The Real-Life Influence Behind George Costanza’s Quitting Job Bit On Seinfeld

In the episode “Seinfeld” “The Revenge” (April 18, 1991), George (Jason Alexander) was fed up with his boring office work and wants to leave. More specifically, George is indignant by the fact that he was excluded access to the executive toilets of his business. He burst into his boss’s office at the start of the episode and made a wrathful tirade on how his boss, Mr. Levitan (Fred Applegate), is a talent -free piracy and that he has no thought in his head. George shouts: “I left!” And match in a angry way.

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He will then immediately see his friend Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) to talk about his potential job prospects. He doesn’t have one. George has no talents or interests. He thinks lazily about what he could be a sports advertiser, although he has no experience in broadcasting. Jerry convinces George to return to the office on Monday and claim that nothing had happened. Go to work, and it would be as if he had never left. He was only joking! He just has a strange sense of humor!

Of course, the plot does not work, and George is invited to leave the office up to the task.

It turns out that “revenge” was based on a true story. It was a recreation of the time that the co-creator of “Seinfeld” Larry David left his job as a writer for “Saturday Night Live” in 1984. David, exasperated in the way the season ’84 -’85 went, leaving angrily, which makes it explicit that he would not return. David regretted it, however, and decided to come back anyway, hoping that no one will notice his tirade. Unlike George, David’s plan worked. He talks about the experience on the special characteristics of “Seinfeld” DVDs.

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(Incidentally, All “Saturday Night Live” is on Peacock.)

“The Revenge” was the first “Seinfeld” episode that David wrote without collaborator. On “Seinfeld” DVDs, he talks about his experiences in “Saturday Night Live” and repeated history On “The Late Show with David Letterman” in 2007. Obviously, David was angry because none of the sketches he wrote was going to the air. He decided to approach one of the producers of the show, Dick Ebersol – barely five minutes before an episode begins to turn – and said: “That’s it! I’m finished! I’m taking it! Take your show, push it!” He then returned home, recalling that it was a mistake. As he remembered:

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“While I go home, I start to calculate the amount of money I had just cost me. And then I went to see my neighbor, who was Kenny Kramer, the character that the show [version of Kramer] was based on, and he said to me: “Well, why don’t you go back on Monday and claim that it never happened?” I thought: “Hey, you know, I think you have something there!” So I entered Monday, and it worked! “”

David was very candid on how the character of Cosmo Kramer (played by Michael Richards in the series) was based on his sticky neighbor, Kenny. When the time came to write the script for “The Revenge”, David decided that Jerry should be the one who invents the “Return to the Office” scheme, not Kramer. He also decided to give his story an unhappy end, because George was not invited to come back. George, eternally terrible (like all “breast” characters), must constantly be punished, Even if he does not learn or never grow up.

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David was able to keep his concert “SNL” until the end of the season. He ended up not having a sketch in the waves this season, and he was placed in the 12:50 p.m. time slot, just at the end of the show, while most of the viewers had already fallen. Not ideal for a budding comedy writer, but it’s just to say that everything worked for him at the end.