Warren Littlefield

Larry David.

Here are the episodes that NBC never aired. So they made them for their friends. And the only note we ever gave them was add a girl. We didn't have Julia Louis-Dreyfus. So they listened. And you know what? We got out of their way.

No, they want big, big funny. And let me tell you, Jerry and Larry had in their heads where they wanted to go. They said, we don't hear these voices on TV. We're going to bring our voices to TV. Now, when they did the Chinese restaurant, the only thing that happens is that cast stands there and waits for a table in a Chinese restaurant. The parking garage...

They've lost their car and they wander in that garage. Right. That episode. It scares the shit out of us. Right. I'm sitting there going, story. I think we need a story. Right. And yet, as much as it scares us, we go, you know what?

We've given you the keys, so you drive the car. This is up to you. The audience will either embrace it or they will reject it, but it's your call. And ultimately, ironically, with that show, they started to get very, very addicted to story. They fell in love with twists and turns and story that you never expected to interact and collide. They did more and more of that.

They changed the form of television comedy from what was classically a two-act, seven-scene structure. The next thing we know, they're doing 14, 21, 25 scenes, and they just blow the whole form up. I think the reason they did that is because we let them. We didn't know that we should say to them –

Get the fuck out of here. We're going to shut you down. They were never on schedule. Table read was supposed to be on a Monday. Maybe by Friday they got around to having the table read. Any other show would be shut down today. It would be like they're out of control. They don't know what they're doing. We need to impose other people. I think our genius if we had it was we got out of the way.

I love that. Speaking of getting out of the way, let's do some news, man. I have one question, though. Did you personally believe in Seinfeld, though? What was your attitude at the time? He had four whole episodes. He wanted to give them three and a half. I loved it. It made me laugh. There was a great fear that it was too Jewish.

The head of research did a document. I said, you've got to go to Nielsen. You've got to do a special run as fast as we can, all the markets across the country. And I want to look at fall off in cities that are lots of Jews versus not a lot of Jews. Famous memo he writes is, it's not about the Jews.

It didn't matter. America laughed. It's exactly what you said, Adam. They laughed. That's all they cared about.

Kiitos. Mä rakastan Boba Allibanaa. Mä olen suuri fani hänelle, hän on todella taitoinen ja taitoinen. Ja Bob tietenkin soitti minua Seinfeldissä. Se oli se. Ja audioversioin Top of the Rockissa, kun he sanoivat, että haluamme hankkia joitain aktoreita ja he soittavat erilaisia... Mä sanoin, että välttämättä, sä sanoit, että hankkit aktoreita, jotka soittavat Jerryn Seinfeldin. Ja...

ja cast of Will and Grace and all the actors and friends. How's that going to work? And they go, well, what would you do? And I go, well, why don't you just call Bob Balaban and have him read the book? And they were like, ooh. So the audio book is Bob Balaban. Write that down, Mike, for the next audio book. And he played Phoebe's dad on Friends, I think. Wow, we? Is that him? I think so.

Jos olen väärin, niin se on yllättävää. En muista sitä. Mutta luuletko, että olet kuvattu hyvin elokuvassa? Ne voivat ottaa paljon ilmaisuutta. Pidän Bobista. Hän ei ole niin iso kuin minä. Hän ei ole harjassa.

He doesn't drive the Porsche Panamera. And he was a little bit wimpy. I stood up and fired Helen Kushnik. I threw her ass off of the Tonight Show. And I said to Bob, you're brilliant. That was Leno's manager? Yeah. Right, who everyone hated. Jay Leno's.

Look, Jay fought for an opportunity. And when we were faced with, I thought, an impossible negotiation with David Letterman, the goal, of course, is how do you keep both? But CBS says to Jay Leno and to David Letterman, one of you is not going to get The Tonight Show. We'll take whoever loses. Right.

Joten en voinut pysyä toisistaan. Ja silloin, kun on epäonnistunut ratkaisu, minun tehtäväni on saada vaihtoehtoja. Minun tehtäväni on, että kaikissa oikeissaan, David Letterman oli enemmän kokemusta. Hän oli häneltä ja hän oli valmis ottelemaan. Mutta kertaukset olivat niin epäonnistuneita ja niin omistavia, että sanoin... Miksi kertaukset olivat niin epäonnistuneita?

He ajattelivat, että heillä oli yläpäätä. He tarkoittavat Dave's Camp? Kyllä. Dave's Camp ja Michael Ovitz olivat tekemässä seurauksia. Minun työni oli varmistaa, että meillä olisi vaihtoehtoja. Minä olin sopiva.

Ja sen jälkeen, kun se oli osa late shiftin elokuvaa, olin katsomassa kaikkia ja sanoin, että meillä on valinta. Meillä on J. Leno, joka ei ole valmis.

Mutta kerron sinulle yksi asiaa, hän ei nukkuu, kunnes hän on onnistunut. Jos sinä anot tämän ihmisen unelman, hän on sinun ystäväsi. Meidän ei tarvitse antaa omaa järjestelmäämme. Ja se on se, johon minä olisin laittanut kohti kaikkea, mitä meillä on edessä. Ja tiedätkö mitä, me tuli muutama miljoonan dollarin edessä. Ja...

And ultimately it was a very, very successful move for NBC. Scary as hell. I thought my tombstone would say the man who killed late night on NBC for a while. But we recovered. We dominated for the next 17 years. But Letterman also did great. CBS got in the game. And they did fine. And of course Comedy Central and all these other...