Larry David Played A Kung Fu Rabbi in This 'Saturday Night Live' Knockoff
Larry David could have had a bright future as an action-comedy hero if a certain Saturday Night Live clone had survived long enough to make its own sketch-to-movie adaptations — after all, Enter The Matzoi: The Movie couldn’t have done that much worse at the box office than MacGruber.
The legendary Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm creator’s brief career in sketch comedy is best remembered for his Saturday Night Live era, during which David quit the show in a fit of rage halfway through his first and only season before returning to work the next day as if nothing had happened. David’s SNL antics formed the basis of one of the most iconic Seinfeld episodes ever with “The Revenge,” but it wasn’t David’s first memorable and slightly disastrous brush with televised sketch comedy. In his first-ever TV comedy job, David served as a staff writer and cast member on ABC’s short-lived late-night sketch show and failed competitor for Saturday Night Live titled Fridays, which ran from 1980 to 1982.
Don't Miss
On an early episode of Fridays, David played an ass-kicking, matzah-splitting rabbi and martial artist in a parody of kung-fu films called “Enter the Matzoi,” written and directed by future Curb Your Enthusiasm director Tom Kramer. And it’s pretty, pretty good:
Before Fridays, David was just a New York stand-up waiting for his big break while working the odd job here and there, including stints as a store clerk, a limousine driver and a historian, using his history degree from the University of Maryland. Fridays represented David’s big-ish break, and the project also marked his first collaboration with fellow cast member and future Seinfeld star Michael Richards — though they wouldn’t work on a true hit together until the end of the decade.
With Fridays, ABC attempted to crib some of the success that NBC was seeing the following night, even copying SNL’s slate of hosts — just as he had done with Saturday Night, stand-up legend George Carlin served as the inaugural host of Fridays, followed by familiar faces belonging to Andy Kaufman, Billy Crystal, William Shatner and Mark Hamill. The show tended to be more dramatic than its NBC counterpart, with characters delivering serious, emotional monologues before the punchline of the scene broke the tension. Fridays also leaned into the rock music scene of its time, attempting to woo punk rockers and proto-metalheads with both the content of the sketches and their musical guests, though it failed to court much of any audience before ABC canceled it after three seasons on the air.
When Fridays bit the dust in 1982, Dick Ebersol attempted to recruit his competitors’ entire cast in order to expand the conquering SNL’s ranks, though most of the actors declined the invitation. David, predictably, had no qualms switching sides to the winning team — only he, Kevin Kelton and Rich Hall ended up jumping ship. Then, after less than one season under Ebersol’s thumb, David dipped out.
Considering how David’s brief SNL tenure ended, clearly Fridays and “Enter the Matzoi” were the Curb creator’s best sketch work. Maybe ABC can strike a deal with David and subtly slip Fridays back into their schedule while pretending that they never pulled the plug.
