Larry David's TV career might have ended way back in 1985 if it hadn't been for Kramer.

That would be the real Kramer - David's then-neighbor Kenny Kramer, who gave David some timely advice that saved his job and, possibly, paved the way for David's two landmark sitcoms, "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

David tells the story tonight in a rare interview on HBO's "On the Record with Bob Costas" (11:30 p.m.).

David, whose series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is on HBO, was a writer at "Saturday Night Live" during the 1984-85 season. He tells Costas that one evening, just minutes before a broadcast of "SNL" was set to begin, David became fed up with executive producer Dick Ebersol, who had cut one of David's sketches for the fourth consecutive week.

David angrily quit and walked out. On the way home, he began to regret his rash decision.

"I remember thinking halfway [home] that it wasn't such a smart thing to do and I start adding up the money that this little move is costing me," David tells Costas.

"I go home and start talking about it with my next door neighbor, Kramer - the real Kramer - and he was a creative guy when it came to schemes and things like that. He said, 'Well, you know what you should do, you should just go back and pretend the whole thing never happened.'

"I said, 'Geez, that's an interesting idea. It never happened.'

"Monday morning I go back into the office, they're having a meeting. I take a seat and [Ebersol] never looked at me, never said a word to me, the writers were looking at me like I was out of my mind, but there I was back at work."

The rest is history. Not only did David go on to create "Seinfeld" with his pal, Jerry, but he adapted the quitting story for George Costanza, who told off his boss and quit Rickbar Properties in Episode 12 of "Seinfeld" ("The Revenge," 1991), only to return the next day as if nothing happened.