Larry David is a master of taking real-life moments and turning them into comic gold. Usually, he chooses the most aggravating moments in his life. This is precisely how he was able to take his terrible experience working at Saturday Night Live and make it one of the most memorable episodes on Seinfeld. But when Larry David and his good buddy Jerry Seinfeld made what's deemed "the most controversial" episode of Seinfeld, Larry picked a very different life experience to draw from.

While other episodes of Seinfeld have been deemed "controversial" including the one with the Puerto Rican Day Parade and even the finale, which even the cast has feelings about, "The Contest" was easily the most risque show when it aired in the 1990s. This is because it dealt with the subject of masturbation... Although, it brilliantly never referred to it as that. Instead, we got brilliant lines like "Are you still master of your domain?" And "I'm queen of the castle".

Here's an inside look at how Larry David was able to get away with this fantastically funny episode of his hit show...

Larry David writing the contest Seinfeld
Vulture and NPR

The Idea For The Episode Was Taken From His Real Life Contest

Yes, Larry David actually competed in the very same masturbation abstinence contest that Jerry, George, Eliane, and Kramer took part in on the 1992 episode of the show. For those who don't remember, the entire episode centered around which of the four of them could hold out without self-pleasure the longest.

While Larry David knew full-well that NBC would have never let him make the episode if they had the heads up, it went down as one of the best in the show's history. The show went on to win an Emmy for writing and it was the only season to win the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series.

It's also the episode that broke Seinfeld into the mainstream, earning 18.5 million viewers when it aired. And after it aired, 28.8 million people tuned in.

And the whole inception of this came from Larry David making a bet in the 1980s, according to an oral history by Vulture.

"I can’t believe I have to discuss this at my ripe age," Larry said when asked about the episode's origin. He then said there was only one other person in the contest with him, and it wasn't his neighbor Kenny Kramer, the man who inspired Cosmo Kramer.

"I wasn’t in [the contest] because I knew I would never win it," Kenny said.

The actual contest lasted only two or three days and then it came to an end... but it was memorable enough to get Larry writing about it.

"By the way, [the concept] was in my notebook for some time and I never even mentioned it to Jerry because I didn’t think there was any way that he would want to do it, and I didn’t think there was any way the show actually could get done on the network," Larry admitted.

But when he finally pitched it to Jerry, a creative spark was lit.

How Did They Get Away With It?

Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld weren't exactly rule followers when it came to their comedy. This is something that NBC eventually liked. But when it came to their broadcast standards, they just couldn't get away with talking about something as sexual as masturbation on network television.

But Larry and Jerry were sure they could do the episode in a way that was edgy but didn't push the envelope too far.

Related: What It’s Like To Be Larry David’s Daughter, According To Cazzie David

In order to get away with this, they didn't even tell the network executives what was in the episode before the table read.

"I remember being nervous because the NBC executives were there. I really had this thing going on in my head where, well, if they don’t like it, I’m just going to quit the show," Larry admitted.

"Larry was going to put his whole job on the line," Michael Richards, who played Kramer, said. "I’ve known Larry since we did Fridays together, and that’s Larry David. If he believes in something, he’s just going to fight for it."

But as soon as the actors started to perform at the table read the laughs were humungous.

George in The contest seinfeld
Decider

"I would glance at [the executives’] faces and they seemed to be enjoying it," Larry explained. "You could sense it was a very special show. Then we all walked back to our office afterward and I think one or two NBC executives were there and they had nothing. They just said, “Very funny.” And I was shocked."

However, Larry and Jerry both admit that if they had tipped off the network executives to their plans before showing them their execution, the show would have been squashed. This is what made Larry leave the show title off their whiteboard of ideas.

"We had this dry-erase board in the office where we would always put upcoming shows on the board," Larry David said. "When the executives would come into our office, they’d go, “Oh, what’s that one about? What’s that one about?” For “The Contest,” I didn’t even put it up on the board because I didn’t want them to ask me about it."

Of course, now NBC claims that it was one of the best episodes in the peak of Seinfeld's best years.

It also inspired a new generation of comedy writers to rework their knowledge of what could be achieved on network television. And, a lot of that had to do with Jerry Seinfeld.

Jerry's Creativity Elevated The Idea

Seinfeld just wouldn't be what it is without the collaborative nature between Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, and their team of excellent comedy writers.

Related: Jerry Seinfeld Says His Comedy Is All Lies

One of the best examples of this is all of the clever euphemisms used instead of the word 'masturbate', which would have royally angered the censors.

"That was Jerry’s idea from the get-go. He said let’s not mention the word. It turned out to be a great idea. I had it in the first draft and he took it out," Larry explained.

Nothing like this had been done on television before. It broke records. Shattered stereotypes. And helped lift Seinfeld into the stratosphere. Quite simply, it was one of the best episodes of one of the best series of all time.

Next: The Real Reason Why Seinfeld Ended