Larry David Got His Big Break On A 'Rip-Off' Of SNL

One of the most popular bits of Larry David lore is that he used to work on "Saturday Night Live." In his only season on the NBC show, he famously quit in a huff, regretted it immediately, and returned the next week as if nothing had happened. But before David worked on "SNL," he landed his first big TV gig on the late-night variety comedy show "Fridays."

If you've never heard of the 1980 ABC series, you're not alone. The show had its detractors, including David himself. In the new biography "Emperor of Nothing," releasing on October 20, 2026, author Blake J. Harris recounts how young Larry felt swindled into working on the series. 

"Right away, I realized that this thing was going to be a problem," David said. He recalled that the show hadn't even been given a name when he signed on, only for him to get there and hear everyone calling it "Fridays." As David explained, "I thought it was a joke. You know, 'Saturday Night Live' is on Saturdays, and we're the show that's gonna be on Fridays. So I thought the name was a placeholder ... but then the producers hand out these official binders and it has the name 'Fridays' splattered all over it. I was like, 'What are you doing? That's insane!'" 

Plenty of great sketch comedy shows have premiered in the past 50 years, but Larry David felt that "Fridays" barely tried to be its own thing. "If you're gonna copy a show, try being a little less obvious," David complained. 

The "Fridays" producers originally told the writers that, unlike "SNL," their show wouldn't have a "Weekend Update" equivalent, only to add one anyway. They also told David there wouldn't be a weekly musical guest, only to introduce one, too. "Gee," David quipped, "where'd they come up with that idea?" After 25 episodes, the producers even decided to have a celebrity guest host each week, much to David's frustration.

Steve Adams, another "Fridays" writer, concurred with David that the series had been a "rip-off" of "SNL." The show performed decently in the ratings and helped the perpetually broke David earn a consistent paycheck for the first time in his life, but none of that diminished his disappointment with the show's quality. "I didn't care how many people were watching," David recalled. "I still didn't think it was good." 

Although Larry David saw himself as more of a writer than an actor (to the point where he blew his "Mork & Mindy" audition by trying to improve the script), "Fridays" gave him his first experience with TV acting. One of David's standout characters was Rabbi Feinberg, an Orthodox rabbi who hosts a TV show teaching martial arts. Writer Bruce Kirschbaum praised this performance, noting, "In the years before ['Seinfeld'], if someone recognized Larry on the street, it was probably because they remembered him as the rabbi." 

Despite his complaints about the show, Larry David admitted in "Emperor of Nothing" that it wasn't all bad. For instance, cast member Michael Richards frequently impressed his colleagues with his physical comedy. David would, of course, eventually cast Richards on "Seinfeld" as the oddly-named Cosmo Kramer. 

Granted, Richards didn't always make the best impression on his co-workers. According to several "Fridays" cast members interviewed for "Emperor of Nothing," he had a tendency to undermine other performers' punchlines to make himself seem funnier. They described him as a "selfish" performer, particularly in his sketches with David. "The two of them were at odds a lot," Kirschbaum recalled. "When we found out that Larry had cast Michael on 'Seinfeld,' we were shocked."