OK, I will admit I originally hated this show staring Larry David (the co-creator of the show Seinfeld). Then I tried watching it again. I have seen every episode since.
The ultimate unpolitically-correct, curmudgeon of all time, Larry David is simply hilarious as he digs himself deeper and deeper into holes that make you laugh and cringe at the same time.
Here is the Hollywood Reporter review of the first episode of the season.
I know many people on this board HATE the show - and I can understand them. I was one of that group in the beginning. But give it another go and just consider Larry David your nut uncle that always makes an ass of himself on Thanksgiving - and sit back and watch him self destruct every single episode.
Looking so very much forward to this season - a black family from New Orleans moves into his Beverly Hills home. What could possibly go wrong with that?
Oh, I can’t possible see what would go wrong with it!
I love me this show. It’s…it’s that feeling that trembles up your spine when you see the conflict coming like the mighty iceberg…and you see the gears in Larry’s brain spinning and you know that it’s going to end up bad. Then you start thinking “No, Larry…don’t do it!”…
…then…he does it.
And the aftermath is hilarious.
I want Larry David as a friend. I hate drama, but when it’s that funny, I need to observe, first hand.
I love this show. It’s even affected the way I watch Seinfeld reruns now. Sometimes you can see the George Costanza plots as being slightly toned down Curb plots. I love that the show allows the main character to be an asshole – not in the sense that he’s “irrascable” but basically decent (like House, for instance), but a fundamentally petty, self-centered asshole to the core.
I like a lot of the secondary characters too – Jeff Garlin, Wanda Sykes, his contentious friendship with Richard Lewis and I think the woman who plays Jeff’s wife is funny as hell. I love the way she curses out Jeff and Larry. I think she might make me laugh more than anyone else on the show.
Larry is George. Larry was going to play the role himself, like Jerry did, but they felt that Larry was more or less unlikeable.
Apparently, Jason Alexander was thumbing through one of the scripts and got to a part where it seemed incredulous. He asked Larry David what kind of a sick person would do/say something like that. Still fuming from the event actually happening to him, Larry David screamed “It happened to me last week!”.
We used to watch this show all the time, right up until the last season or two, when we thought it went off the rails. Hopefully, they’ve got it back on track.
I wouldn’t say asshole to the core. If you took away many of our social formalities, Larry would seem like an OK guy. It’s just that Larry can’t seem to accept that people have feelings that he needs to respect, even if those feelings are not completely rational.
Like in today’s episode. Excellent episode BTW. The black family’s last name being Blacks is funny. It’s a little rude to tell them that, but it’s still true. Larry Jew is also funny.
There is also very little wrong with Larry admitting that he would have sex with someone other than his wife in a hypothetical situation. It’s just rude to tell people that.
There is also nothing wrong with letting a delicious cake go to waste, even if it did recently scare off the children living in your house.
The behaviors themselves are not intrinsically bad, it’s just that our social norms say they are.
My thoughts exactly - the show didn’t lose a beat the whole time it was off the air, and the other characters look like they stepped in off the set of the last season yesterday.
Excellent first episode - sorry there are only 10 shows this season, but would rather have 10 great shows than 19 mediocre shows. One thing great about Larry David - he has always said the show will end when he runs out of ideas. He almost called it quits last season - but changed his mind a few months later. Fine with me if he waits a couple years between each season.
Well, I laughed my ass off at that. Good to have Larry back. I’ll not claim to enjoy only getting 10 episodes every 2 years (Seinfeld put out over 40 in that time), but I’ll take what I can.
HBO has been off the rails lately with original programs, and they should thank their lucky stars for Larry David. I bitched to high hell about that John From Cincinatti crap, and I think I’ll be starting a “Tell me you love me” thread soon.
I always love Curb, but the show if often so damn predictable. For example,
When the show starts off with Larry destroying a smoke detector, you know it’s going to end with the house burning down. And when he comes up with the party-skipping idea, you know they’re going to invite him in anyway. After all, he’s “supposed” to be there.
I was pleasantly surprised by Jeff stealing the wrong-party-day bit, though.
After the incident with Funkhauser, I couldn’t believe Larry tried it again with Ted Danson. What did he think would happen? It was still pretty funny, though. And I agree about the Newlywed game - Larry just gets in trouble for saying what is on his mind, because it’s usually something socially unacceptable (but true).
I guess one of the themes of both CYE and Seinfeld is how most everybody is kind of a low grade asshole most of the time. Larry is not always wrong, but quite often everyone involved in his little altercations is being a dick to some degree.
Agreed that the first episode was a good start and seemed to set up some stuff for the season to come.
I loved how Ted Danson not only didn’t buy Larry’s “wrong night” tactic for a minute but also pulled it right back on him.
That was the one hurdle I had to get past to start enjoying the show; from the beginning, peoples’ reactions to Larry’s faux pas have always been waaay overblown. It helps to look at CYE as a Rashomon-type story told from Larry’s perspective, in which he is perpetually put-upon.
Jeff is great, Wanda is hilarious because Larry is always offending her. Jeff’s wife is hilarious and a hottie, but I can’t understand how Jeff can stay married to her.
