Welcome to a new Sitcom Tuesday, on a Wednesday! This week, I’m beginning coverage of Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-2011; 2017-2024, HBO), which is currently available on DVD and MAX.
Curb Your Enthusiasm stars LARRY DAVID as Larry David. With CHERYL HINES as Cheryl David, JEFF GARLIN as Jeff Greene, and SUSIE ESSMAN as Susie Greene.
When I decided to start covering shows that premiered in the 2000s, Curb Your Enthusiasm’s inclusion was inevitable, for I not only think it’s one of the funniest sitcoms from the 21st century, I also consider it among the most influential – extending the ideals of Seinfeld into this new millennium, but with an updated single-camera aesthetic that was both of the moment and indicative of where the genre was heading. I’ve written about this in the past few weeks for my “reruns” of Seinfeld and The Larry Sanders Show – two sitcoms that are relevant when discussing Curb and its big-picture sensibilities. The Seinfeld association is obvious – Curb is helmed by and stars Larry David, the co-creator and guiding influence of Jerry Seinfeld’s ‘90s classic. And he’s playing a version of himself here, just as Jerry Seinfeld did – making Curb similarly semi-autobiographical, rooted in some of its lead’s reality but with artificial constructs (like supporting players, etc.). We’ll be talking a lot about Seinfeld throughout this coverage, for Curb constantly positions itself in relation to that well-known reference point, both via the Larry David character, who is defined in the 1999 special that inspired this series as the real-life George Costanza (even though David clearly fed all the characters on Seinfeld), and the eventual show’s regular storytelling. To wit, there are several arcs that explicitly address his prior hit – namely, Larry’s efforts to pitch a series with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Season Two, his development of the Seinfeld reunion in Seven, and finally in Twelve, his legal troubles that culminate with a courtroom trial where the show winks about Seinfeld’s own controversial ending. Through all this – and everything else – Curb evidences the same attitudes David instilled in Seinfeld: an idea-driven ethos that prizes the funny suggestion above all else, and with a plotting that takes pains to weave together trivial details for mini crescendos and dovetailing payoffs. Indeed, its sense of humor and style of storytelling are essentially just continuations of Seinfelds’, and Curb derives success the same way — through comedic episodic notions and their smart narrative arrangement — with a central character who is an amalgam of all those on the former.
Of course, while pointing out obvious links to Seinfeld will be a major part of this coverage — noting, for instance, that Larry David’s creative team is also comprised of former Seinfeld scribes — it’s equally necessary to highlight where Curb diverges. For starters, it’s deliberately premised differently. As I noted a few weeks ago, “Curb doesn’t have to reckon with the initial low-concept triviality and false ‘show about nothing’ branding that stuck with Seinfeld, even as [Seinfeld’s] weekly idea-driven apparatus became narratively bigger and more complex, creating dissonance in both the storytelling and the supposed relatability of its characters, which David affronted by jokily condemning them at the end. No, Curb is obviously not about ‘nothing’; it’s about a Hollywood George Costanza, wallowing in petty grievances and exacerbating misfortune through his own foibles and schemes. And while we can maybe relate to his annoyances, we know darn well that he is not a reliable proxy for us in a world that resembles ours. Thus, Larry can be like the Seinfeld characters at their worst […] but with a premise that fully supports him.” As such, I believe, contrary to what David says, he does learn lessons – he knew not to pretend, as he had on Seinfeld, that his lead was an everyman avatar, merely observing trivial, everyday oddities (which was Seinfeld’s premise – following where a comedian like Jerry Seinfeld, focusing on relatable minutia, gets his material). Curb may similarly enjoy finding moments of real social aggravation and heightening them, but said moments work for and then are magnified by a very specific character who’s not like us, and thanks to our knowledge of Seinfeld and George, we can be on the same page with the show about him. It also helps that he’s more heavily entrenched in the world of show biz. That is, Curb is even closer to the real life of its star – acknowledging more of his own successes (i.e., Seinfeld) as the foundation for his “life,” utilizing stories that directly involve the entertainment industry and the people within it. This gives the series even more self-awareness, or metatheatricality, than Seinfeld. That’s why The Larry Sanders Show is the other notable antecedent to Curb.
Although Garry Shandling did not play himself or use his real-life circumstances, Larry Sanders was another smart single-camera HBO sitcom similarly set in the world of show biz, an industry being satirized as celebrities would wander in and out to send up their own images – just as many supporting players relished doing on Curb. Additionally, Larry Sanders previewed Curb’s single-cam sense of veritas, which was meant to imply a greater degree of access and tonal reality – specifically, in contrast to segments that were shot to resemble a late-night talk show and that form’s intrinsic Hollywood artifice. Now, Curb doesn’t have any juxtapositions inside its own contours, but it’s intrinsically defining itself against a known style – the traditional multi-camera ethos, which was utilized on Seinfeld, the show whose DNA clearly exists within Curb, only repackaged now to convey an evolution towards something more sophisticated, more privileged with its vantage point. In the same way that both MTM’s and Norman Lear’s sitcoms in the 1970s utilized the multi-camera setup’s theatrical intimacy for low-concept realism that broke away from the 1960s’ broad, over-produced single-camera standard, the status quo had flipped so much by the 1990s that a place like HBO, which was trying to distinguish itself with smarter, more prestigious fare, knew to deploy this single-cam contrast for a cinematic sensibility that would deliberately reject the recent clichés of multi-cams in favor of an alternative it could now sell as more naturalistic (while also embodying the channel’s filmic brand). This association of single-camera with realism, or more precisely, with less cliché and falseness and instead more intelligence and sophistication, has persisted within the sitcom genre since the ’90s (and was even bubbling before then), especially when attached to “backstage” premises that create their own fourth walls for breaking, manufacturing a metatheatricality that seems clever and still makes the audience’s viewpoint feel privileged. Oh, Curb is not quite a backstager like Larry Sanders is, but by following a lead who works in show biz and is surrounded by colleagues (while most play themselves), its broken-wall perspective is the same, and thus well-supported by the single-cam look that emphasizes these intended charms.
None of this, incidentally, is new. Ever since the situation comedy developed, stars like Jack Benny and Gracie Allen have played comedically crafted self-caricatures in shows-within-shows that enjoyed “meta” humor and storytelling. And many of the greatest examples in this genre had some affiliation with show biz (often TV) inside their situations – from I Love Lucy to Dick Van Dyke to Mary Tyler Moore to Seinfeld. It makes sense — that’s what’s personal to writers and actors. But this kind of sitcom has become even more common in the 21st century, as self-awareness is intrinsically smart and allows viewers to feel the same – value added in a crowded media landscape where shows are competing more aggressively for attention while audiences believe they’ve already seen it all. So, not only do more of the most well-received and/or popular sitcoms from the last 20 years involve some form of metatheatricality as a hook, they also strategically use the single-cam’s attached reputation to earn a similar intellectual cachet. I’m thinking specifically of shows like 30 Rock, another backstager, or even Veep, which lets us peek behind the curtain of the greatest show business there is, politics. Those series are obviously in the stylistic vein of Curb (and Larry Sanders), whose success enabled it to be an influence. Meanwhile, this fetishizing of meta is also evident, and even more so, in “mockumentary” sitcoms – those structured like documentaries (The Office, Parks And Recreation, Modern Family, etc.), often with interview bytes cut into hand-held single-cam scenes that use creative editing to enhance their humor and storytelling. They’re not even about show biz and yet they also seek to create their own fourth wall, just to reap the benefits of meta – benefits that are apparent here in Curb, even after Larry David dropped the faux documentary format seen in his 1999 one-off special, which became a de facto pilot when it inspired this series of the same name, where he shed the interviews and narrative structure of a mockumentary but kept the hand-held veritas look and thus a milieu that corroborated his premised concept. I think this was wise – Curb got to stay clever and self-aware while distancing itself a bit from literal reality (something that Seinfeld overpromised). And he already had his own fourth wall courtesy of the show biz trappings that existed within his series’ situation – he didn’t have to force one.
At any rate, regardless of whether a sitcom is fully structured like a doc, with all its formal conventions, or merely resembles one in how it’s shot, the results are the same – a pivot for the sitcom not just into a single-cam standard, but also into another formula growing in popularity during the 2000s: reality TV. So much about this aesthetic as it appears in the great sitcoms cited above, including Curb, applies to docudrama reality shows, an innately metatheatrical construct also capable of regular comedy (see: Kathy Griffin’s My Life On The D–List). Accordingly, I consider the boom in reality TV and the acceleration of this specific style within sitcoms to be correlated, and it’s actually part of a larger 21st century trend where the situation comedy has become more malleable, overall, as a programed form. That is, it’s grown more willing to accept attributes of other genres and types of entertainment — sometimes for a situation hinged on parody, but often simply for the sake of an earnest tonal blending, inevitably rendering most of these half hours less predominantly comedic. Naturally, the rise of pay cable and streaming platforms is the main reason for this shift, for by associating the single-cam look with their promised prestige via meta, the “norm” for sitcoms has drifted into a more fluid space, visually. Then, as media has gotten more on-demand, streamers’ desire for bingeable content to keep viewers hooked has led to shows with more narrative serialization and higher emotional stakes, which translates into more drama, even in “comedies,” where laughter can get decentralized as the primary objective. Obviously, I hate this – comedy is an essential ingredient that crucially informs success in anything that has an implied affiliation with the sitcom; anyone who says otherwise is uninterested in, or incapable of, this art form’s particular greatness. Fortunately, the good news about Curb is that its core aim is to be funny. Just like Seinfeld, David is interested in comedic ideas and arranging them amusingly within comedic stories. So, as we credit Curb for its own influence within the sitcom genre, let it first be said that, at the very least, it’s a champion of comedy, leading by example. That’s why it could be so influential – it’s actually a good sitcom.
And yet, even though Curb is a favorable ambassador for the sitcom by way of comedy, there are areas where its legacy, or mere projection of certain trends, is foreboding. Frankly, just by airing on HBO, Curb was an early adopter of traits that are now working against the situation comedy – like, for instance, the fact that its episodes can be longer than 30 minutes. Heck, they can be a whole hour… like a drama, a genre that’s traditionally longer due to its storytelling, which requires more narrative setups because its plot points are less predicated on the inherent givens of a sustaining circumstance. (Sitcoms, in contrast, are literally built to mine episodic story from their established situations and the elements maintaining it, so they can jump right into their weekly ideas with less to narratively convey.) Of course, by being such an idea-driven show, and one that shares Seinfeld’s interest in a complicated, more carefully arranged storytelling, it makes sense that Curb wants to have more space for narrative maneuvers. However, it still reveals how this lurch to drama came to be, for other so-called comedies that are not nearly as laugh-seeking as Curb would follow suit with this focus on plot. Also, there are only ten episodes in every season of Curb – a reduced number that resembles the model long-employed for sitcoms in the U.K., but which streaming platforms have now made common over here. I guess I can see the creative pitch – more attention can now be devoted to every individual episode, so each one can exist at a higher quality, cutting out the variance that was once unavoidable in series television. But quality is relative – even if the baseline is higher, there will always be samples below a series’ par, even when the storytelling is more serialized, as shows naturally become with fewer episodes to consider and less room for standalone plots. What’s more, reduced episode orders are a hinderance for sitcoms especially, because although they seem to be reducing opportunities for failure, even mediocre or bad episodes still offer chances to explore the characters, which can then inspire other episodes that may be good or even great. In fact, limiting those opportunities pushes the sitcom away from a casual exploration of its situation, making it more dependent on episodic ideas – an already assured priority for Curb, and many of the sitcoms it helped inspire… for better and for worse.
Since characters are always the most fruitful part of any situation, limiting opportunities for them also limits the situation, particularly in shows with low-concept premises. And that’s the major consequence of ten-episode seasons vs. 24 – there are fewer chances now for the situation to be used and therefore assert its reliability through its consistent reinforcement. So, the situation is less durable, and our familiarity – both with the premise and its characters – is not as strong, which then yields diminishing returns with comedy and our investment. In other words, more episodes means there are more chances – and more chances, even with more failures, ultimately builds the situation’s strength… Well, I suppose we only really want more from sitcoms that indicate potential — where goodness could become greatness, if it’s not already. Happily, I can say Curb is great, even despite the traits that later pushed the genre away from comedy when more shows adopted them. Speaking of which, another less-than-ideal change that’s harmed the genre is a lack of scheduled consistency. That is, Curb did not air every year. No, there were 12 seasons over 24 years – which included a six-year stretch where Larry David enjoyed a long hiatus that totally disrupted the continuity of the series’ production, begging the question of whether this “revival” should even be seen as continuous, for it’s essentially a stop and start with over a half-decade in between. Okay, that’s semantics – it’s got the same format with the same name and the same characters, airing episodes successively if not regularly. And in an increasingly on-demand culture, this isn’t a problem for viewers more likely to “binge” a show anyway. But when even the first eight seasons weren’t reliably delivered – airing over 11 years, mostly in the 2000s, before streaming entered the equation – the whole concept of series television is inevitably strained, along with the situation comedy itself, which is dependent on the familiarity that comes from reliability. Today, erratic releases are not unusual, so once again we can see the future in Curb, an early adopter of traits I’d ultimately call negative.
However, again, I think Curb is great. Or I think Curb is, overall, great – I mean, while the first eight seasons are excellent, the four from the seven-year period after that six-year hiatus are… mostly not. Now, I know I just said sitcoms benefit from more episodes. But that’s as a principle. With respect to Curb, it’s such an idea-driven show – totally propelled by the innate comedic value of funny, trivial notions that snowball inside the complex narrative structure its creator enjoys – that it’s not even interested in having extra chances to build out the other characters or expand the situation. For Curb, episodes are merely machines that consume funny ideas, and the only character who supports those ideas, because he’s involved in all of them, is Larry. Everyone else is ancillary and perhaps serves a narrative or structural purpose, but with a fraction of his well-defined personality. So, if Curb wanted more support beyond Larry, then yes, more episodes would be welcome, as they would better develop the peripheral players who would then help inspire more ideas of their own. But Curb’s not even thinking that way: it’s only thinking of funny ideas for its star. That’s why it’s idea-driven, not character-driven. (Honestly, I don’t believe anyone on the cast except for maybe Susie is as wholly designed for comedy. And that’s not a full critique, mind you – they all add to the world, but Curb is Larry’s show exclusively.) Accordingly, these smaller orders are in line with Curb’s goals, and though unideal for the genre, they’re ideal for this show and its strengths. That said, I also can’t pretend there are great ideas all the time – either episodically or seasonally. I’ll get into more specifics on the final years when we get there, but the series’ comedic notions simply aren’t as fresh or well-connected to Larry in the revival. This is not just due to the dwindling novelty of premise that makes it tough for any series to be as sharp later as it was when new, but also because, after such a long break, Curb was coming back into a media landscape that already embraced the trends it helped take hold, so now it’s no longer a trailblazer, but a throwback – a throwback essentially performing the reputation it had calcified as an identity over its long break, picking things up in a way that’s even less natural and spontaneous, more deliberate and tightly controlled.
This is an evolution that occurs over the first eight seasons as well – when Curb goes from a show that sounds mostly improvised with one or two loose story beats per scene, to a show that sounds heavily outlined, with focused exchanges that feel like dialogue because everything’s relevant to plot. It’s never fully scripted – no, it’s a form of writing known as “retroscripting,” a style of comedy that did find its way into other sitcoms in the middle 2000s as a result of Curb. But it’s not stuck around like other trends, for drama requires a firmer narrative hand, and improvisation isn’t fit for a genre getting more serialized. It’s also not ideal for situation comedy, as the lack of premeditation with regard to dialogue means there’s less care in elementally reinforcing the situation and its supporting elements when earning story. Purely a playground for funny people to be funny, it favors the comedic idea. As such, it plays up an important element of Curb’s identity and its situation as a concept – where this kind of spontaneity suggests the intimate and privileged vantage point of the meta premise and its corresponding single-cam veritas. So, when episodes lose the hectic naturalism of this off-the-cuff energy, it looks like the series is not engaging as well with its situation. When does that occur? Again, this is ongoing, with every season feeling more written than the prior. It isn’t glaring until after the six-year gap in 2017, but I think by Six, when Cheryl leaves Larry, Curb’s narrative concerns have grown so much that its pre-planning is felt on screen, undermining some naturalness… However, “retroscripting,” I reiterate, isn’t inherently conducive to great sitcommery either, so the purer version seen in Curb’s earliest seasons – primarily One – is also not as funny or exemplary of Larry David’s storytelling strengths because it’s too improvised, too frenetically unsure. Also, in terms of performance, not everyone is as adept at improvising. This can make scenes stilted, like an unrehearsed acting exercise rather than a situation-corroborating slice of “Larry David’s” life. Fortunately, this unintentionally awkward sensibility, which also undermines naturalness, is moderated by Three, rendering One and even Two an opposite polarity for the later seasons’ meticulously pre-thought alternative. We want, as usual, the right balance.
Additionally, while the rise of overarching story objectives coincides with the show’s diminished improvisational spark, these things are not totally at odds, for well-constructed narratives are another vital part of Curb’s identity, just as on Seinfeld, and beyond merely requiring individually funny plots that are arranged to connect for climaxes inside episodes, a seasonal long-running arc – like we saw on Seinfeld – can help focus David’s ideas and, in certain examples, support the situation by utilizing its lead’s show biz world. As discussed, there are several arcs that directly involve Seinfeld – and two of them are among the series’ best (his show with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Two and his Seinfeld reunion in Seven), for they could only happen with this character and in this situation. All the other show biz storylines are successful as well – like Larry’s rehearsal for a production of The Producers in Four. That provides Curb with some of the Larry Sanders backstage wink that flatters the single-cam format and displays the premise’s metatheatricality, which is a huge part of its appeal – particularly when allowing for guest stars who play themselves (like Mel Brooks and David Schwimmer). Indeed, given the need for both a calibration in the show’s performed spontaneity (which helps affirm the situation’s meta) and fresh episodic storytelling that reinforces the central character’s world and thus also affirms the premise, I’d say the best seasons of Curb are Three and Four – with the edge granted to Four because it has the better-selected, more situation-supported arc. During those two years, but really all of the first eight, Curb Your Enthusiasm is among the funniest sitcoms on the air – and sometimes even the funniest. And since comedic value is how this show most defines its success, that’s a vital genre-approved metric I appreciate. So, I’m thrilled to finally be covering the series here – both because of its quality and because of how much it exemplifies the evolution we’ve seen in the sitcom over these last 25 years, extending the reach of both Larry Sanders and, most obviously, Seinfeld into the 21st century. Personally, I don’t find it as remarkably ingenious as Larry Sanders or Seinfeld, but its first eight years have a magnificent baseline, and I consider it a crowning, influential achievement — a gem of the 2000s.
(Just a few notes… I’m counting every episode, even those that range above 30 minutes, as a single entry, for even though I’d ordinarily try to split 40-ish minute broadcasts in two, Curb does not think of itself so squarely in half-hour syndicatable terms, so I’m going to avoid the headache of trying to make it conform — an exception to my rule that isn’t entirely fair, but simply, logical. Also, with only ten episodes per season, I will be keeping to my 10/24 ratio and selecting four to highlight on each list. This is tough — like Seinfeld, Curb is one of those shows where everyone has their favorites, as comedy is subjective. My selections are based on my view of what’s funniest, along with how I think the situation is used in support. Lastly, please keep in mind that every story in this first season is attributed — though uncredited — to Larry David.)
01) Episode 3: “Porno Gil” (Aired: 10/29/00)
Larry is invited to a dinner party at a former porn star’s house.
Directed by Robert B. Weide
In a show where success is based on having funny ideas, this early installment stands out for exactly that — its amusing central notion, which has Bob Odenkirk playing a former porn actor who spontaneously invites Larry and Cheryl to his house for a dinner party. This is a setup for an awkward evening where Larry can uphold socially uncomfortable scenarios and act in accordance with his already established socially graceless character. That said, while happenstance and unfortunate coincidences are a part of life and therefore Larry’s life on Curb, the best entries from this show tend to have a little more direct involvement from Larry when inspiring the main action, so this is an episode that isn’t the best showcase for the series’ storytelling and indeed suggests room for improvement. Similarly, the retroscripting performance style is too green, way far away from its most ideal calibration. (Louis Nye and Mina Kolb appear in their recurring roles as Jeff’s parents. Nan Martin also guests.)
02) Episode 5: “Interior Decorator” (Aired: 11/12/00)
Larry tries to get Cheryl’s interior decorator to give him Diane Keaton’s contact info.
Directed by Andy Ackerman
If the above offering was most notable because of its funny idea, this one warrants praise because it’s the first good example of the series’ storytelling, where small comic setups are arranged for interconnected payoffs. This is an extension of what Larry David liked to provide on Seinfeld, only here, pretty much everything revolves around his character alone, so instead of uniting three different plot lines, Curb merely follows Larry, weaving all its funny ideas into a single narrative, with his characterization serving as the connecting agent. In addition, there’s some appreciated show biz trappings that also reinforce the character and his placement within this world. (Guests include Lisa Ann Walter, Marissa Jaret Winokur, and Oscar Nuñez.)
03) Episode 8: “Beloved Aunt” (Aired: 12/03/00)
A misprint in an obituary for Cheryl’s aunt causes trouble for Larry.
Directed by Robert B. Weide
My choice for this year’s Most Valuable Episode (MVE), “Beloved Aunt” is the funniest installment here in Curb’s first season, and again, since this is a show that prioritizes the use of comedic ideas — really funny one-sentence suggestions that can turn into full-blown stories, especially when strategically arranged — I have to celebrate a half hour that has the strongest. Indeed, with a primary story about Larry writing an obituary for Cheryl’s aunt that ends up including a misprint where the word “aunt” has its “a” replaced with a “c,” this outing presents a Curb that is excellent when it comes to the mere conception of amusing setups for plot — nothing else in the sitcom world from 2000 is as audaciously laugh-out-loud funny. Specifically, this is one of the most laugh-out-loud loglines of the whole series, and even though I think this excursion also displays some of the overarching weaknesses in Season One relative to the rest of the run — such as the aimless but try-hard improv that undermines the veritas and doesn’t aid the storytelling, along with the not-yet-perfected episodic structuring of comic ideas in story (some things don’t pay off as well as they could) — this helps make it a perfect ambassador for the year as a whole, showcasing the series’ strengths and current sensibilities. (Jeff’s parents return, Kaitlin Olson appears as Cheryl’s sister, and Paul Dooley is their dad.)
04) Episode 10: “The Group” (Aired: 12/17/00)
Larry accompanies an ex-girlfriend to her incest support group.
Directed by Robert B. Weide
Season One’s finale is evidence of just how much Curb has improved within these first ten offerings, for not only is the cast’s improvisational spontaneity — which supports a vital part of its identity, corroborating the situation — more naturally funny and better channeled to uphold the comedic ideas inside this entry than they were before, the storytelling is also more efficient, taking advantage of opportunities for callbacks and narrative dovetailing. In that regard, I think this is the most well-crafted sample on this list, and the one that, because of this evolution, most resembles what the series will look like in Season Two. As for its own quality, the central comic idea — of Larry going with an ex to her therapy group for incest survivors — is inherently harder to believe than others in this era of Curb’s life, but the laughs are outrageously good once there, and again, as the show continues to become better at projecting all aspects of its situation, this is a winner that acquits the series well. (Laraine Newman guests.)
Other episodes in consideration for this list were “Affirmative Action,” where socially graceless Larry gets into hot water with African Americans — a reliable source of humor that’s first mined here — and “The Wire,” which I only cite for its inclusion of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who will return for a better, more memorable utilization in Season Two. (Also, I think “The Pants Tent” is solid… its energy is just too wet behind the ears to be competitive.)
*** The MVE Award for the Best Episode from Season One of Curb Your Enthusiasm goes to…
“Beloved Aunt”
Come back next week for Season Two! And stay tuned Monday for another musical rarity!