Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…I don’t know. I just felt that those characters were, in some respects, versions of me despite their exaggerated bad tendencies. Maybe that’s it. George Costanza, Jason Alexander, I’ve always felt is one especially attractive man—short, balding, kind of chubby, Jewish. I do see a lot of the Larry David coming through there. We see more Larry David on Curb, and I do like that a lot, even when I’m cringing. I think Curb Your Enthusiasm is funnier than Seinfeld. It’s more willing to be dark. Jerry is a character. I think he’s a good straight man in the old Abbott and Costello sense, but I don’t find him funny, in fact. It’s mixed. I don’t think about the funny part. I just try to enjoy it. If you try too hard to understand something—it’s like explaining a joke—doesn’t make it funnier. I just enjoy the thing. It only took me a long time to enjoy Monty Python. Even on the way here, I saw, I think, a vertical format video from, I think, it’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A peasant woman was explaining to King Arthur that just because some “tart” threw him a sword, that didn’t make King Arthur divinely appointed. That was, in retrospect, really funny, not necessarily topical.…

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