The Watch - David Mandel Talks 'Veep,' 'Curb,' and 'Seinfeld' (Ep. 149)

Episode Date: May 11, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald sit down with 'Veep' showrunner David Mandel to discuss making a political comedy in today’s climate. Then, Mandel shares stories about working on two other comedy mega-hits, ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ and ‘Seinfeld.’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. This is Chris from The Watch. Thanks for listening today. Just want to let you know that The Ringer has a new podcast. It's Larry Wilmore's Black on the Air. We're so excited about this one. You can subscribe to that wherever you get podcasts. Larry Wilmore's Black on the Air podcast. The first episode is with the incredible legendary television producer Norman Lear.

And he's got some really exciting stuff planned. The first episode is up Thursday. So make sure you go subscribe. Check that out. And let's get into this episode of The Watch. Hey, guys. This is a special episode of The Watch. where Andy and I sat down with VEEP showrunner David Mandel for the entire episode.

Now, we just did an episode with a member of the VEP team, Timothy Simons, from I think a week or so ago, Monday or two ago. And you can check that out if you want to hear Tim and hear what it's like to work on VEP as an actor. But David talked to us a lot about working on VEP as a showrunner, and not only as a showrunner, but a showrunner who kind of came in in a relief pitcher role. He took over the show for Armando Aionucci after several. glorious years under Ionucci's watch and Ianuchy's the creator of the show and you know his work in British television laid the groundwork for what Vee became. David took over and they've had you know they haven't missed a beat. It's become a different kind of show and we talked to him a lot about that.

But David is an experienced hand at television as we learned and as we talked about obviously. He was worked on Seinfeld. He has worked on Curb Your Enthusiasm. And my favorite parts of the podcast they're definitely hearing all the war stories from working with Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld on those comedy institutions. So it was an awesome chat. Thank you so much to David for stopping by. Andy and I will be back on Monday to talk leftovers and a bunch of other stuff. So enjoy the podcast with David Mandel and we'll talk to you Monday. I need sports to have to clear the room.

Stand up and walk now. Congratulations on another great season. of the... Oh, thank you. We wanted to talk to you, well, about a whole mess of things. Do you mind if I start topical, Chris? Go for it. I figure you would.

I wasn't going to, but then, you know... How topical? Well, politics today. I feel like we should... If we haven't pissed them off with restaurant talk on sitcoms, we should go right into politics. Today we saw the government do something. The House passed a bill

that was not vetted by anyone. That seemed actively designed to hurt people. Yes, although I will argue, and believe me, I'm not defending any of them. I believe at a certain point, the arm twisting, which obviously we didn't see or hear, was, please just vote for this thing so that we can say we actually passed a bill. And this bill will have no relation to anything. So while I am horrified, while I am disgusted, while I think every person who voted yes for this

should be held accountable because they were very. voting very specifically for things that just were, you know, monstrous and, you know, borderline eugenicalnessly something. I also believe that at some point or another, this is not on earth. This is simply, they just wanted to pass something. The Senate will clean it up. So it can go to the Senate and then they'll fix it, I guess. This is the world's best possible answer, because what you have given me is you've cracked

the window into the VIP worldview answer. Well, it is a very cynical worldview where the what you're voting on doesn't matter. it's just that we did vote. At least at 100, whatever we're at, 110 days, wherever they are, they finally passed a piece of life. That's what I was looking for, because what I was going to ask was,

and this is a way to get into the season as a whole, but I'm looking at this from a very, like, my dander is way, way, way up, and I'm looking at this as, this is cruelty. You know, and the character's, no, I'm going to, you guys can't handle this. This is cruelty, this is, you know. And it is.

And it is, but what I was going to say is that the character's on feet, have many flaws, abject cruelties, and among them, they are often more incompetent or venal. Correct, but I do think they would pass this vote without any sense of anything. With the arm twisting behind the scenes. Yes, exactly, because, again, it's about the passing of the bill. It is nothing to do with what it is. It's political theater.

And that's something that Veep does very well. And it continues, though, I guess, which is sort of a non-veep thing, which I guess doesn't matter, it continues for at least the Republicans, as far as I'm concerned, to pass bills that are aimed squarely at their key supporters in actually like taking things from them, hurting them. And yet those supporters, like, I guess just like the most, you know, horrifically battered wife in the world just keeps coming back for more. Yeah, I have very little money, but please take it. No, no. Send my kids off to war, take away my health care. And while you're doing that, you know, give tax breaks to the really rich people. I mean, I just, I'm baffled by it. But how much do you think Monica and Rachel's

house would have gone for in $2017. Like, with the tax credits, probably from this. I like to think that Monica, and I never got into this, but that perhaps like the grandmother character had owned it or was renting it. Oh, Elliot Gould's mother, perhaps. And then Monica moved in there and spent like the required three, two or three years to get sort of like on the lease. And then they sent her off.

Yes, I've been thinking a lot about this. Because there's still a couple. That would make some sense. There's a couple of apartment deals like that where it's just like, yeah, this is $400 a month on like Riverside because, you know, my aunt owned it and just never got changed over. Yeah, I have a friend. I have a friend. And I mean, and this is sort of sad, but his father had this incredible apartment. And to this day, I think he sort of regrets not making a go of it of moving in to his, when his dad got very ill of trying to do home care.

Not so much that that would have been easy or good, but that he might have, he might have been able to stay on the leave. And he loved his father, and his father's a great guy. It had nothing to do with any of that. But that apartment was also a great loss. The things we do for New York real estate. With this kind of thing today, I mean, I think you've been asked about this so much in the press run for this season about the relationship with the role or the Trump. A little bit. How much do you guys, at this point, are you keeping track on day 110 of what's happening?

How much does that inform a possible next season or something like that? Everything kind of informs, I mean, everything informs everything. It does. I can't imagine we would, at no point these days do we specifically do stuff. Yeah. But things inform things. And I guess it's not so much the specifics of the Health Care Act, but, you know, it's a lot of the side talk, the people voting who, you know, waited like, what is his name here in California, Issa, who waited to make sure that, like, like, everybody else. voted and that his vote was important before he sort of reluctantly voted yes it's

those guys that there's sort of a special circle he literally did wait for his friends to jump off of building before he's doing yeah and those guys who I feel like again the specifics maybe not but that's sort of something where like that idea of how long can you wait where I start to go maybe that's something I don't know what it is yeah but you know maybe that's something because he literally hoped that their bodies piled below him and he could just like he would land on them and maybe just slide off the side of the mountain had a great plan we had to Simon's on earlier this week actually

and we were talking to him a little bit. I think I mentioned and I think he may have disagreed but I sort of hinted at like this idea of like sort of Selena breaking bat a little bit or maybe like a darker side of her kind of coming out and there's a little bit of that in the Georgia episode.

I do think in sort of towards the end of last season and into the season and you really did see it and I think people almost forget about it because it was sort of you know buried in the loss but in her moments before the loss, you know, in the end of episode nine, at the end of the documentary, what she was calling Jonah to do was basically to vote for O'Brien, to vote for the other party's presidential candidate over, in theory, Tom James or whatever.

That's a, I mean, I do think as sort of the stakes ratcheted up last season, she got darker. I don't know if she broke bad, but she definitely, her trying to cling on, to that White House got worse and worse and worse. And I think now you're seeing her sort of suffering those consequences. Yeah. And I was kind of wondering, I was talking about this earlier today, completely unrelated about the NBA.

And we were talking about how, like, Greg Popovich has won so many titles, he can kind of afford to just, he can just mess around. Like one night he can just run an Australian point guard and four power forwards out there. Like, he can do different things. I was listening to somebody on the radio, and it was a point that I did love, which was that you have sort of like Popovich and I guess, basically like Belichick.

Yeah. And maybe, maybe now a little bit of like, what's his name, with the Cubs? Man. Well, I was going to say Theo Epstein also. Where basically, no matter what they do, no matter whatever the rule is,

like, you know, don't cross the street without looking two ways, that if Belichick just crosses the street and doesn't look both ways, no matter how long you've been raised on that concept, and this goes for Pavovich, that we all go, hmm, maybe he's got a point.

Maybe there's something new. And then Malcolm Gladwell write a best sell about it. Exactly. The wisdom of not looking at all. But you're running one of like the most celebrated television comedies of the last 15 years? I mean, do you ever feel like you can cross the street now without looking at the light? It's not so much that, but I do, I definitely, look, here's the lucky thing for me. And some of it, it comes with just old age also, which is, you know, there's a time in your life where you're desperate to, like, make sure you're, like, doing everybody's notes. And especially when you're in mainstream network television. And I'm not talking so much about science. But sort of in the period after Seinfeld where I was trying to sell my next thing. And also very true in the movie industry where you're desperately like, what are they looking for?

How can I please them? Whatever, whatever. And then at some point, you know, you do reach a point where you don't care if you please them. And I'll tell you a little mini story, which is right before I took the Veep job, I had a pilot that I wrote with a couple of friends of mine with a married couple, Scott and Shauna Silvery. Scott now does, they were both friends writers and then Scott did getting on. Is that what it was called? No, go on. He did the Matt Perry one. And then now is doing speechless. Oh, right. Yeah. Which is doing very well. I'm a good show. And we wrote a show together that was called The Mistake. And the basic idea, and we were purposely doing this. We wrote a traditional multi-camp sitcom because that's, I still miss it. I love it. I love the audience. I love that sort of aspect of theater. But hearing the laughs, there is no. nothing better than that. And it's something you miss a little bit when you do single camera. So we wrote a, you know, we attempted to write what we thought would be the funniest, you know, multi-camsicom we could. And the basic idea was that a couple kind of around my wife and mine's age, the Silvaries are a touch younger, which I'm basically, I'm 46 now and my wife is, well, just about 47.

Old age, by the way. Yeah, old age, come on. And basically, as their youngest child is going off to college, and this is the pilot, they accidentally get pregnant and have the baby. And by the end of the show, that is the mistake. And the show is about them

as old second time around parents with this young baby and whatever. This is gold. And people liked it. People really liked it. The studio liked it, the network, like everybody liked it. Where we couldn't agree was casting.

We just never could agree on casting. You couldn't find the right baby. Well, exactly. We couldn't find the right two babies. You know, it was a very, you know, simple parting of the ways. They had what I would call traditional network. And who's they in this case? The network, you couldn't agree with the network.

Yes, exactly. The network, I won't, I don't want to say any names, but their initials are CBS. And they just had what I consider to be very traditional casting TV ideas, which is good looking over funny. Yeah. And we were putting up funny people who they found millions of reasons to not lie. but my guess sometimes was they didn't think they were good looking enough, although no one ever expressed that out loud. It was simply, we agreed to disagree. I don't know what else to say. I'm sure they think they're right. I think I'm right. That all being said, there were definitely a moment or two, because we tried twice, where I think if we had gone with certain of their people, we would have gotten this pilot, and all I can tell you is that in some ways, probably 1998 David Mandel, sort of off of Seinfeld looking to get a shot. show on the air probably rolls the dice with their choices and makes a terrible show because

I can only tell you these people would have these were active what I myself and my old writing partners are Jeff Schaefer and Alec Berg and Alec does Silicon Valley now and Jeff did the the league and now is doing the new season of curb basically these were what we like to call enemies of comedy there are comedy generators Friends of comedy and then enemies of comedy. These were enemies. It's like lawful good. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. This is like full chaotic evil. Like no rhyme or reason to their, just no good of it. And what we would have ended up with was a terrible pilot that would have been forgotten because it was a terrible pilot. And one of the things that makes me happy when I go to sleep at night is that we didn't make it. Yeah.

And it's still a really funny script that was never made as opposed to a shitty pilot that's been forgotten. And once in a blue moon, someone brings it up. And it's not about the bringing it up. It's about that it's still pure and it's still something, which is a very long-winded way of saying, I don't even remember your original question. Are you great popovic?

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I'm Greg Popovich, but the wonderful thing that I was taught by first Al Franken and Jim Downey at Saturday Night Live and then Larry and then it was really, you know, really with Larry, especially. These are terrible mentors, though. terrible, terrible mentors. And by the way, it's the same, well, it's Julia's attitude, too, which is we are going to make, am I allowed to curse?

Absolutely. We're going to make a fucking funny show. That's all we care about. We're not going to care. We don't care if we offend you. We don't care. We're just making a show that makes us laugh. And we're going to do whatever we can to do that. And therefore, we don't care. We just don't care. And we're going to do things that are interesting to us. And we're going to make her not the president of the United States, even if you don't like that. And what I was going to say was, What I have sort of found a little bit is, and it's true, I think, and I remember it with Larry, going back to when he killed Susan.

When he killed Susan, there was sort of that initial, oh, my God, how can you kill Susan? Oh, my God, how horrible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you cut to like five years later, and it's like, oh, killing Susan was one of the really great things. And so sometimes I do believe the TV audience needs to be taught a little bit. They need to be taught that this is okay, that this is right, and that it's good that the show is changing. So I don't sit around thinking I'm Belichick. I'm just trying to, honestly, I'm trying to make myself laugh. I'm trying to make Julia laugh.

I'm trying to make my writers laugh. And I'm trying to make a couple of my college roommates laugh. And beyond that, I don't care. I think that's very, it's interesting what you're saying about the example of Susan on Seinfeld, because the scenario you described reminds me a lot of Twitter in general, honestly, which is where people's first reaction is often not how they genuinely feel. It's a rehearsed reaction. Yes.

I think I'm offended. Let's look around and see if anyone. Anyone else is offended here? And then slowly as it actually settles in, it's like, well, maybe it was funny, or maybe this doesn't matter as much, or maybe I'm just borrowing this. And I'm talking, you know, I'm talking even just big ideas, like being offended by like her not being in the White House as opposed to, by the way, which we get, which is, and it's funny with VEP in particular, which is we're such an equal opportunity offender with dialogue. But it's when the sort of the bottle spins and lands on you. And it's like, well, wait a second. Yeah.

Like, I laughed at the Irish joke and the Jew joke. And I really laughed at that crippled joke, but you cannot say that about homosexuals, right? And you just go, well, wait a second. It was your turn. Let's go back to that, just the Veep in general, because, you know, for listeners who don't realize it, you took over the show a year ago.

I was a fan of the show, and basically, they did four seasons, basically, with an almost, I think, yeah, all British writers, created by Armando Ionucci, brilliant writer, sketch writer, brilliant everything writer. and now I think moving into directing a whole bunch too. And basically he was tired of the London to Baltimore commute.

And I knew Julia from the old days. And then also Casey Blois, who's the head of HBO now, you know, sort of, I think in a weird way the curb guys were kind of the HBO bench because Alec went into Silicon Valley to help when they were redoing the pilot and kind of went there. And I was sort of called in for this. And I'm guessing if there had been another show, Jeff would be on that one. So we owe Larry not making up his mind, basically. Believe me, I mean, it is a credit to Larry.

And of course, therefore, of course, how awful I felt when he finally decided to do it. And it lined up far too perfectly with the Veep season. Because I was like, well, maybe there's a nope. Nope, not a way. This is, we can say this now because you're now a season and a half into your tenure on the show. The show won the Emmy last year again. The show is truly astounding. Much appreciate it.

This is, I can't believe you pulled this off. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. It's kind of amazing. I didn't think a lot about it when I took it. I'm wondering. Some of that is comedy writer ego. I certainly, you know, whatever the averagely large comedy writer ego is, I'm sure I have an even bigger one. You know, I didn't worry about it.

I worried one minute. When they won the Emmy, basically, right before we were about to shoot our first episode, slash the first one I was writing. I did take a minute of, and then I didn't think about it, and I knew what we were doing was good, and I knew right from the get-go, I knew it was all good. Were you sitting there, the Emmys like, come on, Louis. I honestly, they were nice enough. I think someone they invited me, and I was like, I'm not going to this.

This is their night. I'm not going to be a part of this. I don't want to root it or help it or whatever. I was actually more shocked. I was thrilled that they won. I was actually shocked that Armando didn't win for the testimony episode. That was actually the shock for me that he lost that, because I just thought that was fantastic.

But like I said, for a minute, I was just like, oh, God. And then somewhere in my head it was like, well, if worse comes to worse, hopefully Julia will win another one and no one will care if the show doesn't win one because, you know, it has one. And also, by the way, I can simply say, you know, and I don't think I'm touting, you know, laurels that shouldn't be tout. I went to the Emmys many times. I went many times with Seinfeld and we lost.

Seinfeld only won, I believe, best show once, which when, of course, you look back, is a crime. And I've been many times with Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is still currently O for however many. So losing is very natural to me, and especially losing feeling like I was on the best show. Yeah. So I wasn't worried, but I will also say

winning it was really nice. I bet. Yeah. But what I mean, though, is it's not just that you maintain the quality, certainly you did in the eyes the Emmy voters. And what impressed me the most is that you have absolutely made it your own show. And by you, I mean, the collective view, you and your team that came in. It is a different show. It's a different show. It's the same. It's the same DNA. But I've said this before. I think if I tried to mimic, which I know what he did. I mean, you know, we, I think we're different writers, by the way. Armando and I are just very different writers. And I don't know his entire process. But, you know, but. I come at it very much more outline, outline, outline, and then you write. And I believe from what I can tell from my from working with people that have worked with him, he is much more of you write many, many, many drafts and you find it in the work and you,

it's a very much and a live thing. And our thing definitely, you know, changes and gets better from being on its feet and is still very alive. But I believe that the skeleton of that outline is always there. and that's my Seinfeld and Curb sort of training. So anyway, what I was going to say was we're very different writers. I think there is a difference between American sensibilities and British sensibilities. There are subject matters that they're not as interested in.

There are subject matters that I'm very interested in. Race is a biggie. That's a little bit of a no-no over in the UK. They don't kind of touch it. I wish they could have seen your hand gestures. Sorry, you can only imagine how good the hand gestures were. But I can't get enough of it. I just feel like, I mean, especially watching where the country was,

let alone where it is now. But watching, for me, the growing insane prejudice is under Obama because he happened to be an African-American man that was president of the United States. And then the culmination of that, which is basically, I don't know, not to put too fine a point on it, but there are many reasons Hillary Clinton probably lost. One of them was, though,

that I think a lot of white people got sick of Democrats, seemingly in their minds only being the party of, you know, minorities and, you know, sex minorities and all of that kind of stuff. And I find it horrifying. And so race is something I'm very obsessed with and getting it to be, you know, getting it to be a part of the show. And that's something they just, something they were not as interested in. And I think I had a little bit of an opportunity as sort of an outsider to the show of coming in with my own sort of set of what I thought was interesting and what I wanted to learn more about. Plus, it was season five. And again, we'll never know what he would have done, what they would have done. But

But for me, it was an opportunity to dig a little deeper into who they were as characters, and that was definitely something I think we did in season five of who they were, their lives, not just the mother episode with Selena, which obviously people really dug, but also even stuff like Mike and his babies and things like that. And I thought Matt sort of on that roller coaster of, you know, adopting, then losing the Chinese adoption, but then finding out he was having twins and sort of that, he had just such a wonderful, it was so heartbreaking when he lost the adoption, but then also, There was such that every man quality to him of getting the pregnancy but then finding out

its twins. And, you know, you could watch his brain doing the mental calculations of what that was going to cost. And then also then, of course, getting Ellen, the Chinese baby, who of course wasn't a baby, but more of a six-year-old. But watching him with that kind of stuff, that none of that has anything to do with politics if you actually think about it. Right.

And I was very proud to sort of bring some of that into the show. That is the American, to my mind, when you said the difference between American and British sensibilities in terms of sitcoms, I think. I think one of the great American traditions in sitcoms comes from the longer seasons in that you have to dig deeper. You have to lean on the ensemble. That's interesting. I had not thought about it in that way, but I would agree with that. Oh, good.

There is more character in a 22 episode. By necessity. And then furthermore, and this is a point that Tim brought up when we spoke to him, your passion for mixing and matching characters into seeing what sparks, which is another hallmark of long-running successful comedies. Well, I just, you know, for me I felt like, and again, this is not a criticism. I was a fan of the show. It was one of the few shows on TV, certainly a few comedies,

that my wife and I were watching, you know, every Sunday night. That was a show we watched together. So, again, I'm a fan and I'm there. But I definitely felt like one of the reasons I wanted her out of the White House was to shake things up, that it didn't just become, at the time, for lack of a better word, the screw-up of the week. Now, I say that even though there's still the screw-up of the week,

but in some ways it just, I just, I didn't want to get trapped in that world. And I just feel like you have to, you have to grow. I mean, I just think you have to. Do you not watch a lot of comedies on TV because not a lot of comedies speak to you? Because it's like, like, like, it would be like a sausage factory. You don't need a hot dog. I check everything out because I sort of feel like it's my job.

I mean, so I definitely check everything out and I give everything a couple of episodes. And there's a handful I still watch. It's harder for me. It either works for me or it very quickly doesn't. I feel like that's, it's not like, as you said, like, you don't want to watch baseball because you play all day or whatever or the chef that doesn't want to eat their food. It's definitely like, I guess just if it's not, if it's not interesting, if it's not surprising, if it's not, you know. And it's hard to say this because obviously if you have a long running 22 episode show, every week they're not going to reinvent the wheel. So I'm not talking about reinventing the wheel.

It's not like on any given week I want characters, you know, killing each other and switching places, although I do love that. But I guess I just mean surprise me with the jokes. If a show gets to that point where I'm saying the jokes before they're saying it, it's probably time for me to stop watching it. Do you feel like, you know, because as somebody who's such a veteran in the industry, he and I talk about television on a week-to-week basis, and sometimes I think we get a little lost, like, the vocabulary that we're describing it with or even the sort of philosophies behind it are only like five years old.

Like you'd think that everything started. Certainly from a viewer perspective. Before David Chase, nobody had this idea kind of thing. Because I was going to ask a question that was like, well, you know, he started on something that was so traditional, like Seinfeld. And I was like, but Seinfeld was anything but traditional. Well, I mean, it was traditional in the sense of, you know, we had a tape night and we, you know, had an audience. And it was very, you know, very much the classic sort of multicam sort of system that, you know, whatever, Desi Arnaz laid down with I Love Lucy. As the show got going and went further and further, there was a progression.

of the levels of complication of the structure, which made the scenes shorter, made everything faster. It depended more, I think, on structure than on individual jokes, and more and more started to be filmed so that by the end it was almost practically often like half single cam

and half sort of being in front of the audience. And obviously, you know, one of my, you know, my favorite things about it was that the willingness to sort of push the genre. I mean, you know, that's the, you know, again, think back to whatever you want to say, 95, 96, whatever, what other show was going to let me do sort of like the bizarro idea? What other show

was going to let me and Peter Melman do a backwards episode? You know what I mean? I'm just simply saying that was a credit to what those guys built. And by the way, Larry probably wouldn't have certainly wouldn't have probably done the backwards episode at all. I think I could have gotten away with the bizarro episode with Larry, but not the backwards. But, you know, obviously the show changed when Larry left. But that all being said, that there was certainly an inventiveness there as laid down by like the Chinese restaurant episode and the parking lot episode that was at least willing

to push against form. I have to say you also, I believe you were responsible for the movie phone episode. Is that correct? I was, yeah, yeah. I think about Kramer's voice saying, why don't you just tell me

what you want to go see? I think about that multiple times a day. It rings in my head. Michael Richards does not get enough credit for things like that. I think people sort of dismiss him sometimes a little bit for the, well, obviously what happened later,

but the tripping and the whatever. But God, the, why don't you just tell me? Yeah, no, it's unbelievable. And I also thought it was an interesting window into my wife's psychology because on the way here we were in the car together and I mentioned that you had done that episode. And she said, is it because we have kids that I haven't gone to a movie in so long that I don't know if people still use movie phone? Well, I don't even think it. I'm not sure it exists. I think it's like it did. That's a really good question.

I mean, they have a website now and they have like they used to have like videos and stuff. I think it's pretty. Yeah. Like our kids will watch that and be like, what a quince. because we were, I was wondering like, what are, what's the sort of growth, what's the ceiling for a local weather guy? Like, because do you really, like, especially out here, but like, do you, if you have a phone, do you really need to wait for 623 for the weather to come on? If he's handsome, you do. Because I used to remember my mom just being like, well, don't, don't get up yet.

I need to see what the weather is. It's true. I'll tell you how to get dressed. Yeah. But please wait, don't do it yet. Hey, guys, just going to take a quick break here with our, from our conversation with David to go to a quick word from our sponsors. Hey, everybody. Just want to take a quick break to tell you a little about Sonos' Playbase.

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All right, guys, now we're going to head back into our conversation with David. about Veep, Seinfeld, Kerb, and everything else. Veep has a somewhat shorter episode order, you know, obviously than Seinfeld. And yet oddly it takes longer, but go on. Yeah. Well, I guess I was going to ask, you know, when something happens on Atlanta, and it's one of ten episodes, the magnification of people's attention to, oh, well, they just did this amazing thing,

and they used one-tenth of their season on this incredible tangent. And that, you know, what you're saying about those episodes of Seinfeld, where they just kind of like flow into the slipstream of a 22 episode order. And did you feel like, and you didn't have the feedback too, I suppose, in terms of the internet. It was different.

We didn't have the internet, but we definitely, I mean, it was different, though, in its own weird way because the episodes would air on Thursday and I was certainly, I was a single guy without children. So I can't explain it, because again, it's very much dating yourself, but like you'd hear it like morning DJs

talking about it on Friday morning. Yeah. And not to, to get all water coolie, because obviously I was working in a TV office, but like you'd get online at a movie theater on like a Friday or Saturday night, and you would hear people talking about your episode. Did you ever Marshall McLuhan someone online? No, I never said you do not understand when you were wrong.

I happen to have Larry David right here. Exactly. No. But certainly enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah. Certainly enjoyed it. Yeah. A lot of what you're describing in terms of the risk-taking DNA of Seinfeld, in addition to

the actual DNA of the brain trust behind it, you and all the people you've mentioned. Enormous influence on TV today on what we consider to be contemporary prestige TV. Yeah, I think there's a definitive line from Seinfeld to Curb to modern single camera. And to what people consider good comedy today. And by the way, I also would say not just,

and I've said this before, and he has yet to correct me, and I never want to put words in his mouth. But I think Judd Apatow was very influenced by Kerb. Yeah. And sort of both the shooting style, but also the improv nature and whatnot. And so I think it's also had a very big effect on modern moviecom. Yeah, absolutely.

So what I'm wondering is, do you feel, from your perspective of having been there during those, during Seinfeld and today, how much of the, how much of this business has changed? Obviously, tape night is not something you deal with anymore. Obviously, the way TV is discussed in the culture, some of the, some of the money is different. do you feel professionally it is a straight line because it's just it's you and some people in a room telling jokes, or has it really changed as radically internally as it has externally? I mean, I've been very lucky sort of in my, I guess, trajectory. And if you, you know, I sort of was very content to kind of go along doing more curb and stuff.

And then the VEEP thing sort of happened. It was not of my own making. And, you know, in some world where the mistake my pilot got made, I'm sure I'd be, you know, complaining or whatever. And it would be a very different story. It's a relatively straight line for me, but I do think it has changed. You know, Seinfeld at the time was sort of this weird exception to the rule in both how it got on to television. It's sort of path through the late-night division and whatnot. And in some ways, it's like the internet companies took a lesson from the late-night division.

They're all sort of the late-night division. So the fact that there are all of these... And can I just to tell people who don't realize that? So it was not developed by NBC's comedy department. Correct. There was a little bit of money just carved out by a troubal. Rick Ludwin was the head of late night, and they had Jerry under a deal basically to stop him from hosting a Tonight Show on another network. Right.

And Jerry's work ethic was such that he didn't just want the money. He sort of wanted to do something. So he wanted to do a sitcom. And so they were like, okay, why don't you make four of them? You know, I mean, it was just crazy, but, you know, to Rick Ludwin's credit. And they put it on the summer, and then Julia wasn't even in the first one, and somehow this ends up being the most popular show on television. And it was very much, you know, the original selling. device of it in some ways was, this is how a comedian gets his material. Right. Which obviously

deviated from soon thereafter. But originally that was sort of the idea was you're going to see this little adventure. And then at the end, he's going to kind of do stand up that sort of seem to come from. Yeah. I mean, that was its gimmick, if you will. Yeah. But I like the point you were making, which is that that idea of, well, we're just going to try something here. Yeah. That's kind of what these other companies are doing. I mean, that's what they're all doing now with, you know, six and 10 and whatever, but it's a, you know, it's a great time with, you know, you can sell your weird idea. I mean, you know, you can find someone for almost anything. I have, I have a weird idea that is so weird that, like I mentioned it to people, they go, oh, that was really weird, we can't do

that. But even that, I finally found someone that was like, yeah, we would probably do that. I mean, it was just like, you know, and it was just nuts. But, you know, but that's the world. And so that's the good news. The bad news is there's a million shows. So that means it's hard put a staff together because everybody's got a show or everybody's working somewhere. It's in, there was a week this year, actually the last episode of Veep that aired when we were trying to find somebody to play one of the two sort of oligarchs that she's sort of dealing with. We were trying to find somebody to play the scarred guy. The Stephen Frye character.

It became the Stephen Frye part. He was good. And there was like a period of time where we were trying to find people and it felt like every time I brought somebody up, they were on breaking Not Breaking Bad, they were on Better Call Sol that week. Just that week. Yeah, just like, they're in New Mexico on Better Call Saul. Yeah. There was, and then it was like, and then there was a period of time where it was like everybody

was in London making like the Orient Express, which I guess isn't a TV show. But, I mean, it was just like, it's just, it's harder to cast. It's harder to find people because there's so much television. So that's sort of a thing people don't really talk about, but I do think is very true. And the staff part is particularly difficult. Is there also, like, I thought I read something about the sort of typical trajectory for a television writer too where people are selling shows faster too, right? Yeah, I mean, I think certainly, I mean, this happens all the time, which is I do think

people rightly or wrongly, I think sometimes there are very good ideas executed very poorly because perhaps the person with the very good idea wasn't quite ready to make a show. And I do think there is a, I do think show running is a very different skill. Yeah. I'm not saying it because I think I can do it and, you know, you can't. It is a different skill. And there are great writers who are terrible show running. I've talked to people about this before. but the things that make someone a good writer,

whether in comedy or drama, often are specifically why. You know, it's like that level of being on the sort of Asperger scale is exactly what prevents you from being a good show. From the people skills, management, like negotiating budgets and egos and all these things that involve being outside of your own creative muse. I loved your idea of people being the enemies of comedy, and I realized that even on some of the great shows of our time,

if you got in the room with the people who made them and you got a few drinks into them, or maybe even no drinks at all. They would be like, well, that was the person who was tough to deal with. And I say this not to get dirt, although if you want to spread dirt, please.

You walked on to a show where I feel like you have like the knight templar of comedy. You have a cast that is outrageous, maybe unparalleled. Yeah, no, it's a murderer's row. I mean, it really is. And as it's only grown in some ways,

you know, by the time, you know, obviously Sam, as Sam Richardson kind of, as the Richard Splett character became sort of larger. And then Marjorie, Clay DeValle paired up with Sarah Sullivan and Catherine, and they became sort of, you know, whatever you want to call them, you know, regulars, semi-regulars, whatever. And you add in Congressman Furlong and Will. I mean, there are definitely episodes where it's sort of like, you know,

you're trying to go, how do we, we have 12 incredible people. How do we tell a Selena Meyer story, but also let them score? Finnish woman. I'm sorry, she's finishing. Oh, God, yeah. Minna. Yeah. And the actresses.

Oh, Sally Phillips. I mean, that's, that's an insane thing that she just comes out and off the bench and does that. And you bring her in and you worry a little bit about, like, it's like, in that episode we were bringing her in. We were bringing in the two sort of Georgian characters. And at the same time, you're going like, that's three more.

And it's just like, and at the same. But you want to make sure, you want to make sure that, you know, Ben's scores and Kent scores. I mean, you definitely, you don't want to forget your regulars. Yeah. Well, not to make you too much like Popovich, but you do have, and we talk to Tim about this too, in Kevin Dunn and Gary Cole, you have two of the most outrageously talented, just solid. Every time they are on screen, they are amazing to watch, whether they are passing or dunking.

Am I doing the metaphor correctly? That's correct, yeah. What does, of all the things that a showrunner has to be concerned about, what is that experience like being in a room? You know, you have many things that are on your plate. It's a stressful job. you know when you write jokes for those two or certainly Julia or any of these people. No, no, I mean, you know, I think, you know, that is the one thing, which is, you know, whether, you know, when we're, when, you know, someone's working on their individual script or if we're, you know, sort of gang rewriting and coming up with a joke, there are definitely jokes. I mean, this is tough because it's sort of like, I don't want to ruin anything and I don't want to give anything away. But there is a joke in the 10th episode of this season that, uh, that, uh, that the character Marjorie does that I feel like is two years in the making. I'm very proud of it.

You know what I mean? But I can't, I don't want to ruin it. But I mean, it's specifically, it's a Marjorie joke. It's the way Clayah does it. And it's sort of like, it's two years in the making with the knowledge that we'll do it once and probably never do it again. You know what I mean? Can you talk us through a different joke then?

The one that I can't stop thinking about from last year was the secret meeting. Yes. That there's the secret meeting afterwards. And then later in the documentary, you reveal that there was, and there was in fact a third. There's the secret meeting. Right. And then Mike pops back in and goes, I just making sure there isn't another one.

And then in the documentary, it turns out there was. There was. That's a symphony. That's beautiful. That made me so happy. One of my true favorite moments in that as we were working on the documentary, which was written by Eric Kenward, who were lucky enough sort of splits his time between we sort of get him for the whole summer.

He's one of the producers at S&L and then we sort of have him on their off weeks. That's a pretty nice life. He's bicoastal. Yeah, exactly. No, it works out well. I mean, he's somebody I've been trying to lure to California to work on sitcoms for like a million years. So I was very proud about grabbing him. And so he wrote the episode and I directed it.

So, you know, obviously I'm there for all of them, but it was extra fun sort of just being the director on that as well. But in the writing stages, as we were really sort of thinking about the episode and sort of spending time on it, you know, there were definitely, we were kind of going through the eight previous episodes that existed, sort of trying to find, what are these sort of, moments that perhaps like there was more or she could have filmed or what was connected. And then when this Mike idea of Mike being fired sort of came up and him sort of being oblivious to it, that just, I wish I could tell you that we had thought of it when we were writing it, that that would be in the dock. But it was more like we had the scene and then realized, oh, what if there was more? And it was just, when those things kind of clicked together, it's kind of perfect.

You took them out of power completely this season, which I think in some ways maybe is a relief, considering what's actually going on in the halls of power. One of the things you've done by doing that is really proven the elasticity of the show and how the show is these characters and this ensemble and their relationship and the world that they exist in. It doesn't have to be specifically centered in one building or even one town. How far can you stretch it? How much does that interest you? I mean, without spoiling whether they all suddenly are put back into power at the end of the season.

And at what point does it stay Vee? I haven't yet. I still think there is more to this sort of post-presidency. I mean, I'll say two things. Number one, I think, you know, it's funny that viewers' memory is short. Obviously, she was vice president of the United States. I mean, the show was called VEP. And then all of a sudden.

Right, and then she was president. And it was a very different show if you actually get down to it. I mean, it just was very, very different. And this stakes change, but also the kinds of things that they were able to do and not do because she was president. There were certain things, I think, where you go, well, she's president. that couldn't happen or this has to be a different way as opposed to Veep. And really, what that made me realize as I thought a lot about the show was it wasn't so much about any particular job.

It's really about Selena Meyer and her quest for power in general and what power is and what does that mean. Because quite honestly, she had power but didn't really even have it because she was sort of almost like an illegitimate president in some ways. So it really was about that. And with that in mind, and this goes back to when I first sat down with Julia and HBO and sort of talk to them about coming in on the show. So what I sort of ended up pitching out was her losing and us moving on into this sort of post-presidency world. And it's still about power and it's about respect and recognition and all of these things. And I do think there's a lot to be had there. Along with that, as hard as the Trump stuff is to sort of deal with on a daily basis because he's constantly sort of stealing things from our old episodes and doing them live in some sort of mad kabuki show.

one of the good things that is going on right now that we're just beginning to get a taste of is, and this was planned a little bit, at least as we got closer to it, is that Obama is re-emerging and he is re-emerging in his post-presidency in a very different post-presidency, a very high-paid book.

He was just in Chicago yesterday talking about his library and what it's going to be for Chicago. He was kite surfing. He's kite surfing. Hang out, Tom Hanks. Yep. But also even just the big controversy,

got offered $400,000 to speak. Selina would kill for $400,000 to speak. So all of a sudden, that stuff is starting to happen. And much like Selena, he's not old. There's life there to be had. Much in the way I think, you know, Jimmy Carter is sort of fascinating. And by the way, Clinton is fascinating. So where is it going?

I don't know quite yet. We're sort of just now sort of figuring it out. And obviously, you'd never want to overstay your welcome. But I do think this sort of this post-presidency still has some life in it. So I guess that's sort of where I'm thinking. I, we don't want to keep you too long. You've been very generous in your time, but I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about this. I believe you worked on the season of Kerb that was the Seinfeld reunion season. Yeah, of course, yeah. That's another thing that I think about

constantly, and I think does not get enough credit, because this is an example. And I'm thinking as I ask you this about what you said earlier about the power of saying no and not doing, not being seduced by everyone saying yes in the room, you know, you guys got away with it. You gave, you did it. You did a Seinfeld reunion. You gave us more story. You gave us a tease of what it could be while making fun of it while giving us behind the scenes. No, I mean, we were making a tremendous amount of fun of it.

Yeah. And the idea of, like, people that do them. And yet at the same time, we shot a lot of it. I mean, you know, we didn't like necessarily, I think what we never quite got to was, I think we sort of set up what all the ideas were. We never got to that next level of where the things started bouncing into each other so that you would have seen like, oh, my God, it's heading this way. bounce, bounce, bounce. Now it's heading this way. Oh my God. Now it's colliding and it's

yeah. So you didn't get some of those traditional sort of Seinfeld it's all coming together moments. But you got a lot of like the four stories, what they would have been. Yeah, it was I mean, it was the proper way to do a Seinfeld reunion as far as I was concerned, which was basically to do a meta reunion. Was that logistically and creatively and creatively and creatively difficult to pull off or was it or is it the kind of thing where many of you, the veterans on the writing side certainly still seem to be friends and have a good relationship and working relationship and Larry can make the call. Everybody was game. I mean, you know, from the, I think the cast thought it was something special and realized it would be something special.

And everybody had, you know, other things going on, but sort of made themselves available. So, I mean, the schedule was probably the hardest part and that worked out. And then the rest was just sort of, wow, I can't believe we're doing this. Yeah. But, yeah. What makes you laugh the hardest? at this point in your career and life? Honestly, I think it's when a joke surprises me. I mean, I think I said a little of that earlier. It's just, I hate to say, it's like, it's when I'm just, again, I'm not trying to pretend like I'm so great and I can think of every joke.

But when a joke genuinely surprises me is when, and I, and it, and I can, I certainly can laugh a good joke, but I, sometimes it's a joke that I, and I, I, sometimes it's a joke that I, and I, I, and I, you know, the last time that happened? I was trying to think if there was something that hit me recently. I was trying to remember what I've been watching. Nothing's coming to mind.

I should probably think of something for the future to be able to answer that question. Well, just because anecdotally, TV comedy writers' rooms are the quietest places on Earth. I mean, that's the line

that people say is that, you know, to try to make a room for comedy writers laugh. No, I mean, obviously the rooms can be very miserable. Ours is not so bad. The silence drives me a little crazy.

I mean, I'm the first to admit that one. It's too silent. I think the best ideas come out of, you know, sort of talking and chit-chatting. People sort of angrily trying to think not so much. The other thing that I think helps us a little bit for the most part is I don't, I didn't come out of a traditional room sort of background and therefore I don't really do a traditional room. I sort of, I stand in the strong minority, but I mean we exist of people who I hate writers' rooms in the sense of the idea of,

I don't like the idea of writing in a room. I'm all good with punching up in a room. I think you can punch up and make something really funnier. But creating stuff from scratch in a room, like sort of gang writing and that notion of sort of handing it all off to who's ever, handing the writer's, whatever's notes off to whosoever turn it is. I mean, look, I'm not going to lie.

We get jam sometimes, and then before you know it, we're trying to work on things and whatever. But even in those situations, I still want the writer to have sort of the responsibility and whatever. And I just think that's some of the reason on some of the more traditional, I guess, larger sort of network shows. I think you just get a lot of sort of like joke non-jokes. Yeah.

Like the rhythm of a joke, but not a joke just because it came out of a room. It's like imitation crab meat joke. It feels a taste kind of like it. It looks like it until you put in your mouth. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. And by the way, Seinfeld, no room.

Curb, obviously, no room. Seinfeld had no room. when Larry left the show here's how it used to work I'll give you the quick version in a perfect world you the writer well you would

you the writer would pitch stories to Larry and Jerry this is when Larry was there and you were basically trying to get four stories approved for the four characters what room are you doing this in basically your office

they would come into your office or you'd go into their office and you guys used to shoot you would just be out in L.A. We were yeah we're on the Radford lot over in studios and is Larry holding a putting a putter a nine iron

At that point you'd necessarily have a putter but often had things in his hand and was just kind of cracking his neck and things like that. Okay. And it was very unemotional. Yes or no. He liked it or he didn't,

which is always great. Like, I can hate your idea still like you. I mean, that's something I try and make sure my writers are very clear on. Like, even when I'm annoyed

an idea, I don't dislike you. It's just, let's just hate the idea and hate it and not worry about everybody's feelings. It's just too much

nonsense with the feelings. So anyway, you try and get the four ideas approved. In a perfect world, you might have one of the stories that gets two characters. That's a good one

because there's a little more room to know if you got like a George Lane story together. Anyway, you're getting your four stories approved. Then you start the outline process. You work basically up and outline. In those days, you would do like an act one. And you'd get them in and this keeps happening.

And, you know, especially in the early days, what I really learned was I remember the first time I put up a full, what I thought was an act of a sitcom in my mind. And they came in and they kind of mushed it down to two scenes. Oh. And beyond the thickness and the speed, obviously. Dave and Larry and Larry. Larry and Jerry. Obviously the speed that gets associated with the show, all of a sudden, you keep doing that and where other sitcoms end starts to become like your fourth scene. And that's part of why Seinfeld is Seinfeld, if you think about it. Not that so much it's about where other sitcoms end, but it's basically, you know, you see these traditional shows where like, I don't know, it's like we're having a fight about taking out the trash and then it's not going to take the trash out. And then you take the trash out. Even if you were going to do that in Seinfeld world, that's not going to be the last scene of your show. You're going to be the last scene of your show. You're going to be.

to take the trash out in scene two. You've decided you have to take the trash out. And now you've still got all this show. So what happens? Well, now you're taking the trash out and you get hit by a car. These are obviously not real things. I'm just simply making it up. But you understand how all of a sudden now the shitty take the trash out story in Seinfeld

world because it's ending in scene two or three is forcing you to now go somewhere else as opposed to an entire slow motion show that just feels like it's like syrup that, you know, nothing happens till the end. Do you think Jerry gets enough credit for his non-acting creative voice on it? Because it's interesting. You mentioned how Michael doesn't get enough credit. I agree. Larry gets a lot of credit and certainly deserved credit.

Julia still will never not win an Emmy. Jerry's done fine. I don't mean like it's underappreciated. But what I mean is I don't know if people realize his name is on the show. I think people forget that it was him and Larry, obviously. I don't mean that in a bad way. And I think people also forget that we carried on without Larry. And that while, you know, I think we did two years without Larry,

and while not everybody loved the second year of it, and they were probably rightfully so, people really dug the first year without it. That's great year. And even in the last one, there's probably some good stuff. And dare I say, and this is all hindsight, you know, I think if we'd recharge a little more and maybe brought in a little new blood,

I think the show could have gone on a little longer. I think we just wore ourselves out on that first year without Larry trying to cover. On that, this is probably, I was going to place that any to end, but do you feel the same way about Veep? like, does that have like the same kind of legs? I mean, right now I feel like, like I said, there's like, you know, and I think people will see where we kind of get to with the end of this post-presidency, not the end of, but where we end this season with sort of the post-presidency and the library and stuff.

And I think you'll see that sort of like, yeah, there could be some more here. And then I laugh because like, you know, and this is not a story or maybe it's a story. I haven't even really gotten there yet. But, you know, the other day, it was stuff about like, you know, Hillary, not Hillary, Chelsea Clinton, like, is she going to run for office? And I started to think to myself, well, should Catherine run for office? What would that do to Selena?

And I'm not saying that's next season or the season after, the season after, but it's just like there's always more because again, it's about, I mean, at the end of the day, it's about Selena the character and this desire to be important and make a mark on history. And she's going to do it any way she can. And maybe that means as the, you know, her progeny. I don't know.

But I mean, I do think there's still a lot of, life in the character. American Dynasty. I can't wait. There's a lot of life clearly in the show as well. David, thank you so much for taking time. Thank you so much. No, this was great. We're big fans. Hope you'll come back for next season. Honestly. Today's episode to watch is brought to you by a little new show, showtimes putting out, called Twin Peaks. What are the greatest television shows of all time? Everyone has their list and the debates they get fiercer every year. What critics have called the Golden Age of Television keeps serving up beautiful and challenging contenders. Deadwood, you know, lost, the wires.

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