Here's Why Larry David Left 'Seinfeld' Before the Show's Final Seasons

Without a doubt, Larry David is one of TV's most prolific writers and producers. He created Seinfeld, which ran for nine seasons, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, which has 12 seasons to date. He has written, acted in, and produced numerous other projects.

It has been over two decades since the last episode of Seinfeld aired, but the show continues to be adored by fans. With great acting and jokes that still get laughs today, Seinfeld is a testament to the massive talent of its creators, and Larry and Jerry Seinfeld.

The two comedians created one of the most-watched shows in the history of broadcast television. However, Larry didn’t work on the show through its entire run. So, why did Larry leave the show only to return for the final season?

Larry and Jerry created the TV show Seinfeld while working in New York as standup comedians. The sitcom debuted on NBC in 1989 and after a rocky start, the series took off and became one of television's highest-rated shows of all time. Larry was even nominated four times for Emmy Awards for his writing on the show and won on one occasion, for the episode titled “The Contest.”

But despite being the head writer and showrunner of the No. 1 show in America, Larry decided to step down from his position after the show’s seventh season.

In a 1998 interview on Charlie Rose, Larry talked about his departure from the show. "I'd been there for seven years, and that's a long time to suffer the way I do in my daily life," he joked, "And seven years is a long time for someone to executive produce a show like that." When asked if he was burnt out, he insisted he wasn't. He said, "It wasn't burnout, I had plenty of ideas... I just felt that I had done that, and now I was ready to try something else. And that's pretty much it."

However, Jason Alexander, the actor who played George Costanza, remembers things a bit differently. According to Jason, the main reason Larry left the show, although he remained on friendly terms with the cast and crew, was that he became too stressed out by the pressure of having to produce better material for each subsequent season.

On WTF With Marc Maron (per Uproxx), Jason explained, “[Larry] always saw the doing of Seinfeld as a very stressful thing. If it broke, it was going to be he and Jerry that broke it, but I think he took on more of that responsibility.”

After every taping, “He’d go [in a Larry David voice], ‘It can’t be done again! That’s it! It can’t be done!” Jason told Marc. There was a rumor as well as a running joke on set that Larry would threaten to quit after every season and Jerry would have to talk him back into staying.

Although Larry left the day-to-day running of the show after Season 7, he continued to be the voice of George’s boss, the fictionalized George Steinbrenner, through the end of the series. Larry also returned to Seinfeld to help write the two-part finale in Season 9.

While on his hiatus from the show, Larry wrote and directed the movie Sour Grapes, about a friendship that falls apart after one wins the slots with a quarter he borrowed from the other.

The movie didn’t do very well and even Larry made fun of the box-office disaster in his HBO show, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Larry wrote on 19 episodes of Saturday Night Live and has appeared in 18 episodes so far. He wrote the TV movie Clear History, 53 episodes of Fridays, which was a late-night style show similar to SNL, two episodes of The Original Max Talking Headroom Show, and an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, among other projects. He acted in The Three Stooges and even appeared in an episode of Hannah Montana.

Needless to say, Larry has enjoyed a very successful career.