• 1:16:10Sam Morril?

  He's gonna leave this pod and be like, those guys suck.

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  When you read the book, you'll see what an asshole I am.

• 1:16:15Mark Normand?

  Okay.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  I promise.

• 1:16:17Sam Morril?

  We hope you and Larry make up, because that's such a, that's such a unique friendship.

• 1:16:22Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:16:28Sam Morril?

  So call him up.

• 1:16:29Speaker 02

  You know, you, well, maybe I will. Maybe at some point I will. I, you know, I don't hate him. I love him, actually. And uh, like I said, he made me a writer, he made me a director.

• 1:16:38Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:39Speaker 02

  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 Dave and I always will.

• 1:16:53Mark Normand?

  It's a shit part of this business. It's it's a business. Like you and Larry, you're artists, you're writers, you're creators. But the business part makes people have to get fired and disconnect.

• 1:17:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:02Mark Normand?

  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 gotta keep him in. So we're trying to keep him in, but it's a whole thing because it's business now.

• 1:17:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, and business has a lack of ethics.

• 1:17:14Mark Normand?

  Yes.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  And artists, artists have ethics.

• 1:17:17Mark Normand?

  Isn't that weird?

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:18Mark Normand?

  Should be the other way around.

• 1:17:19Speaker 02

  It should be.

• 1:17:20Sam Morril?

  I think your friendships in this, I mean, that's literally why we started this pod. It's like, you know, Mark and I were open micers together. We've been friends forever and, uh, you know, we, after reading your interview in 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.

• 1:17:32Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:17:33Sam 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.

• 1:17:39Speaker 02

  And been friends for 40 years.

• 1:17:41Mark Normand?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  Long, long fucking time.

• 1:17:43Mark Normand?

  So this is a blip. This is a hiccup in a long friendship.

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly.

• 1:17:46Sam 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.

• 1:17:53Mark Normand?

  You'll figure it out, 100%, 100%.

• 1:17:54Speaker 02

  Well, like I said, I don't think there's any hostility, really.

• 1:17:57Mark Normand?

  No.

• 1:17:57Speaker 02

  It's just like the way, you know, life, you know, I'm sure you guys have friends that you've drifted apart.

• 1:18:01Sam Morril?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Speaker 02

  For all kinds of reasons. Sometimes people die, but it's not always that. It's sometimes you just drift apart for one reason or another. Somebody marries somebody you don't like, or you know, all kinds, another pet peeve thing, maybe. But shit happens, you know, and that's really true. And so that's sort of the situation here, you know? And so by the same token, things could, as they unravel, they could re-ravel.

• 1:18:23Mark Normand?

  Definitely re-raveling.

• 1:18:24Speaker 02

  So, yeah.

• 1:18:25Mark Normand?

  What'd you say?

• 1:18:25Speaker 03

  Oh, I was gonna say that Sam had a girlfriend that disliked Mark for a while.

• 1:18:31Sam Morril?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:18:31Speaker 03

  And I was like, Mark, you afraid this is gonna drive a wedge between you two? He's like, I'll be around when she's gone.

• 1:18:37Mark Normand?

  I'm not going anywhere. I'm here.

• 1:18:39Speaker 02

  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, oh, we hated her. And then he got back together with her again, you know, and so and wound up marrying her, actually.

• 1:18:58Mark Normand?

  The environmental chick?

• 1:18:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:18:59Mark Normand?

  Oh, I could tell she was a kuz.

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  He wound up got divorced anyway at some point, but that's a, that's a big, universal problem.

• 1:19:06Sam Morril?

  Now you get to be like, I was right.

• 1:19:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 1:19:08Mark Normand?

  But she went all the way to the bank.

• 1:19:11Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:19:11Mark Normand?

  She got that, that Seinfeld money.

• 1:19:13Speaker 02

  That's right, exactly.

• 1:19:14Sam Morril?

  The book is comedy samurai, Larry Charles. I'm definitely gonna check it out. Uh, awesome to talk to you, awesome to meet you.

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  Oh, man, it was great to meet you. Great to meet you guys. Thank you so much.

• 1:19:23Mark Normand?

  You've shaped my whole comedy influence.

• 1:19:25Sam Morril?

  We'll do it when he leaves, because we, we got, he's got an out, but all right.

• 1:19:28Mark Normand?

  Thank you, Larry. You're the man. Boy, it's an honor.

• 1:19:31Speaker 02

  Thank you, guys. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Thanks, man.

• 1:19:33Mark Normand?

  Good luck with the, with the bris.

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Sam Morril?

  August 7th, I'll be at the Wilbur in Boston. August 24th through 20, uh, 22nd through 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, uh, 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 like Barcelona, I believe Lisbon, Paris, Amsterdam.

• 1:20:10Mark Normand?

  Holy shit.

• 1:20:11Sam Morril?

  London, Dublin, Manchester, and, uh, Berlin and Milan. So I'll be all over, uh, so that's why we're back loading pods here, but all over Europe, uh, tickets on my site. Then we got Salt Lake City, uh, Reno, uh, at the Atlantis. And then I will be at Carnegie Hall in New York City, December 4th, so please buy tickets. I can't wait.

• 1:20:33Mark Normand?

  No, uh, no Iran, no Tehran?

• 1:20:35Sam Morril?

  I'm working on it.

• 1:20:35Mark Normand?

  All right, all right. Bunker Buster. Hey, I'm at the Cape Cod Melody Tent. It's an honor to play there. It's like a legendary spot in Hyannis. Then we got Foxwoods, Connecticut, Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, 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 a little fun in the sun. Calgary, Vegas at the Palazzo Theater at the Venetian. And Dallas, we got a bunch at 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.

• 1:21:21Mark Normand?

  And then we're off to Europe for a little vacay. Shows, bullshit, Oslo, Helsinki, Dublin. And 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.

• 1:21:37Sam Morril?

  You don't give yourself a fucking moment.

• 1:21:39Mark Normand?

  No, no.

• 1:21:40Sam Morril?

  Talk about highs and then lows.

• 1:21:41Mark Normand?

  Yeah, yeah. Athens to Timonium. Washington DC at the Lincoln. Love that room. And you know, marknormancomedy.com. We're on Punch Up. Bodega Cat, you cum guzzling Nazis. Get yourself a drink, live it up, and have a fun summer.

• 1:21:56Sam Morril?

  Love you guys.

• 1:21:58Mark Normand?

  Comedy.

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