For Paid Subscribers Only: SEINFELD composer Jonathan Wolff talks about getting yelled at by Larry David
Hopefully by now you’ve had a chance to read both parts of my interview with Seinfeld music composer Jonathan Wolff, but if you haven’t, why not go take care of that right now?
At the end of Pt. 2, Wolff closed with a great line about Steven Weber being the one guy who actually likes Larry David’s movie Sour Grapes, but that wasn’t actually the end of the Sour Grapes conversation…although it was close to it.
"I think Larry, with all his money, bought out all the video copies of it, just to get it out of there," said Wolff, laughing. "He thought that would erase it from the planet. He had no idea that streaming was coming along! But my favorite part of Sour Grapes… Larry had me create - again, another fake production - a Friends-type show. So I wrote a Friends-type main title for it...also sung by my music editor, Jack Diamond! And it came off pretty well, I thought. And then they built a main title around it, based on my theme song. So that was kind of fun, that I got to write that fake theme song for a terrible, terrible movie."
We pick up the conversation from there…and when I say “conversation,” it’s actually just Wolff talking. But, hey, as Roger Ebert famously wrote, if you let people talk, they are apt to say anything…and Wolff delivered not one but two great Larry David stories!
I think I worked with Larry one more time after Sour Grapes, but it was something that wasn't for broadcast. But after that, Curb Your Enthusiasm started up as I was facing the door to retire, and Larry - who everybody acknowledges now that he's the genius that he is - is not always easy to deal with. That character on Curb? Not a character. [Laughs.] That is how he goes through life: he likes to pick fights. When it's your turn in the barrel, you just have to hope it goes by quickly or deal with it or accept it, because he's a pro and you're not. He does it all the time, all day long. So it was not always easy dealing with him. But more importantly, I was ready to retire, and my business model rested squarely on major networks. Prime-time. Because that's where the royalties are, and my entire business plan was based on earning royalties so I could retire. Curb is not on a major network, so it didn't really fit my profile, so I didn't really talk to him about it.
And then I started receiving materials from the production office. I started getting schedules and lists and shooting arrangements and whatever from Curb Your Enthusiasm! And I called my lawyer, and I said, "Do you know anything about this?" "Nope." And no one had hired me. I was like Paul Shaffer on Square Pegs: he didn't know he was supposed to be working on that show! [Laughs.] But when they started sending me cuts - actual 3/4 videotapes, which is proprietary property, you need a non-disclosure agreement to watch those things...not for me, but for them! - I did what nobody ever wants to do: I called Larry David.
"Larry, it's Wolff! Man, your show looks really good, I've got a couple of rough cuts of it here. Thank you for sending those over. I'm really proud of you. You've got another hit show on your hands. But listen up: I'm retiring. I'm leaving. I'm not gonna be here to share this success with you. So let me hook you up with a music person instead of me!" And he went to the gray area. "No! What are you saying? No, no, no! It's okay!" As you know, if you watch Curb, Larry owns the gray. It belongs to him. If it's black or white, he avoids it and rolls his eyes. But if it's in a gray area, he will take advantage of it and reach out and claw back all the other ground. So he did that in that conversation, so I had to go to black and white:
I said, "I hope this is not offensive to you, but just so we're clear, I am not the Curb Your Enthusiasm composer. I am never gonna write another note of music for you, Larry. You and I, we are happily finished."
And he paused for a moment...and he said, "What? You thought I was gonna hire you?! I wouldn't hire you! You're a hack!" `I said, "Okay, well, I'm glad we agree on that. What do you want me to do with all these materials you sent to me for Curb?" And he hung up. [Laughs.] So I at least got to end my professional relationship with Larry on a happy note: with him yelling at me.
It was not the first time he yelled at me. He yelled at me early on. I think it was...just before season two, maybe? There was a meeting at the network, and my relationship with NBC was strong. I'd worked on 17 series and done 14 themes for NBC during Warren Littlefield's era, so I was solid with them. I wasn't worried about it. But they had concerns about the music for The Seinfeld Chronicles, which had not yet changed names, and they wanted a meeting with Larry and our boss, Glenn Padnick. And we were there with a bunch of network suits and Warren and Larry and Jerry and I and Glenn, and they knew I was only there for one reason, so they put that at the top of the list so that I could leave afterwards.
But they had concerns about the music. "What is that? What is that instrument? Could we not afford real musicians? It's distracting, it's weird, it's annoying..." And Larry - who's having none of it, he's just off to the side, not even looking at them, pretending to be writing something - he perks up when he hears them say that it's annoying. [Laughs.] He likes that! And I said, "Guilty. It is all of those things, and with intent. It is supposed to capture your attention and serve as a sonic brand, recognizable from anywhere in the house. With your head in the refrigerator, you're gonna hear that sound and go, 'Ooh, that's Seinfeld!' And the Pavlovian response will be, 'I love that show!'" And NBC still wasn't having it.
So I huddled with Larry and Jerry and Glenn, and I said, "Listen, guys, there's a long list of things he's gonna bring up. Fight your battles that you have to. I'll change the music. Nobody's seen this show yet anyway. It's easy for me to do. Jerry, you were with me in my studio the day I created it. No problem. No offense taken." I wasn't offended...but Larry was.
Larry was mad at me! [Laughs.] Not at NBC. They're just doing their jobs, giving him notes. He was mad at me for even suggesting that we would cave on this. Not that he loved the music so much. He just didn't like being told what to do! So he starts yelling at me: "Wolff! Shame on you! Get out! Get out! You're done here! You're through! Leave!" And I looked at Glenn, and Glenn shrugged and kind of said, "Look, Larry, I'll go to the mat for anything you feel strongly about." And he kind of nodded to me that I could leave. I didn't know if that meant I got fired! But what it meant was that Larry was going to fight 'em over the music so that I could stay in the picture. There was probably never a chance that I was gonna get fired, because Warren and I had a good relationship, and I would've just created another theme for it. But I'm really glad that the hero of that story is Larry David.