Why is Kenny Kramer suing Fred Stoller? Is this a nuisance suit? Does Kenny Kramer have a character that can be defamed? Is Kenny Kramer a bully? We talk with Comic Fred Stoller.
Seinfeld’s Kenny Kramer Sues Comic Fred Stoller For $1 Million
Tag: Seinfeld
Larry Charles
On today’s show the brilliant writer Jerry Stahl fills in for David while he’s away in Washington hanging out and recording the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Jerry’s guest is his old friend Larry Charles, who’s credits are so long and varied that we might break the internet listing them all here. But here’s a few: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Bruno, Entourage, Seinfeld, Borat…the list goes on and on.
Larry Charles is best known as a staff writer for the American sitcom Seinfeld for its first 5 seasons, contributing some of the show’s darkest and most absurd storylines. He has also directed the films Borat, Religulous, Brüno, and The Dictator.
Although series co-creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld wrote the bulk of the show’s episodes during the first five seasons, Charles was their second in command during this period. Charles had met Seinfeld co-creator Larry David when he was part of the writing staff of the ABC sketch show Fridays, on which David and Michael Richards were also part of the show’s ensemble cast. Charles had been unable to write for the show’s first season, as he had been writing for The Arsenio Hall Show during its production.
Charles is noted for contributing some of the show’s darker storylines and scenes. In the season 2 episode “The Baby Shower” Charles wrote a dream sequence in which the title character, Jerry Seinfeld, was killed. Charles’ episodes also covered such controversial topics as Nazis (in “The Limo”), a psychotic stalker (in “The Opera”) and a hospital patient committing suicide (in “The Bris”). A season-two episode he wrote, “The Bet”, concerning Elaine buying a handgun to protect herself, was never filmed because NBC, some of the cast and the show’s director felt the gun content was too provocative. Charles claimed that his writing on Seinfeld was heavily influenced by Dragnet, Superman and Abbott and Costello.
Charles said he was instrumental in the development of Cosmo Kramer; he felt that “Jerry and George were so well-defined through Larry David and Jerry, that there was less room for me to, sort of, expand on those personas. But Kramer was very unformed at the beginning of the show and it gave me an area of creativity to, sort of, expand upon. So I spent a lot of time with Kramer because he was a character that I could have an impact on in the future of the show”. It was Charles who imbued in Kramer a distrust of authority (especially in his episodes “The Baby Shower” and “The Heart Attack”), and who created the character of Kramer’s notorious unseen friend Bob Sacamano, after his real-life friend of the same name
Kramer Versus Stoller
Comic Fred Stoller is being sued by Seinfeld’s Kenny Kramer for one million dollars. Fred Stoller author of “My Seinfeld Year” stops by with his lawyer, David Pierce, to talk about what it’s like getting sued by Kramer. Think Progress’ Hayes Brown has been looking into Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea and tells us what he’s uncovered. Plus a new study shows that 50 percent of all black men in America and 40 percent of all white men in America will be arrested by the time they’re 23. Dr. Robert Braim, criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, is the lead author of the study and he tells us what’s going on with our police. Please subscribe to our show for free as a podcast on iTunes and Stitcher and give us a great review.
2 Mad Men Comedians
David was in a horrible mood until he realized his guests Cathy Ladman and Brian Scolaro both appeared on Mad Men. Cathy Ladman is a Jewish American stand-up comedian, television writer, and actor. She was featured in her own installment of HBO’s One Night Stand comedy series, and has been a guest on The Tonight Show on nine occasions. She has had numerous supporting roles in films like Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (1991), My Fellow Americans (1996), and White Oleander (2002), and two Mike Nichols films: “What Planet Are You From? (2000)” and Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), as well as TV shows like Roseanne, Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, Caroline in the City (in a recurring role), and Everybody Loves Raymond. She won an American Comedy Award for Best Female Stand-Up Comic in 1992.
Ladman’s comedy is self-described as “self-probing, anxiety-venting vehicle” for “exposing personal neurosis”. She is currently working on a new solo show, entitled, Does This Show Make Me Look Fat? In 2007, she was featured in the Off-Broadway production J.A.P. – The Princesses of Comedy, which included live standup routines by four female Jewish comics juxtaposed with the stories of legendary performers from the 1950s and 1960s, Totie Fields, Jean Carroll, Pearl Williams, Betty Walker and Belle Barth.
Brian Scolaro (born October 18, 1973 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn) is an American comedian, actor, voice actor.and producer. He is most known for his half hour special on Comedy Central and his roles on FOX’s “Stacked” and TBS’s “Sullivan and Son” and NBC’s “Three Sisters.”
He first established himself as a stand up comedian in Manhattan and appeared in Montreal’s Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in 1999. He was hired by writer Steve Koren (Click, Bruce Almighty, SNL, Seinfeld) to be a regular cast member on a pilot for NBC “Everything But the Girl” with Tiffani Amber Thiessen. He moved to Hollywood to be a regular cast member on NBC’s Three Sisters. He then shot an ABC pilot by director Tom Shadyack (Ace Ventura, Nutty Professor) called “Platonically Incorrect”. After a holding deal with CBS, he was cast as Stuart Miller for both seasons on Fox’s Stacked. He was also cast as a recurring character Doug on the first season of TBS’s “Sullivan and Son”. He also has played numerous characters on HBO’s “The Life and Times of Tim”.
Since then he has acted on AMC’s Mad Men, TNT’s Men of a Certain Age, Showtime’s Dexter, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place, NBC’s “GO ON”, and the film “The Brothers Solomon.”
His half-hour special Comedy Central Presents: Brian Scolaro premiered in January 2009. He has done stand up comedy Late Nite with Conan OBrien, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Comedy Central’s “Live at Gotham”, and ABC’s “Comics Unleashed.”
His production company, Voodoowop Pictures, was formed in Brooklyn in 1996 with his college friends and their short films See That Guy and Something were featured respectively at Chicago’s Angelciti and Hollywood’s Show Off Your Short Film Festivals. His production company is available on YouTube. And their webseries “Hitman” was picked up by Atomic Wedgie TV and their webseries “Legend Hunters” remains a popular series on YouTube.
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Today’s featured songs: “Man Out Of Time” by Elvis Costello. And Macarthur’s Park sung by Richard Harris.
Michael McShane
Michael McShane talks The Bard. With Laura House and movies with Michael Snyder. Michael McShane is known to American and British audiences from the hit series Whose Line Is It Anyway? One of his larger TV roles was as Kramer‘s nemesis Franklin Delano Romanowski(FDR) on Seinfeld. He also had a cameo role as a doomed hypnotherapist in the film Office Spaceand played the friendly scientist, Professor Keenbean, in the 1994 movie Ri¢hie Ri¢h as well as Friar Tuck in “Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves”. He also co-starred with Sir John Geilgud, Emily Watson and Rosemary Harris in “A Summer’s Day Dream” for BBC “Performance” series.
In 1995, McShane starred as Harley in the BBC Screen Two TV Movie Crazy For A Kiss, about a young boy who is sent to a mental institution for teenagers in Kansas. Touted as being somewhat biographical of McShane’s childhood, the film has never been released on video or DVD. McShane appeared in Tom and Huck as Muff Potter and on Brotherly Love as the experienced but wisecracking mechanic, Lloyd.
He provided the voice for Cid in the video games Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2.He appeared in Tower of Terror, a TV movie based on the Disney attraction as “Q” along withSteve Guttenberg and Kirsten Dunst. He had also appeared with Tony Slattery in the comedy sketch show S&M, starred with Sandi Toksvig in the sitcom The Big One, and provided voice work in the anime Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, as D’s sarcastic possessed left hand. He also provided the voice of Detective Twitch in the HBO animated series Spawn. Other voice work by McShane includes the characters of Tuck and Roll, the twin pill bugs in A Bug’s Life and the video game of the same name in 1998,he also provided the voice of Shalulu in Disney’s redub of Castle in the Sky. He also portrayed Baron Rakan Harkonnen in the 2001 strategy gameEmperor: Battle for Dune.
He also voiced Rabbit’s dastardly neighbour Wolf in Granada‘s Don’t Eat the Neighbours,Thunderpig, several characters in Clerks: The Animated Series, Hands in the Disney film Treasure Planet, a Mountain Man in King of the Hill, Quozmir in Dave the Barbarian and Rumpelstiltskin inHappily N’Ever After.
He also narrated several episodes of Animated Tales of the World. In 2003, McShane underwentgastric bypass surgery, losing a significant amount of weight. In 2005 he made an appearance as Dr. Phelps in Malcolm in the Middle. In 2006 he was in a production of Talk Radio directed byStewart Lee, with Stephen K. Amos, Phil Nichol. It was the first dramatic production in the Udderbelly, a performing space housed in a giant, inverted purple cow.
McShane appeared as the voice of Audrey II (as well as playing a number of peripheral characters) in the London revival of Little Shop of Horrors at the Menier Chocolate Factory inSouthwark between December 2006 and February 2007. The show was a critical success and was sold out for the duration of its run, and Mike had been contracted to continue in the role following the show’s transfer to the West End at the Duke of York theatre. In September 2007 he took part in the British Library’s celebration of Jack Kerouac, reading excerpts from On The Road on the 50th Anniversary of its publication.
In 2008, McShane appeared as a guest performer in Paul Merton’s Impro Chums, a live improv show, and was asked to join the permanent company for three UK tours, and is still ongoing with the group. and as Dr. Vaabit in episode 5 of BBC’s Sitcom Lab Rats,[5] and has appeared twice on the BBC radio programme Just a Minute. In 2012, Mike wrote and starred in, along side Suki Webster, a play called “Mon Droit” based on the incident of the discovery of a body in St. James Park in London. The deceased was an American with a psychological condition known as De Clerembault’s Syndrome, and believed he was receiving messages from Queen Elizabeth the Second to come and be her paramour. It was received favorably, and Mike was nominated for Best Actor by The Stage magazine.
In September 2012, McShane appeared as the character Grayle in the television series Doctor Who in the series 7 episode “The Angels Take Manhattan.” In November of 2012, Mike starred as a CIA military consultant in the new BBC Three comedy series, “Bluestone 4-2”. In February of 2013, Mike created the role of Louis B. Mayer in the new musical “The Tailor Made Man” at The Arts Theatre in Londons’ West End, garnering rave reviews.
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Fred Stoller
Fred Stoller is the author of “Maybe We’ll Have You Back: The Life Of A Perennial TV Guest Star. Fred has played the annoying schnook in just about every sitcom you’ve seen on TV—Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Scrubs, Hannah Montana, My Name Is Earl—and was even a staff writer for Seinfeld, but he’s never found a solid gig. When it comes to Hollywood, it’s a case of always the bridesmaid and never the bride, except in his case he’s always the snarky waiter, the mopey cousin, or Man #2.
This hilarious and bittersweet rags-to-rags story of the hardest-working guy in showbiz follows Fred, who started his career as a stand-up comic, from set to set as he tries to find a permanent home for his oddball character. With candor, Fred shares stories of his great adventures pounding the Hollywood pavement, including a humiliating encounter with Billy Crystal, a disastrous one-night stand with Kathy Griffin, and plenty of awkward run-ins at craft service tables. And he always shares his ups and downs with his skeptical yet loving mother waiting by the phone in Brooklyn.
Everyone can relate to searching for a dream job or their next big break, and will root for Fred as he weaves his way through the cutthroat world of Tinseltown.
Plus David tells the truth about missile defense.
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