From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Who are on the show . I could be a character. You . Based the character on me. So on the show there is a character named George Costanza . Something wrong with that . I am quite a character. Who else is on the show . Elaine could be a character. Kramer, now he is a character. Everybody i know is a character on the show . Thats right. And it is about nothing . Absolutely nothing. So youre saying i go to nbc and tell them i have a idea have an idea for a show about nothing. We go. We, since when are you a writer . Rider . Were talking about a sitcom. Do you want to go with me to nbc . I think we have something. What do we have . An idea. What idea . An idea for the show. Its about nothing. Everyone is doing something. We will do nothing. We go to nbc until them with an idea for a show about nothing. They say what is is about . I say nothing. I think you may have something here. What can you say about Jerry Seinfeld . That he has not already been talked about . He is a standup comedian that skewers modern life and modern problems with the dead on accuracy of a swiss watch. He comes to us each week and the hit nbc series that examines his life and work. The Seinfeld Television show reveals seinfeld the comedian. He stumbles through friendships and bad career moves and love affairs and the annoying feeling adulthood itself is somewhat overrated. You like this so far . A superb ensemble cast. Why is the show so successful do you think . I think it is handmade. A sitcom that is not processed through a large studio system. It is a few people working on this and are doing what we think is funny, and they cast is amazing. An Amazing Group of people. Each one of the people could easily hold down their own show. What is the glue of the show . The egos are in check frankly. We are all happy to be doing good work and we all have a lot of respect for each other. The glue is larry david and myself working on every single line, every single week of every show. It is not delegated, and no one interferes. Do women know about shrinkage . You mean like laundry . No, like when a man does swimming, afterwards . It shrinks . [laughter] like a frightened turtle. The creation of seinfeld . How did it happen . Did larry go to you or did you go to larry . I did not go to him as much as i turned to him in the bar and said i had a meeting the other day with nbc, they are interested in me doing some kind of show. He said what kind of show . I said i dont know. I have no ideas. I never have any ideas. I dont know how i do these. Did you actually say that . I do the standard and they like me. An hour goes by, he says you want to get something to eat . I said yeah. We go across the street to the korean deli. We Wander Around. They have all kinds of stuff. We go to the cash register. This weird stuff. No labels, just fig newtons wrapped up with no identification. You go i will take a shot at that. We start making fun of the products. He said this is what the show should be. I go, what . Just two comedians talking because it is what they do. They Wander Around during the day with nothing to do and make fun of everything they say. We should do a show with two comedians walking down the street making fun of everything. That was the genesis. Was he going to be one of the comedians . No. He would always be the creator and writer. David would be him . I mean george would be him . No, george was originally a comedian in the beginning. Without if george is a comedian, then you have to see his act. Lets just make him a regular guy. He is not larry david. What we did, we came up with a story idea. Which character could do this idea. A lot of time larrys ideas fit george well. We never try to make him the alter ego. Some say this was the perfect marriage, you and larry david. A magical relationship. It was. Different sensibilities . But not different comedic sensibilities. Different kinds of guys. It was one of those perfect partnerships. He saw a lot of big picture stories. He knew what would be a great story for the show. He created tons of stories, and i had a great sense of mechanics of comedy and detail of lines, and we always give any idea if any idea could pass through both of our filters, it would work. If i thought it was funny and he thought it was funny, it was almost always funny. What if he thought it was funny and you did not . You didnt go with it . It would depend. In a partnership you give and take. We had a great filtering system. Thats what a sitcom is. You sit in an office and riders writers come in all day and pitch you stories. If you are there by yourself, one persons instinct is really not good enough to turn out that amount of material. The test was you would never put anything on that was not funny . As best you can. Comedy is like hitting a baseball. Youre just trying to improve your average. Nobody hits 1000. What do they hit, 300 . A good hitter can have 500. What did you hit on the show . The tv show . 700 . Maybe. Most of them good. Very few clinkers. There are very few people that say this is the best ever. I love those people. Where are those people . Are any here . Do you believe those people . Do you believe it . No, i dont think things like that. You dont ever want to see it in print, this is the greatest ever. No, that is absurd. Tommy one that is better. For me, the honeymooners makes me laugh. Does it really . I am sitting here watching you laugh out loud. Lets see if it is funny in 50 years, like the honeymooners. Tell me how you and larry are different in terms of writing . Is he more absurd or are you more absurd . I think we take different positions. Here is where we are the same, we both love to kill it. We will work any amount of hours. Our desire to avoid humiliation is so great in both of us. We so desperately did not want to be embarrassed by each episode coming out this week. As the show became more popular, the danger of that became greater and greater. We said oh my god, this is getting popular and now we have to maintain this ridiculous standard. So it became more and more terrorizing. But he has tremendous energy, tremendous comedic fertility. Tons of ideas. There are people in this world that funny things happen to. And he is one of them . He is one of them. Are you one of them . I am not. I am the kind of person when something funny happens to you, i know just how to tell it. Did you study comic . That is what i do. Formally . I dont mean you go to school. How to get a phd in comedy . But in a sense, you look at it from an analytical eye and say why did that work and what do i have to do and where is my timing and where do i need to take it . So a young comedian tells you, what do i need to do to be a comedian, what do you tell him . Just work. There is nothing about logic and the absurd and you have to figure out a precise way to prove something that is unprovable . To me, one thing a good comedian can do is take an absurd premise and prove it with rigorous logic. That sounds very logical. You Say Something completely fatuous to do learn that somewhere . I looked at a lot of good jokes and realize they have that in common. As a kid, i would write down jokes and would try to figure out why they were funny. I never get tired of why is that funny . I never get tired of talking about it or analyzing it. Im very scientific about that. To end you decide seinfeld, larry have left two years earlier. How was it different when he left . It was very different. I did not know if i could continue the show. I was scared about it. But i did not feel the timing was right for the show to end. I felt audience was not ready and i wasnt ready, so i just took over the script writing. Worked twice as hard. I would work, i would rotate with other writers. I would take three guys and they would be larry. We cannot imagine how hard it was for you to do that. It was fun. I was having fun, charlie. , ceo of general electric, told me a story. I think you wrote about this. He wanted you to continue for another season, and is a great fanfare about how much he offered few per episode, Something Like 5 million. I think you told me a story where he went to you and said you have to do this, we want you to do this and you said, i just cannot imagine myself on Christmas Eve writing. That is were i have been to many times. He called me as i was making the decision at some fabulous place. Playing golf or something. And it was a sunday, and i am in the office working. I said what are you doing right now, jack . He said i am at, you know, aspen. I said, you know where i am . I am in my office working. The work was never an issue with me. It was a lot of love and fun. My real reason for ending the show was i just felt the stage instinct of knowing when to say good night and have the audience go, oh, i wish there was just a little more and they leave the theater and say that was great but if you go 10 minutes too long, it is amazing how it depresses that good feeling. Even though we are talking about years, i could just feel that moment. If we leave now, the audience, there is the thing that makes audiences jump up. Thats what it is. Surprise them. A perfect instinct. I hope they are right. They are clearly right. Someone said it will serve him the rest of his life. He made the right choice. Johnny carson made the right choice. He left at just the right time. I did it for the audience. I thought if i leave this now, they will have this thing to say it was good but then started to kind of run out of gas. They coulde not create as well as they used to. I could feel i had gotten there. I knew if we tried to do a one more time, might not be as good. I felt that also. What did you think you would do when you left . I didnt care. Then i cant tell you the big news. [laughter] news, what news . Sorry. Why . This is beyond news. This is like pearl harbor, kennedy assassination. Not even news. Come on, please, please, please. George costanza is getting married. We initially were picturing a show about how a comedian gets material. We would follow a comedian around in his daily life. We would go from the Grocery Store to the dry cleaner, maybe go on a date, hang out with his friends. At the end of the show he would do a monologue and it would be some of the things we saw happen on the show. That is where the comedian got the material. That was the pitch. Nbc believed in the show. They said, we are committing to four episodes. Thats right. Normally it is 13 or eight or something. We didnt think they had too much confidence. Was it a hit . Did you feel good at the beginning . I felt good the fact that four episodes were produced because i have never produced four episodes before and did not know i was capable of doing that. Just the fact that i have four on the air made me very excited. I didnt think about the future. I thought, i got by. Ok, lets go back to new york. Lets get on with our lives. This is the reason i like you so much. The story goes you said when they wanted more, you said i can cant do more. I have given you everything i have had with these four episodes. I did not say it out loud but i said it to my close, personal friend like jerry. I said look, i gave you the four things that happened to me in my life. What else could i possibly do . Then i had to come up with ideas like a regular writer. Then we were doing 13 episodes. I almost started crying from the fear. The sequence we are going to see how dare you. Who do you think youre talking to . You know my parents are probably going to be watching this. They probably are. Did you create this . Is this your idea . Yes. It is based on it is based on something that happened to me, yes. You got caught . I did not get caught. I was in a contest. Emerged victorious i am proud to say. The famous episode in which you won an emmy. What is the matter . My mother caught me. Caught you doing what . You know. [laughter] i was alone. You mean she caught you where . I stopped by the house to drop the car off and i went inside for a few minutes. Nobody was there, they were supposed to be working. My mother had a glamour magazine. I started leafing through it. Glamour . One thing led to another. First she screamed george, what are you doing, my god . It looked like she was going to faint. She started clutching the wall to hang onto to it. I didnt know whether to try to keep her from falling or zip up. What did you do . I zipped up. Kind of a George Michael thing, isnt it . One of the most famous episodes of seinfeld ever. Definitely. It got tremendous wordofmouth i guess. I think it was one of the turning points in the history of the show. That and moving to thursday night. Why did you leave . I knew you were going to do that. Well, charlie, you see, i was feeling sad, i needed to i had been there for seven years. That is a long time to suffer the way i do in my daily life. Seven years is a long time for someone to executive produce a show like that. Did you burn out . I was not burned out. I have plenty of ideas, it was not that. Oh yeah . I was learning how to do it. It was not that, i just thought i just felt i had done that and wanted to try Something Else. That is pretty much it. Tell me about the jerry you know. At that you were wrapping up. [laughter] tell me about him. You know this guy as well as anyone. As you say, on the same wavelength. Do you watch the show . Yes, i do. There you go. Quick thats all i need to know . You watched george . There you go. That is all you need to know about me. Is that right . You are like a painter who says everything you need to know about me is right here in the painting . I have had composers say everything you need to know about me is in the music. I am very much like picasso in many ways. My proclivity for sex apparently. My outputs. We have a lot in common. You and pablo. For jerry thet show was fun. For you, doing the show was suffering. I also had a lot of fun, too. The most fun was the actual writing. Those were good times. Come on, george. Finish the story. The sea was angry that day, my friend. Like an old man trying to end back send back soup in a deli. [laughter] i got about 50 feet out and suddenly the gray beast appeared before me. I tell you he was 10 stories high if he was a foot. In sensing my presence he let out a great bellow. I said easy, big fella. And then, as i watched him struggling i realized something was obstructing its breathing. From where i was standing i could see directly into the eye of the great fish. Mammal. Whatever. What did you do next . Then, from out of nowhere and huge tidal wave lifted me, tossed me like a cork and i found myself right on top of him face to face with the blowhole. I could barely see from the waves crashing down upon me but i knew something was there so i reached my hand in and pulled out the obstruction. How do you explain it, that one show captured the ethos of its time . If we could explain it, we probably would have screwed it up. Money against bet it. We had a wager after the pilot. What do you think . No way. I said i love the show in the audience is me but i dont watch tv. This is slightly more sophisticated level of comedy, and it is not what television is used to and they do not think we will get anybody. It started by attracting college boys, young men, mid to late 20s. That was the key, core audience. Then all of a sudden children were watching, 8, 9 and 10 years old. And my mothers generation. And we started going international, and people from other countries. We said what are they getting . What were they getting . I imagine the children, i assume were laughing at michaels antics, falling down. Bumping into things. I guess our parents saw us in the characters. What they considered their crazy kids. And i guess to some degree in trying to examine the minutia of a very specific Human Experience of urban living at a certain age, somehow we tap into something universal. Somehow the little disturbances of daily life are more universal than we know. And because the show is dedicated entirely to the last the laugh and nothing else, there was no attempt at learning or growth or messages, we would do anything and everything and sacrifice anything to achieve the laugh. I guess what we built that if they turned it on whether it was good, bad, stupid, whatever it was going to be they were going , to laugh. Where is that larry davids vision, Jerry Seinfelds vision and Something Else . It is hard to say. I think it was a unanimous collaboration as far as the idea of doing a show about the daily life of a comedian, which was essentially very small things. I think that the cynicism of the show, the darkness of the show, particularly in the first four or five years let me guess. Was much more larry david than jerry. Larry is full of darkness and twists and turns. But it was a beautiful collaboration. There of the light is jerry, the dark is larry. Larry lived across the hall from kenny kramer. George has certainly become a model of larry david in many respects. Alain elaine was sort of model on an exgirlfriend of jerry. It is all kinds of there. But i think the stuff people remember us for, particularly early on, came out of the notebooks of larry david. When we did the show we showed the clip. I said, this is nuts. This is a real thing. [laughter] everything i thought, come on, this is pushing credibility, he went it happened to me. , i wrote this down because that happened to me. I think a lot of the specific inspiration, week to week what is the darkness of larry . Larry walks around with a cloud basically. The world is going to rain on him. It will rain on him and no one likes him and it is futile to get through the day because no good can come of it. And yet he is so filled with fear and phobia to kill himself. So he struggles on. After every episode he would say this is it. He did the pilot. Then, i cant do anymore. We got a first season order. So when 22 came up, he was like i cant do it. So he left. Did the show change when he left . How so . In some ways, a lot of things happened when he left. That sort of darker element having been established now , instead of being written by a staff of guys in 30s and 40s and have a little but it of that, the staff became younger. In their 20s. They were not particularly dark people. Instead of living it, they were writing a semblance of it. So the reality is one step removed. The other is jerry really spread his wings. One of jerrys Favorite Television shows was the old abbot and costello show and i think we started to go that way for the most part. We looked less and less at the small minutia of things. The intrinsic storylines got broader, more scope, a little wackier, a little more in a good sense juvenile. And another thing that larry tried to do is he started playing with instead of one story, he would have four distinct stories, one for each character that would brilliantly tail at the end. It seemed to stop. One or two