Larry David Tells Classic Conan He Won Real-Life Seinfeld "Contest"

Seinfeld co-creator Larry David was promoting his original HBO Curb Your Enthusiasm special on Late Night with Conan O'Brien back in 1999 when he explained the origin of the infamous Seinfeld episode "The Contest," where Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and George all had a bet to see who could be "the master of their domain" the longest.

"That was based on something that actually happened to me," David explained. "I just got a little tired of it. It seemed like it was in the air. There was too much of it going on. I wanted out, you know. I wanted out. I didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore. I needed some motivation to get out of that."

Just like George Constanza, he said he won the contest, "but I was weakening in the last couple days." 

Then, in typical Larry David fashion, he eventually veered off into complaining about the entire process of promoting your work on talk shows. "It seems kinda silly. Why? I'm gonna come out here and start talking about this special and people are going to go rushing for their pencils? The whole idea is preposterous. What's the point? I think people will come out here and deliberately not watch after having seen me. I don't see the whole point of it. It seems like it's a bizarro kind of plot."

Then new to the talks show scene, David apparently forgot something he'd planned to say after O'Brien teed him up with a question about celebrity interviews in general. "I know I have an opinion on that, but I just don't know what it is."

The two closed with a conversation aboutDavid's stand-up comedy days, and how he could not take a heckle well at all. "I didn't react to it like a comedian, like to have something funny to say, something witty. I was like (John) McEnroe up there. I would be very tempermental. I would go 'why are you saying that stuff to me?! I'm a sensitive person! You can't talk to me like that!' I would freak out... I happen to have a terrible temper that's accompanied by no guts, which is also a very bad combination."

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Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.