George Costanza: 15 years later

The creator and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David, began his career as a (failed) standup comic, writer for the TV show Fridays, and writer for Saturday Night Live. Only one of his sketches was produced on SNL, and it was the final sketch at the end of the show.

Then he got lucky. Very lucky. Someone who knew someone else "important" approached Larry about working on a new TV show, The Seinfeld Chronicles. A show "about nothing", which almost didn't get made, whose first season consisted of only five episodes, which the network hated.

The Seinfeld Chronicles became Seinfeld, which ended after running 180 episodes and earning Larry David over $200 million (according to the Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com). This is one of those stories of rare synchronicity, where a series of events each extremely unlikely to occur, do occur. This type of synchronicity is a primary feature of Curb Your Enthusiasm as well; although the results are more often negative than positive.

If you want to hear the whole "Larry David, co-creator/writer of Seinfeld" story, it's a bonus feature on the Seinfeld Season 1 & 2 DVD set.

Although Curb Your Enthusiasm stands up on its own quite well, being familiar with Seinfeld will enhance your enjoyment of it. Like Seinfeld, it's basically a show about nothing; and one of Seinfeld's primary characters, George Costanza, was based on the real Larry David.

Watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, you can see what an excellent job Jason Alexander did at playing Larry David. Curb Your Enthusiasm could realistically be titled "George Costanza, 15 years later", as it is a continuation of the Costanza/David character as he approaches age 60.

Since Larry David was one of the primary writers for Seinfeld, his new series Curb Your Enthusiasm is, naturally, very much like Seinfeld. Here are the main similarities:

1 - George Costanza in Seinfeld was portraying Larry David. Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm is portraying Larry David.

2 - Both shows were "about nothing." That's kind of a broad definition; more specifically, they focus on trivial day-to-day events.

3 - Both shows make frequent use of the plot device which has a random character showing up again later in the episode in an unlikely place and causing embarrassment to one of the main characters. For example, Larry runs into a black woman in a restaurant; she is a little drunk and gives him a bad time, accusing him of being a racist. Later on in the episode, Larry is in a living room full of black people at a doctor's house, and there she is again! She calls him a racist in front of everyone, and Larry has to leave in embarrassment.

4 - Both shows made heavy use of unlikely and distressing events; often caused by a primary character being caught in a lie. Usually it involves a secondary character as illustrated above.

5 - Some plot points & ideas are recycled. For example, in one Seinfeld episode, Jerry tries tipping a restaurant host to get a table faster. Larry does the same thing in one of the Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 1 episodes.

Obviously, if you liked Seinfeld you will like Curb Your Enthusiasm. And if you've never seen Seinfeld you'll probably still like Curb Your Enthusiasm if you enjoy somewhat intelligent comedy which often deals with controversial or "taboo" subjects.

[Larry accidentally eats decorative manger scene cookies - scene from season 3]
Becky: You ate the baby Jesus and his mother Mary.
Larry: I thought they were animal cookies.
Cheryl's Dad: Animal Cookies? What, are you kidding me?
Becky: Jesus Christ is not an animal.
Larry: I thought he was a monkey.
Cheryl's Dad: A monkey? Oh, please.
Cheryl's Mom: Larry, have you no shame?
Becky: The Son of God is not a monkey, Larry.


The main differences between Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm are 1) Seinfeld was a network TV show, Curb Your Enthusiasm is an HBO production. Being on HBO, there is a lot of profanity and more "pushing the envelope" of what is appropriate for television; and 2) Jason Alexander did a better job portraying Larry David than Larry David does.

Larry David is an excellent comic writer, but he's not a very good actor. If Jason Alexander wasn't available to continue the Larry David role, I think some other experienced comic actor should have been selected for the job. On the other hand, David is portraying himself, so it can be argued that he's the best person for the job. This show is not a documentary, though; he's re-enacting events, not living them. His display of emotion and his timing is not always optimal but this show is still much better than the typical sitcom.

Cheryl Hines (Herbie: Fully Loaded, Lucky 13, Our Very Own) does an excellent job portraying David's wife Cheryl. She isn't his "real life" wife, however (Laurie Lennard is.) Jeff Garlin (Daddy Day Care, Sleepover) as Larry's agent/friend Jeff Greene and comedian/actor Richard Lewis (Wagons East, Robin Hood: Men in Tights) as himself make up the rest of the primary cast in Season 1. Note that all these characters use their real first names as their character's names in the show, but only two of them (Lewis and David) are portraying themselves.

In my opinion, Curb Your Enthusiasm is a quality show. It often tackles serious issues such as racism and religion through the use of comedy (which makes it a satire by definition) but just as often will focus on something completely frivolous but make it very entertaining with absurdity and humor. It's enjoyable whether you see it as an extension of Seinfeld, or "The Larry David Show", or just another HBO comedy.

Profanity and sexual situations are a major part of the show, and I think they're used appropriately. A lower quality show will sprinkle the "F" word here and there for shock value alone; Curb Your Enthusiasm makes good use of profanity to emphasize a character's anger or the bizzareness of a situation. For example, in one episode, Larry writes an obituary for a character. His words "beloved aunt" are misprinted as "beloved cun*". His embarrassment and exasperation are pushed to the extreme in this way, whereas a tamer typographical error would have weakened the comic value of the scene a great deal.

Likewise, the sexual situations are more of a realistic "that could happen to me" thing that viewers can identify with rather than a glamorized version of titillating sexuality. In Episode 1, "Pants Tent", Larry has a problem with a pair of pants that bunch up in such a way as to make it look like he has a constant erection. Men can imagine being trapped in a circumstance like this, and women can imagine seeing a man in this circumstance.

In conclusion, I highly recommend Curb Your Enthusiasm as a refreshing comic experience that's part sitcom, part group improv (the dialog is mostly improvised), part satire and part mockumentary of the Life of Larry David. Larry apparently has not learned that "honesty is the best policy" (or perhaps he disagrees) and he is constantly caught in his web of lies. He means well but it rarely works out that way.

The 2 DVD set is in kind of a weird but nicely designed sliding case and the only extra seems to be a commentary track with Episode 1, "Pants Tent."

ADDED: Oops, I missed 2 extras on DVD 2! The one hour pilot and a 30 minute interview with Larry David. I haven't watched them yet but it was a nice surprise to find them (thanks to another review I just read.)

2nd ADDITION: The 30 minute interview on DVD 2 (Bob Costas interviews Larry David) was interesting, offering insights into the mind of Larry David and how the show is scripted (there is a detailed outline instead of a script) and shot. Plus an amusing comment about the theme music and Larry's near admission that he can't act.

The 1-hour pilot (also on DVD 2, which is why I initially missed it; expecting the pilot to be placed BEFORE Episode 1 on DVD 1) was not that good. Or, perhaps now that I've seen the entirety of Season 1, going backwards to the pilot makes it look worse. It's filmed in more of a documentary style (the viewer may even be confused by this: is this "real" or "mockumentary"?) and comes off as "less funny" than any of the episodes, which are presented more as comic sketches or comic vignettes (like Seinfeld).