Hey, this is Dana Schwartz. You may know my voice from Noble Blood, Haleywood, or stealing Superman. I'm hosting a new podcast, and we're calling it very special episodes. A very special episode is stranger than fiction.

It sounds like it should be the next season of true Detective. These canadian cops trying to solve this mystery of who spiked the chowder on the Titanic set.

Listen to very special episodes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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A middle aged electrician is murdered in a quiet Amsterdam suburb. The killing leads investigators into a web of drugs, money laundering, and state sponsored assassinations that stretches from Dublin to Dubai. At the center is a cocaine supercartel and a hidden economic war between democracies and dictatorships. It's the new season of the hit podcast from the Financial Times and Pushkin industries. Hot money, the new narcos listen to hot money, the new narcos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can watch the original episode we'll be discussing in every other episode of HBO's Curb your enthusiasm, including the new and final season on Max. You can also watch the video version of the history of Curb your enthusiasm podcast on Max and YouTube as well. Links available in the episode description.

All right, hi, everybody.

This is the history of curb your enthusiasm, and we are doing the so called pilot special episodes now. The first thing before there was a series. Yes, it was so interesting to watch to me.

Wasn't it fascinating?

And one of the things that I missed more than anything was the music.

Right. Different music cues, different.

I mean, it was a lovely, whimsical little jazz.

No, it was fine.

The thing about the curb music, once we start episode one of season one next week, is it creates the world that. No, it does in a way that I missed.

By the way, most of the music cues are still from the first episode of first season. Like, it didn't get moved or replaced.

And I always felt like, well, we'll talk about it next week when we get to that episode. But the music cues, to me, are a laugh track.

Oh, they can be on the first one on the special.

Yeah.

I didn't dig it.

I just can't believe how much I missed the music on this one.

Well, I didn't miss the music because I was there editing every day, and I was there with the music cues.

Right.

And so I remember that. So it just fit that.

Yeah.

Because the. Right. I went to do a movie once in Toronto. Okay. And Toronto felt like the United States of America, but something was wrong. A sports center. Hockey's the lead story. That alone. But yes, something was. And by the way, we're talking slightly.

And everybody's so much nicer in Toronto. Yeah, way nicer. And that kind of throws me as a New Yorker. Toronto's like, yeah, so, yeah, that's how this felt. I agree with you. It feels like Toronto, this special.

So it's off. But I enjoyed it very much. I wished I could go back in time. And we cut about 15 minutes out of it.

See, to me, what was disorienting about it, watching it. And I think the only time I've seen it was when it first came out.

Right.

Was the back and forth between the reality and the interview.

It was annoying. It was annoying. And by the way, the interviews, all of the interviews were real, except for my character. My character is speaking like he really is.

Giving. Cheryl was not interviewed, if I recall.

No, not.

Yeah.

So it was, to my analogy, she might have been having just watched it a week ago, but I don't remember. And by the way, I have a lot of notes written down. Good luck me remembering half of them. But if you ask questions, I'll get there. I'll remember something.

A couple of things struck me. Okay. The music was one, the other that was so interesting. Is that the basis of the characters of yours and Larry's and Cheryl's, which are really the only characters at that point? It was there. It was completely there, except for one thing.

And this is kind of fascinating. So Cheryl did not like Jeff Green.

Well, yeah, I was going to bring that up.

No, she did not like Jeff Green.

She hated Jeff Green pretty much.

And she couldn't hide her disdain.

Some people just rub you the wrong way.

Yeah.

And.

That'S how I feel about Jeff. I just feel like I'm not sure. He's always thinking about Larry.

And Larry, who is a big bola, brilliant. When he went to the first episode, he completely changed that. He changed that. And Cheryl always, I'd irritate Cheryl sometimes, but she grew to even love my character.

What was the reasoning for that?

No, what I do remember is Larry felt like the show had nowhere to go if that was our relationship. And Carolyn Strauss, who is one of my favorite executives, maybe my favorite executive executive at HBO, at the know.

Yeah.

And believe it or not, that was the one note we got. She wanted more of us.

Conflict.

Yeah, conflict between Cheryl and I. And Larry said, no, it won't work. And he was right.

And he was right.

And back then, I didn't know. I'm like, oh, he doesn't want to do conflict. I didn't think anything of it.

And it was actually a big storyline.

By the way, I don't want to make out like Carolyn Strauss. Pretty much everything she says I agree with. I just want to make that clear. I don't want to make it like she gave us stupid notes. That was the only note. There were no other notes going from the hour to the series. There was no zero.

And what's interesting is Larry, I know in all his Seinfeld years, never took notes. People don't know how unusual that is.

Well, I have my own way of doing it, which is I nod, I listen, I say, that's great. And I never do any of it. But by the way, I'm always open to something being, oh, that's a good idea. But most of them are terrible.

Yeah. And I don't think, Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong. Beyond the pilot episode, I don't think there were any.

No, no. You know what? There might have been, but they were just like the. Yeah, they were nothing.

Yeah.

And I wouldn't be surprised if Larry even did some of them or. Yeah, yeah, you're right, because he respected Carolyn Strauss.

Yeah.

And the feeling of the show is the respect one way or know. HBO respected us. We respected them. However, HBO used to refer to us even during the first season into the second season, this was our name, their little experimental show, because we shot digitally and we were improvising their little experimental show. Well, the little experimental show is now the longest running show and has been in the history of HBO.

Felt that, by the way. We felt that we were not the Sopranos, we were not Sex in the City. We didn't have that kind of budget. We were just kind of, I got a barn, let's do a show kind of a thing. At what point when you were shooting this initial special, did it come up that there was going to be a series?

Okay, the unusual thing about the hour we shot linear. We shot everything in order. So if we were shooting a scene and then we're shooting another scene a block down, and then the next scene's where we're at, we'd go the block, shoot it, come back. Like everything expensive, it adds to the budget, that's for sure. And it's difficult. It's difficult. So the first scenes of Larry and I coming in, and he's frustrated that he has to do this. Is this camera going to be here? He's doing that. Well, we had a little exchange where I thought to myself, boy, this could be something. And that was, he asked me if I want a piece of gum. I said, no, I don't like gum. I don't chew gum. Which is reminiscent of the time later on where we're on a plane where he said, what are you doing? I go, just flying. Nothing. And then, you know what's so funny about that? He didn't like that. And he said, do something different. And I did different things. And then he said to me, no, let's use the one with the thing. So we had this gum thing, and then there was the hallway with the nodding to black people, just giving them his great line is, I want to show them that I'm one of the good ones.

Which made me burst out laughing. And that's how the show is. You hear something you feel like laughing at, laugh. That's not the way tv comedies have worked for a long time. For a long time, someone says something funny, everyone reacts like nothing happened. The closest to it, I would say, is the Andy Griffith show. When Don Knotts would do something, Andy would smile sometimes laugh. To me, that's how it should be.

Right after that elevator scene, when you're coming out of the elevator and I forgot, one of you points to the camera. It was either you or Larry. I don't remember who it was. I think it was you. Acknowledges the camera.

Right.

So that's also something that's completely changed.

Oh, yeah, completely. There is no camera.

There's no camera. There's a fourth wall.

There's a fourth wall. But here's what I'm saying. To answer your question. Yes, we had so much fun doing all that. And then we went into to film the scene of us pitching the show with Alan Wasserman, wonderful actor. And Judy Toll, one of my favorite comedic voices of all time, who passed away a number of years ago. I was close with Judy and my wife of your cast, the show which we talked about in the last episode. And Judy was a close friend of his. But Judy did our show twice. She was also in the wheelchair episode. And she was having a tough time there, but she know of cancer. And we filmed that scene. And even her in that scene, she nailed the typical executive. Is there any tape we could see? And then Larry said, the funny thing of there's no tape anywhere of me. There's nothing anyone can see. And we had so much fun doing that when we walked out of shooting.

That scene, that specific scene, which was very early on.

And by the way, those were the real HBO offices at the time. And when we walked out, Larry said to me, we're supposed standing by these desks sort of away from the set. He said, would this be great to do as a series now? I said, yeah, that would be amazing. But inside my head I actually was saying, yeah, right. We're going to do a series out of it.

Did he pitch it to?

No. Both HBO wanted to work with Larry, but they seen footage they had surrounded Larry like their birds surrounding know I'm losing at a loss. They flocked to Larry. And Larry told me when we talked about doing the show, he said, hbo really wants to do something with me. And he was sort of open to that because HBO at that point was pretty highfalutin. The Sopranos were lifting them up above everybody else, right? So we had fun the whole time. And as we were cutting know, and then afterwards just going, that would be great. We should do this. And I, of course, am not going to argue. Even though I agreed with him, I'm happy to not agree with him on things. But that one, no matter what I'm like, yeah, that would be great.

But you didn't think it was going.

To happen, by the way, even by the last day of filming, I didn't think it was going to happen.

My recollection is when he called me, which I'll talk about next episode, how I got the part, because I'm in the first episode. This had not aired yet when the decision to start shooting it as a series, this special had not aired yet.

Yeah, it's better that it didn't air yet because we didn't get a lot of viewers.

Right.

It was not like a huge success.

Right.

And then even the first season was not.

We built up seasons.

Yeah. We built up slowly to where we started to notice. I can tell you now when we became a hit.

Well, I could tell you anecdotally for me when people started stopping me in the street. Season three.

Okay, what happened? Season three, we followed the Sopranos, maybe a great season of sopranos followed by us. And that went for three or four more years. 90 minutes of. Wow, great work. And I'm talking mostly sopranos, but that was about 90 minutes of television. As good as it gets. Yeah, that was like Saturday night CBS in the 70s with Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and the Carol Burnett show, what people who love the Sopranos were definitely going to love. Curb your enthusiasm, but I'll talk more about that in future episodes when we go.

So the thing that stuck to me about this special was your character was already your character. And I know that character is not you whatsoever. So I want to talk about that, how you created that. Larry's interesting to me because at one point he says, all I do is apologize. People are so touchy, I can't even leave the house. Well, that's the essence of the Larry character.

Very much so.

But his acting was very, very different. He looked like he was about to crack up every single minute.

I think you have that in reverse.

Really?

Yes. I think when he was doing, having been there, I think he was less apt to laugh, as you know now, which I know, which is the great secret of curb your enthusiasm, which is you should really watch when it cuts away from Larry, because generally it cuts away from Larry right before he giggles. Yeah, he just laughs.

But I don't mean that. I mean that in all of his scenes, he has a little smile on his face in a way that now he doesn't. Now he's more in the character in the scene.

What I feel the difference was back then he would go from a smile to really grumpy. So that way you notice them both, whereas now it's sort of a combination of the two.

We'll be right back. Stay tuned.

Hey, this is Dana Schwartz. You may know my voice from Noble Blood, Haley Wood, or stealing Superman. I'm hosting a new podcast and we're calling it very special episodes.

One week, we'll be on the case with special agents from NASA as they crack down on black market moon rocks. H. Ross pro is on the other side. And he goes, hello, Joe. How can I help you? I said, Mr. Pro, what we need is $5 million to give back a moon rock. Another week, we'll unravel a mystery.

It sounds like it should be the next season of true Detective or something. These canadian cops trying to solve this 25 year old mystery of who spiked the chowder on the Titanic set.

A very special episode is stranger than fiction. It's normal. People plop down in extraordinary circumstances. It's a story where you say, this should be a movie. Listen to very special episodes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What up, guys? Ola ketal.

It's your girl.

Cheekies from the cheekies and chill. And dear Cheekies podcasts. You've been with me for season one and two, and now I'm back with season three. I am so excited, you guys get ready for all new episodes where I'll be dishing out honest advice and discussing important topics like relationships, women's health, and spirituality. For a long time, I was afraid of falling in love, so I had to. And this is a mantra of mine or an affirmation every morning where I tell myself it is safe for me to love and to be loved. I've heard this a lot. That people think that I'm conceited, that I'm a Mamona. And a Mamona means that you just think you're better than everyone else. I don't know if it's because of how I act in my video. Sometimes I'm like, I'm a baddie. I don't know what it is, but I'm chill. Chickies and chill.

Hello.

Listen to cheekies and chill and dear cheekies as part of the Tura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What's up, everybody? I'm Dwayne Wade, and I've been blessed to have so many titles so far in my life. But now I'm adding podcast hosts with my new podcast called the why with Dwayne Wade. How did you feel about me in 2006?

Well, there wasn't a lot of love there, I'd say. So. There was definitely some cold times.

As I step into a new phase of my life after basketball, I find myself with new inspirations, new motivations, and new whys. On this show, I will have intimate conversations with some of the biggest names in sports, in music, in entertainment, in fashion, and we will discuss the whys in their lives. Everybody, welcome Rick Ross to the podcast.

My God.

My brother Mello. Lindsay Bond, pal Gasol.

Pat Riley. Dirk, welcome.

Listen to the why with Dwayne Wade on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you can get your podcasts.

Hello, beautiful people. I'm Sayeeda Garrett, Grammy winner and two time Oscar nominated singer songwriter and passionate knitter and now host of my very own show, the Uppity Knitter podcast, celebrity hobies uncovered. Ever wonder how celebrities spend their spare time when they're not on stage or in the studio or in front of a camera? Well, I'm calling all my celebrity friends to come on my show and spill the tea on what they're up to when the camera's not on. Friends like RuPaul. And how about actor and comedian Marlon Wayans? And you'd be surprised to know which female musician and recording artist is also an expert in archery. Tune in to the Uppity Knitter podcast, celebrity hobbies uncovered with me, Saeeda Garrett. For a stitch of inspiration and pearls of laughter, subscribe now on the iHeartRadio app and Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay, we're back.

The number one thing from watching the first special was how good his acting was, because when we were doing it, I thought he was good. But I look and I go, wow. Now looking at it, what a natural.

Agree with that. I just think he's gotten so much better.

Season two, season three. I say to him one day, boy, your acting has grown so much. It's so good. And he took that as an insult. Well, I know he really took that as an insult. And I'm like, man, you're bound to grow. He didn't understand that. He's like, wasn't I good last season? A season before?

But also, whenever I tell him his acting is, I'll watch a season, I'll say, your acting was rated. But I don't consider myself acting. I'm not acting. But he is, of course.

Well, by the way, it's a different style of acting. It's the style of acting that you do and I do, but we are acting. We are completely acting. And like you said, I'm not my character. But that being said, there's a naturalism. That's our approach to acting. I feel as an actor, I'm only as good as the material I'm given. You give me bad material, I'm going to suck up the joint. You give me good material, and hopefully I won't suck up the joint. That's where I'm at as an actor, whereas anything that I do and this. Naturalistic, very naturalistic.

Wow, we're given such amazing things to do.

Can I just say something? Why don't you have a spit thing in front of your microphone? Like the shield?

I don't know.

And then I do. All I'm saying is, was the last time we did it, was there probably.

Were you spitty?

Yeah. Or was I? Maybe my voice is.

So I want to get to.

Did I tell the suit story? I told the suit story last time. No, that I said that I wanted my character to wear suits.

I don't recall that.

Okay, because I just want to ask.

You about the character. So you made up this character of his manager, who was even more clueless in this episode. Did you base this on somebody?

Yes and no.

Because let me just say, you can say the person, Jeff Garland, is extremely erudite and opinionated and throw and thoughtful. Throw and thoughtful. But the character of Jeff Green is like a lug.

Well, overall, the consistency of his character is he would do anything to make Larry happy for his. It's not even his client. We're best friends. And so I just agree. Basically, there's a thing in improv called exploring and heightening where someone says something to you and you send it back to them at a more agreeable level, and then it keeps on going. Well, that's my character consistently, but I don't do a lot of character work. But as I was thinking about it, I go, my character should always be in a suit. Yeah, in a suit. And I told Larry, goes, we're a great idea. And by the way, you'll get a lot of those. Larry. That's how I do Larry. Which he laughs at, but it really doesn't sound like him. But it does. It's like a character. Anyhow, I went into the producer and we didn't have a big budget, and, you know, I think my character should be wearing a suit. And all time a suit and a tie takes a beat, and he goes, why are you saying that you want free suits? I said, no, I can get myself a suit.

I just think that you're wearing. Yeah, look, if you want a free suit. We went back and forth on that, and I just said to him, I said, please get me a couple of suits. And I left the room anyhow, the point being is when I watch that pilot, I'm essentially wearing fabric. There's no cut to the suit. These are $99.

But the suit, I think, is an important character without a doubt, because it separates you. He's the comedian in his casual clothes, and you're the businessman. You're the showbiz guy.

Right.

Let's get to him doing his stand up, because that was the greatest pleasure of this. And every single bit of stand up that he did was something that I had seen him do in the 80s on stage at comedy clubs.

Right.

The two form.

The posse is my favorite.

I love the posse, but I love the Jonas Salk. I remember him.

Jonas, my boy.

Jonas, my boy.

No, but those are classic Larry.

Classic Larry bits.

And that's why comedians love watching Larry. I mean, whoever thinks of an answering machine in the old west, that premise alone, you should go. That's the best premise.

And the beauty of this entire special is you will never see that again. No. And you haven't seen it. He said there's no tape of him, so we haven't seen it before.

That's a time capsule.

Exactly.

No, it's very much him.

Do the stand up.

By the way, when I said I want to cut 15 minutes, the stand up will be the last thing I ever want.

Last thing. Last thing. What would you cut? Would you cut the interviews?

You know what that's like going back and like, if I knew now. Yes, of course. But they served its purpose. And by the way, that thing, this whole thing is a great introduction, but there are scenes where nothing happens and it just goes on and it's not funny. And I've already said to Larry, remember that scene we should have cut that. He agrees with me.

All the was the reason why I loved watching this, even though it was flawed, was because this was the. Well, more than the kernel, more than the colonel. And out of this came the brilliance of what kerb became as a series. And maybe you needed this. Maybe you.

Maybe you didn't. By the way, any pilot of any show in history, the tone is going to be different from the pilot.

That's true. On and every season for people. You could go back and watch pilots, whether it's Mary Tyler Moore or any of the Clemson.

They're all different.

Pilots are completely different than what they ended up being.

More often than not, they air the pilot as the second or third episode because what they shot is better, but they don't want to waste the money of not airing it.

Right.

Yeah, that's true.

Oh, by the way, you mentioned a caricature before. I don't know that anything has ever made me laugh so hard as that caricature of Larry, the drawing.

Okay, can I say something.

Funniest thing ever.

I had that. Now the big one went to Gavin Palone, the one that's on the stage, but the little mockup set. Yeah, I had that, and I don't.

Know where it is. Well, you moved a few times.

No, actually, I moved out of my home.

Yeah.

And I hope it's in the garage. My wife of funny. Well, I have that.

And it is so perfect for him.

To be disgusted by completely. But what also was great acting wise in that episode was the executives, the HBO executives, their acceptance of no, no. Never do. No, no. And then they look the set, the whole set, they bring out, oh, the Seinfeld one.

The Seinfeld set. And I love the enthusiasm of the set designer and showing it.

Susie Nakamura.

Yeah, Susie Nakamura and showing it and thinking it's so all, it's all there. The whole Larry, by the way, is completely there.

Can you think of a funnier reply when you're the guy who created Seinfeld and you mention to someone because he's making a recommendation phone call for a guy who used to be the writer's assistant on Seinfeld, and the executive, he calls, he says, larry David, I created Seinfeld. And the guy responds, never watched it. Not a fan. That's from Larry's brain right there. I mean that, like, never watched it. First of all, how can you not happen to him? Oh, it did. Oh, by the way, I want to say through the history of this show, at least 75%, if not more of things. These things happen.

Interestingly, in the show when they're interviewing Jason Alexander, and Jason tells that story, that he would read the scripts of Seinfeld and he would say, this is ridiculous. Nobody ever behaved that way. And Larry would say, it happened to me. I behaved that way. And it was true.

And by the way, that was the turning point of that character, of that.

Character where he just knew to base George on Larry.

I talked about the audition process last time. Right, with Cheryl. Audition, yes.

Okay. And when we have Cheryl, on, which we will, I want Cheryl to talk about that as well. Oh, speaking of, know, one of my pet peeves, and I know that you're going to agree with me is when Cheryl comes up to Larry after his performance and immediately starts telling him what doesn't work, okay, that is my as a stand up comic, when you just come off stage and your partner or your manager, whoever comes over to you and immediately starts saying, oh, you want to fucking kill them?

Okay, so let's go there.

Yeah.

Yesterday was my two year anniversary with Sari. That's my girlfriend. Yeah, Sari showed up at my gig. She's never done that before. I was pleasantly surprised, and I was happy she was there. But after I was done, she gave me her notes. And now that she'd give you the notes, it didn't even start with, wow, that was a great set. Right into the notes. And the truth is, as comedians, we don't bring our significant others to shows. Like, she'll say, can I go to the comedy store with you? I'm like, no. No one brings their girlfriends, wives, husbands, boyfriends.

Unless you need them to drive.

Yes. But by the way, the only thing that's appropriate that you see pretty often is children, adult children, someone's son or daughter. You see them at clubs. You never see spouses, spouses, any of that, because that's exactly what happens. And other comedians are also on edge tomorrow.

I have trained my husband, who's with me sometimes because he drives, not to say a word, negative to me, only positive. When I first come off, you're so vulnerable. You're so raw.

You're raw. I remember a friend of mine who I was performing with, one of her best friends, came backstage and didn't say anything to me about my show. And I was like, now, by the way, all you got to do is look. Even if you fucking hated it, just look at somebody and go, great show.

Great show.

Fun over. You lied. Who gives a shit? Instead, you don't say anything. By the way, a few years later, I became unbelievably close to that woman. Not in date her, but she was a friend of mine.

Well, no, they don't know.

They don't know, of course.

Which is one of the things, actually, why I think so much of this show works, because we're all stand ups and we have an unsaid understanding of each other that nobody else really understands.

It's amazing that Cheryl fits into. Yeah, because you, me, JB, Richard Lewis, and the two people that aren't are Ted Danson and Cheryl.

Yeah, of course, I didn't exist in the pilot. No, but you were married, by the way.

Ironically, though, I thought of you a lot when we were filming. No, go ahead.

But you were married, cheating on your wife.

So funny you say that. It's like we didn't see my wife. We didn't see anything. And by the way, that I came up, know, I told Larry my idea.

About cheating?

No, about the idea about the show. And I told a genius, and the genius created something that I thank him for every day. But the one thing in this hour, thing that I came up with was the cheating aspect of my character and the whole premise of where he walks through the park, hilarious with my girlfriend, hilarious with the woman I'm cheating with, and even the bar. When I get caught, like now, he laughs at me. Cheating. You really have a.

Marvels at that.

He marvels at it. But then when I pulled it off, he was polite and you can see disappointed.

And that's changed and confused. Very confused by it. Yes. The scene with him walking in the park with Becky and getting caught.

Your wife doesn't know anything about this. I'll tell you more later. I don't want to. Becky thyre, by the way, who I.

Just thought she was terrific.

And Cindy Campanera. Those are two Chicago improvisers. Cindy Campanera going through the park.

And Larry, Cheryl's friend. Yeah.

And Larry explaining over.

Explaining over compensatory is hilarious. No, that is the other thing that struck me hilarious was Larry's clothing style, which is so different than it is now. He was wearing these big, bulky jackets on stage.

I think there was a bulkiness to all of our wardrobe because it was cheaper. If my suits were $99, his were 199. That was the difference.

We'll be right back. Stay tuned.

Hey, this is Dana Schwartz. You may know my voice from noble blood, Haley Wood, or stealing Superman. I'm hosting a new podcast, and we're calling it very special episodes.

One week, we'll be on the case with special agents from NASA as they crack down on black market moon rocks. H. Ross pro is on the other side, and he goes, hello, Joe. How can I help you? I said, Mr. Pro, what we need is $5 million to give back a moon rock. Another week, we'll unravel a mystery.

It sounds like it should be the next season of true Detective or something. These canadian cops trying to solve this 25 year old mystery of who spiked the chowder on the Titanic set.

A very special episode is stranger than fiction. It's normal. People plop down in extraordinary circumstances. It's a story where you say, this should be a movie. Listen to very special episodes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What up, guys? Ola Ketal. It's your girl cheekies from the cheekies and chill and dear Cheekies podcasts. You've been with me for season one and two, and now I'm back with season three. I am so excited, you guys get ready for all new episodes where I'll be dishing out honest advice and discussing important topics like relationships, women's health, and spirituality. For a long time, I was afraid of falling in love, so I had to. And this is a mantra of mine, or an affirmation every morning where I tell myself it is safe for me to love and to be loved. I've heard this a lot. That people think that I'm conceited, that I'm a Mamona. And a Mamona means that you just think you're better than everyone else. I don't know if it's because of how I act in my video. Sometimes I'm like, I'm a baddie. I don't know what it is, but I'm chill cheekies and chill.

Hello.

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On a winter morning in 2015, an electrician is murdered in a quiet Amsterdam suburb. It looks like an assassination, but there's no motive. The killing, it leads investigators into a web of drugs, money laundering, and state sponsored assassinations that stretches from Dublin to Dubai. At the center is a cocaine supercartel and a hidden economic war between democracies and dictatorships. I'm Miles Johnson, and I'm an investigative reporter for the Financial Times. And I've always been interested in the way that crime and business meet. And they always meet because crime is a business in hot money. The new narcos from the Financial Times and Pushkin industries. We're investigating a new breed of drug kingpin who's thriving in a global order that seems to be breaking apart. Listen to hot money, the new narcos, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back. Another thing I want to bring up, because it's mentioned several times in the episode, is he had children.

He did have children. We didn't see his storyline.

He spoke about his children. And was that a conscious, or was it just, he has children in real life, so he had children on the show, because once we started the series.

No children, that was not even a conversation because we didn't know there was something that was going to be strange about him talking about his children. It was like, and by the way, he only had children to say, on.

My children's lives, where are my children?

Yeah. Because he thought of that premise. He has children. Well, first thing that was gone when we were shooting the first, no children.

No children.

No children. No Jeff and Cheryl fighting with each other. And no children.

No children.

And we also know no hugs.

Yeah. Those are the two major changes that I noticed that you and Cheryl were, know, enemies and that there was no children. And then it was pretty much, besides cutting out all the dock style, the colonel was there.

The clay had started to be molded.

Right.

And by the way, I don't know why that's so clever, but the clay had started to be molded, and then first season, molded even more. Even now, we chip off this and do this and do that.

And the thing you mentioned before about the kid who wanted the recommendation, that was the classic curb callback that started the episode in the very beginning, the kid who wants Larry to recommend him for a writing job. And it was almost the last scene.

How it just completely call it classic Curb. I would call it Larry's influences.

Right.

And one of his main influences. And I pointed this out to him, he's like, yeah, Nat Hiken. Nat Hiken created Bill. Yeah. Nat Hiken was a writer who created the show. Sergeant Bilco or what was the other title? Something about you'll never get rich was the other title. But didn't they, car 54, where are you? And those shows, the scripts like Herb and no shows in between. It's like you tap a domino like you'd see on the Tonight show, and the dominoes would go in different directions, and then they would end up at this place that you didn't even know it was going to end up. That's curb.

Yeah.

Every week it starts somewhere, you don't know where it's going, and there'll be closure, but not what you were expecting.

Also, he did that in this pilot, in the special with the guy. With the guy. But what he ended up doing in the series is more than one of those several per episode.

We had no idea we're going to do more. Right. If I thought to myself, I knew it was great to do for my career, the best thing in the world is when you can do things creatively that really help you in whatever ways. But the bottom line for me is always, is it creative and interesting? Not how much money I made.

But you still didn't answer the question, at what point in shooting this did you know that there was a series coming or did you not?

At no point.

At no point. So when you finished this special, still.

It was not until a few months later, before it aired, before it aired where Larry said, I'm going to go talk to HBO about doing this as a series. It was Ari, Emmanuel, myself and Larry on the first pitch. Second pitch was just Larry. Ari may have been there, but I didn't go. There was no need for me to go.

Ari was his agent.

Agent, yes.

Michael Patrick King, by the way, in this episode and tell people who he is. Michael Patrick King has show ran sex in the City.

By the way, I love how you just said, tell people who Michael Patrick King is. And then you go on to tell people. But Michael Patrick King, hold on. I've known Michael Patrick King since I was 20. He had a comedy team, King and Mende. You remember back then? I met him when I was 20 years old and I've known him and developed a friendship. He's one of Marla's. That's my wife of your best friend. I know.

He played Patrick, the HBO PR person. Yes. And he was the showrunner for all those years for Sex in the City.

And showrunner means producer writer.

Producer, writer. And what is it called now? This? Yeah.

He also did the Lisa Kudrow one.

Yeah, but I thought he was amazing in this episode.

Can I tell you something?

He was just brilliant.

The idea that he tells us in the limo, this gossip, and then he mentions Molly Shannon, that she fucked two guys to death, which is absurdness. And then he starts explaining with a big grin on his face. Well, that let Larry and I know, don't trust this guy. Don't trust this guy. And then to me, that was not scripted.

Correct? I mean, that was all.

Yeah. Yeah.

When I say scripted, I mean outlined.

No, so much of it wasn't outlined. That may have been my suggestion. Question to say that Molly Shannon fucked two guys to death.

Either way, the joy that he felt.

In television, oh my God, the smile. He's such a charismatic performer. It's unfortunate that he just writes and produces.

That was the fun of this. There was so many comedians that we came up with. Alan Havey and Mike Reynolds no longer. But just seeing all of these people was very going down memory lane for me.

By the way, Michael Patrick King makes what I think is the best scene of the pilot special by far.

Yes.

Larry David comes down and goes over the bill and he realizes that it's all porn charges. And I get very upset. I go, let me see this. You're not paying for this. And I kept saying, hBO pays for the porn. And I thought, that'll be a catchphrase and not in the moment. But later on when we cut it, I went, wow. And I kept saying it. And then Michael Petrick comes over, goes, what? And I go, doesn't HBO pay for the porn? Pay for the porn? And all he does is goes, oh, HBO pays for the porn. Because you can see him just, he's going to tell people that Larry David watches a lot of porn. But that scene I look at now, and it truly was a classic curb scene.

Totally classic. And people mention that you mentioned that episode, and people say HBO pays for.

The point, without a doubt.

And I think that that was also for your character. Not to be psychoanalytic, but that was one of the keys to your protect your client at all costs.

By the way, if we were doing that scene now, it wouldn't be very different. And by the way, to me, the funniest thing in the scene is at the end of the scene, the button is Larry looking at me and going, shut the fuck up. And to me, that's the hardest I laughed. That's the hardest I laughed. And that's all it takes sometimes, is that little shut the fuck up that Larry David says. And the whole thing.

And by the way, do you know the funniest thing, one of the funniest things that struck me on that was you saying, why do you waste? Why do you waste?

That struck me so, yeah, why do you waste? It is funny.

It's such a thing of our parents. Why do you waste?

Choose the big wasting. But I wanted to say something. You asked me earlier and I realized I didn't address how did I come up with the character? I didn't. I didn't come up with a character. I just did it.

You just did it.

When I say outside of the suits, there was no thought process put into that character at all? Zero. Not even one out of 100.

I'll talk about it next episode, but I pretty much am the same. I came up with how I wanted her to dress and that was it.

Right?

The rest was just.

Well, no, but what I want to say is, yes, because I have a thought on that. But yeah, so I never thought of anything. It just became. And then as I did it the first season, like, maybe towards the end of the season, I went, oh, I know who this reminds me of, but it was organic and I don't want to say, yeah, but it's a person and a manager and an agent all mixed in. Because you'll come up with. Because my experiences with them certainly colored my character. But I know that.

I have a question. When you shot at Caroline's in, you already had you shot the stand up in LA already.

I told you, we shot in order.

In order. Okay.

So if we went to New York.

To shoot something and there was a.

Scene in LA, I could see us flying across the country.

The reason I'm saying that is because I just noticed as a performer, and I know that Larry hadn't performed in years. And I noticed by the time he got to New York how much more comfortable he was on stage.

Very much.

It was really noticeable to me.

And by the way, the show, as I mentioned last, was based on my time helping develop John Stewart's unleavened and Dennis Leary's lock and load. So what I did with them, this is actually embarrassing, yet funny, what I did with John Stewart and what I did with Dennis Leary. I had a different approach with both John. I kind of had to lead him to a way of more performance because he was such a great writer to just how to fill a room. And that's what we worked on and worked on with Dennis, who was much.

More of a performer.

Much more of a performer. And I wanted him to get to the real person that I know. That's what, you know, the stories just let people know the real, not the. So we were filming this special, which I thought there'd be more stand up. Every night after the stand up scenes, we go back to the hotel and I would give him notes on his stand up and he took some and the nodded. And then at a certain point he just looked at me, oh, I don't want to do this anymore. Not the special. He didn't want me to give him notes, which, by the way, 100% right. And they weren't even, like, real. Oh, I can see Larry? There's Larry walking over there. We're on set. We didn't even mention that.

Yeah, we're on set.

Right. We're in El Segundo in an office building. And that's all I can say. Not allowed to say. But Larry David is walking by. And by the way, even if we waved to him, he would never notice. He would never notice.

But he will come on one day when we're not.

One day a today. Yeah, but he's walking along. Was he got a coffee there? Probably a tea.

No.

Wearing his blazer and a blue sweater. Yeah, moving along. He's a Larry David. You all know the other thing.

Also looking at him and looking at you now. And same thing when I watched the first episode of myself, we were so young.

Oh, well, let's talk about that. But just to get back to Larry said, I don't want to do this anymore. And he said he was irritated. And I looked at him and went, yep, we should not be doing this. Why am I trying to help him? Because the reason I did was you show the making of a special and can go either way depending on Larry's mood. When we get to the end, do you want to shoot a real special or do you want to have it end with you saying, I don't want to do a special?

Having seen it now, it's obvious he's never going to do the special.

Without doubt.

It was not obvious the first time I saw it, though. I didn't know. And I was actually looking forward to thinking, oh, I'm going to see more of his stand up.

Well, it wasn't clear to me while we were shooting it, so I approached it like I'm helping him develop, which is good for. It was almost like doing homework to prepare to be better for the scene.

Once that caricature comes down on that big stage and you look at it and the scene with Alan Wasserman telling him about his stepfather, it's just a Funny at the end of it. Yeah, my stepfather, such a great scene, just him getting out of it. And that really sets up the entire series of him getting out of things for twelve seasons.

Yes, but by the way, that's Larry David, though. If you want to know a real version of Larry David, that's it. He loves getting out of things, doesn't want to do them in the first place. By the way, that's my instinct. I have social anxiety to the health amongst my many.

Well, nothing makes me happier than when people cancel. Covid was fantastic. It built an excuse for everything. Yeah.

Cancel, cancel, cancel. It's like that one episode when Larry, because of his mom's death, uses it, an excuse, which is one of my favorite performances. I know, but it's one of my favorite performances. So I'm looking at anything else. By the way, how long?

We've been on for about 40 minutes.

Okay, so let's wrap it up. Let me see if I have any other things. Yeah, no, I want you to include all this. People love when I say, no, stepfather, I'm already at the end seat. Couldn't coordinate. Oh, the stepfather died from hitting a pole.

Yeah, classic Larry, too.

And by the way, to me, the funniest line in the whole episode, not said by me. Not said by Larry. But Judy Toll, who when Larry's explaining about what's going on and they're upset that he's not going to be doing a special.

Were you close with.

No, no, there's no bad people. She says that amongst which is like part of the discussion, yet a complete non sequitur. And the way she said there's no bad people.

But that is an example of a comedy instinct.

Well, she was a great comedian of.

Just knowing and it's a great loss.

No, it know, I learned a lot more what a loss. It was Judy Tull, when I went to her memorial and they showed all this video of her that I'd never seen, and I was like, wow, she was truly a genius.

I hate when funny people die. They can't be replaced.

Well, by the way, you know, the thing about comedians, it's like people may not dig me, people may not dig you, but whatever comedian you do dig, there's a personal connection that cannot be with any actor, any musician, even though people look, it's just with comedians, I don't know what that is because I know I've experienced that when my heroes have passed away.

Well, and what people don't know, or they do, is that you're wearing a Richard Pryor shirt. Right?

I'm wearing a Richard Pryor shirt, which, by the way, go to richardpriar.com. And there are a bunch of stuff, and they're amazing t shirts, including the one I'm wearing. And all the money goes to the Pryor family. It's like their own Richard Pryor enterprise. Whatever it is, I love them. So there you go. So we're good, right?

So we're good. And next episode, we're going to start with the series.

Yeah. Season, season one.

Season one episode.

This was a two parter and then there'll be no more two parters.

Yeah. Coming up, the pants tent.

Oh, yeah. The first episode is the pants tent. I love that.

All right, bye bye, and thank you.

So much for listening. It's so appreciated. For those of you who are listening, for those of you using us as background sounds, that's delightful, too.

Hey, this is Dana Schwartz. You may know my voice from noble blood, Haley Wood, or stealing Superman. I'm hosting a new podcast, and we're calling it very special episodes. A very special episode is stranger than fiction.

It sounds like it should be the next season of true detectives, these canadian cops trying to solve this mystery of who spiked the chowder on the Titanic set.

Listen to very special episodes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What up, guys?

Ola catal.

It's your girl cheekies from the cheekies.

And chill and dear cheekies podcasts. And guess what? We're back for another season. Get ready for all new episodes where I'll be dishing out honest advice, discussing important topics like relationships, women's health, and spirituality. I'm sharing my experiences with you guys, and I feel that everything that I've gone through has made me a wiser person. And if I can help anyone else through my experiences, I feel like I'm living my godly purpose. Listen to cheekies and chill and your cheekies on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A middle aged electrician is murdered in a quiet Amsterdam suburb. The killing leads investigators into a web of drugs, money laundering, and state sponsored assassinations that stretches from Dublin to Dubai. At the center is a cocaine supercartel and a hidden economic war between democracies and dictatorships. It's the new season of the hit podcast from the Financial Times and Pushkin industries. Hot money, the new narcos. Listen to hot money, the new narcos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Sarah Jakes Roberts, host of the Woman Evolve podcast. You may also know me as a pastor, author, wife, mother, businesswoman, and leader. Women are shattering glass ceilings that once limited their ability to dream, grow, and change the world through honest conversations, sermons, and interviews with other dynamic women. My goal is to empower our women around the world to elevate to the best versions of themselves. So, girl, get up. Listen to the Woman Evolve podcast with Sarah Jakes Roberts every Wednesday on the Black Effect podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.