I would glance at faces and they seemed to be enjoying it. If he believes in something, he’s just going to fight for it.ĭavid: As soon as the read-through started, the laughs were huge. I’ve known Larry since we did Fridays together, and that’s Larry David. Michael Richards (Kramer): Larry was going to put his whole job on the line.
I really had this built up in my head where, there’s no way they’re going to do it and I’m just going to quit if they don’t do it. I really had this thing going on in my head where, well, if they don’t like it, I’m just going to quit the show.
Rick Ludwin, the program executive on the show, he didn’t know what was coming.ĭavid: I remember being nervous because the NBC executives were there. When it came time to do the table read for “The Contest,” no one knew about the subject matter ahead of time.
#I MASTER OF MY DOMAIN SERIES#
Warren Littlefield, former president of NBC: The series always was completely unpredictable, and Jerry and Larry never followed rules, right? They made up their own rules. So it took me a couple years, you know, to even mention it to Jerry because it didn’t even occur to me that it was a possibility. the real Kramer: I wasn’t in because I knew I would never win it.ĭavid: By the way, was in my notebook for some time and I never even mentioned it to Jerry because I didn’t think there was any way that he would want to do it, and I didn’t think there was any way the show actually could get done on the network. Kenny Kramer, friend of Larry David, a.k.a. I just remember it didn’t last very long. There must have been some money involved. Should I mention his name? I don’t even know - my friend Frank Piazza. I would say there was only one other person involved.
Larry David, writer of “The Contest”: I can’t believe I have to discuss this at my ripe age. Actually, no: Technically it all started when Larry David made a bet while living in New York in the 1980s and proved he was master of his domain. When it was rerun on April 29, 1993, with the series having moved to its new post- Cheers Thursday night time slot, 28.8 million people tuned in, making it the third-most-watched program in America that week.Īnd it all started with George Costanza’s ill-advised decision to pick up a Glamour magazine while he was at his parents’ house. The first time “The Contest” aired, it was viewed by 18.5 million people, according to Nielsen. Suddenly, this was becoming a show you had to see if you wanted to get the jokes your co-workers were repeating in the break room the next morning. More importantly, it was the episode that got people really talking about Seinfeld. It’s also the first episode to feature Estelle Harris as Estelle Costanza, George’s mother, a role that would become more prominent in subsequent episodes and prompt Jerry Stiller to join the cast as George’s father, Frank. It is a significant episode in the show’s history for numerous reasons, including the fact that it won an Emmy Award for its writing, by Larry David a Directors Guild of America award for its directing, by Tom Cherones and was the buzziest episode in the only season of Seinfeld that ever received an Emmy for outstanding comedy series. Famously, the bet and its ramifications were discussed extensively throughout the half hour, without the word masturbation ever being uttered. That episode was called “The Contest,” and pitted its four principal characters, Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), George (Jason Alexander), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Kramer (Michael Richards), against each other in a battle of wills to see who could abstain from masturbating for the longest period of time. Twenty-five years ago, on November 18, 1992, the quintessential episode of the quintessential New York sitcom, Seinfeld, aired on NBC for the first time. In celebration of New York Magazine’s 50th anniversary, this weekly series, which will continue through October 2018, tells the stories behind key moments that shaped the city’s culture.
0 kommentar(er)
