MAKING `NOTHING' SPECIAL; `SEINFELD' CO-CREATOR LARRY DAVID SAYS GOODBYE, AGAIN, WITH A TOUR DE FORCE FINAL EPISODE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

For someone who's made a fortune mining the comic potential of his own crankiness, Larry David is a surprisingly cordial sort.

Maybe success has satisfied him.David has reputedly earned around $100 million from ``Seinfeld,'' the hit sitcom he co-created, executive produced for seven seasons and has now come back to kill. He wrote, with former partner Jerry Seinfeld, the highly anticipated, hourlong final episode of the series, which NBC will broadcast May 14.

Or maybe he's been mellowed by a happy family life that his TV alter ego, Jason Alexander's neurotically unlovable George Costanza, can't even conceive of. David and his wife, Laurie Lennard, have two young daughters, and she produced his recently released feature-film directing debut, ``Sour Grapes.''

Which may be another reason for David's pleasant demeanor, so free of the petulance that not only defines George, whom the writer admits is largely modeled upon himself, but also Jerry, Elaine and Kramer, all of whom he insists have a bit of Larry in them. David left the weekly ``Seinfeld'' grind two years ago in order to make movies, and although ``Sour Grapes'' has so far received a mixed reception, it is clearly the movie he wanted to make - one in which men behave very badly, very eccentrically.

Perhaps more than anything, though, the years of coming up with every petty, selfish, unworthy-of-obsession obsessive gag modern urban man can imagine have had a therapeutic effect.

``Am I the king of venal comedy?'' David, a tall, soft-spoken, gray-what-there-is-of-it-haired New Yorker, says with a hearty laugh. ``I do like to take the worst that a human being has to offer and see if I can make that funny. We all harbor these sick, twisted thoughts. I like to get those thoughts out if I can.

``I mean, they could come out in worse ways. The way I do it, the worst that could happen is you'll waste $7.50 on a movie ticket.''

The final curtain

Of course, David's mordant track record has many people expecting the bleakest of final ``Seinfeld'' scenarios. Speculation is rife that the top-secret last episode kills off the leads or sees Jerry and Elaine marry (to many fans' thinking, a standard sitcom fate worse than death). While not revealing a thing about the plot line, David dismisses those particular speculations.

But remember, this is the guy who ended his first run on ``Seinfeld'' by killing George's fiancee with poisoned wedding-invitation envelope glue. Clearly, this man is capable of anything; and at the time, many interpreted that dark turn of events - outrageous even for the show that built whole episodes around nose picking and making fun of ``Schindler's List'' - as a kind of angry goodbye to NBC censors, his more glamorous partner or whatever other entities it was presumed David held a grudge against.

Not the case, he says. He quit ``Seinfeld'' because it was time to move on, no animosity involved.

``I had worked on the show for seven years, which is certainly a long time for a creator to be involved,'' explains David, 50. ``They usually leave after two or three years, but after seven I was ready for a change. And I was ready to try my hand at doing a movie, so it was time.''

When Seinfeld informed David last summer that he was seriously considering ending the show with this season and wanted to reteam for the finale with his old partner, an unfamiliar sense of nostalgic warmth set in.

``Jerry and I are still friends, and the strongest memories I have from the show are the laughs we had writing together,'' David reckons. ``We're a great audience for each other, and that's been a key element of our success. It frees you up to be your funniest, and it made the collaboration very smooth. There are times when we'll argue for 10 minutes about the way a line should be phrased or something like that, but we never really lost our tempers or anything like that.''

His favorite script

David felt lucky that he had the luxury of time to work on the final episode. Had he still been on ``Seinfeld's'' staff, he'd have had a week, tops, to devote to the script, instead of several months. The well-honed finished product, he says, is his favorite of the whole series.

And he can't imagine why anyone would want to find out what happens in the episode before seeing it.

``I'm amazed both at how many people want to find out and that we're managing to keep it a secret,'' he says. ``Jerry and I both spoke to the audience the night of the final taping (earlier this month), and I basically begged them not to say anything. Nothing could spoil the episode, I say with all due modesty, but it certainly would detract from the enjoyment of it if people knew. A show is always better if you don't know anything going in.''

You know going into ``Sour Grapes'' that it will be a story about selfish, self-defeating characters who will do terrible things to the people they like. It's just how David thinks.

Cousins Richie (Craig Bierko) and Evan (``Wings' '' Steven Weber) go to Atlantic City, where Evan lends Richie two quarters for a three-quarter slot bet. Richie hits the jackpot, but refuses to give his brain surgeon cousin the share of the wealth Evan feels he deserves.

Resentment ensues. Somehow, all this leads to an attempt on Richie's mother's life and the emasculation of a TV star who works on a sitcom that bears a striking resemblance to ``Seinfeld'' knockoff ``Friends.''

Directing his first movie took some getting used to. David had to learn about the camera as he went, and it took a little while to get his big-screen ensemble operating at the crackling rate of TV's Seinfeld, Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards.

But other aspects of making ``Sour Grapes'' were completely familiar. Uncomfortably so, in one instance.

``While we were shooting in this casino, a gambler came by and started criticizing the actors,'' David explains. ``He's like heckling them, and it was like I was back on stage doing stand-up. I attacked the guy, verbally assaulted him. He apologized.''

Stand-up guy

Ah, the real Larry David. Raised in Brooklyn and educated at the University of Maryland, David stumbled into stand-up comedy after failing at a number of jobs (including, like George in a classic episode, bra salesman). David obviously displayed a lot of wit on stage - fellow comics, including Seinfeld, were among his biggest fans - since his demeanor was hardly up to show-business standards.

``It was very traumatic for me,'' he says of being funny in front of a live audience. ``What attracted professional comedians to the likes of me? I suppose they came for two reasons. Firstly, because I made them laugh, and secondly, because they didn't know what was going to happen. I was a bit of a time bomb.''

David found other outlets for his angry humor: a writing (and occasional performing) stint on the ``Saturday Night Live'' copycat series ``Fridays'' (which also introduced Michael Richards), then a frustrating year on the staff of the real ``SNL.'' But when NBC approached Seinfeld with a series offer, he immediately went to his favorite loose cannon.

``We went into a grocery store and started talking about the products,'' David recalls. ``I said, `See, this is funny. We can do a show about this.' ''

David's dark, daring impulses and obsession with the useless details of life went a long way toward making the show about nothing something special. So special, in fact, that David would rather concentrate on movies right now than even think about returning to a regular TV gig.

``I'm not going to say never about television, but it would be very difficult to top what I did,'' he says.

Or to get as much out of it.

`` `Seinfeld' has, obviously, changed my life in ways that I never thought were possible,'' David acknowledges. ``But what it really was was a great outlet for me, in terms of the things I like to say and write.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos, Box, Chart

Photo: (1--2--Cover--Color) Master of his comic domain

`Seinfeld' co-creator Larry David returns from filmmaking to pen the must-see finale.

(3) no caption (Larry David)

Box: Seinfeld Faves

You've watched all the shows, so surely you've formed some opinions. Who, what, when and where were your favorites from ``Seinfeld'' episodes over the past nine years?

Chart: Yadda, yadda, yadda... moola, moola, moola

SEINFELD

SOURCES: Nielsen, Ad Age, NBC, KRT Faces in the News; research by PAT CARR

Lee Hulteng and Ron Coddington/Knight Ridder Tribune Graphics Network