Role: Writer
Time on SNL: 1984-1985
The story of how Larry David quit his job as a Saturday Night Live writer will leave audiences laughing.
“My sketches would do very well at the readthrough, and then they would invariably get cut week after week after week,” the Curb Your Enthusiasm star explained on a 2015 episode of The Howard Stern Show. “And then one night, before the show, another sketch of mine was cut at 11:25—five minutes before the show was to start. I had enough.”
So, Larry continued, he walked over to executive producer Dick Ebersol and said, “This f–king show stinks. It stinks! It’s s–t! I’m done! I’m gone! F–k this! I’m out!”
As he walked home in the cold, he added, he realized what he had done and how much money he would lose. So, Larry returned the next week as if nothing had happened.
“There’s a writers’ meeting every Monday morning, and I walk into the meeting,” he continued. “The writers had heard the outburst, and I sat down. And then he would go around and ask everybody what they were working on for the week. And I was about the fifth one on the couch. And then he got to me and I was like, ‘Well, I’m thinking of doing this circus sketch.'”
Larry got to keep his job, staying for another year. But it was here the Seinfeld creator met his sitcom’s star Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Over the years, Larry has hosted SNL twice and made many guest appearances, including playing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.