a perfect ending
Ken Hoffman celebrates Larry David and the Curb Your Enthusiasm finale
Larry left 'em laughing.
My favorite TV show ever ended forever Sunday night. HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm wrapped up 12 seasons over 24 years with a one-hour episode Sunday night that saw Larry David sentenced to jail for violating Georgia’s Election Integrity law by offering a bottle of water to a woman waiting in line to vote.
Just like Saturday Night Live once said, O.J. Simpson was sent to prison for robbery “but really murder,” a jury found David guilty of breaking the voting law, but really:
In flashback clips we watched David killing a rare black swan, burning down Mocha Joe’s coffee shop in spite, failing to yell “fore” after hitting a golf shot, bribing a city councilmember, refusing to jump off a stuck ski lift while sitting next to a single Orthodox Jewish woman after sundown, urinating on a holy Christian picture, stealing shoes from a Holocaust museum, digging up his dead mother’s body and moving it to a better part of a cemetery, giving Covid to Bruce Springsteen, eating ice cream meant for a dying dog’s last meal, teaching a child how to draw a swastika, hiring a prostitute to sit next to him so he could drive in the HOV lane, and prying a 5-wood golf club from a dead man’s coffin.
And those were just a few highlights from Larry David’s rap sheet over the years on Curb Your Enthusiasm. No wonder his agent on the show called him “a social assassin.”
Curb Your Enthusiasm’s finale was a revenge episode for the critically lambasted Seinfeld finale that David wrote in 1998. The premises were almost identical. In the Seinfeld finale the four main characters were found guilty of violating a Good Samaritan law and sentenced to one year in jail. The last scene had Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine settling in behind bars.
Except in the Curb finale, David is behind bars for only a few minutes before he is set free on a courtroom technicality. The last scene had Larry and Jerry Seinfeld walking out of the jail, commenting that’s how the Seinfeld finale should have ended. Duh!
Several years ago, I wrote a column asking a bunch of B-level Houston media types: who is the funniest person – who’s made you laugh the most and the hardest in your lifetime?
My answer was George Carlin. I loved his standup and his books. I saw him perform several times and he was always razor sharp and funny.
I’d like to change my vote. My funniest person, now looking back, is Larry David. My funniest show is Curb Your Enthusiasm. And my second funniest show is Seinfeld, which David co-created with Jerry Seinfeld and wrote most of the episodes. Between 190 episodes of Seinfeld and 120 episodes of Curb between 1989 and Sunday night, Larry David has filled my life with thousands of great laughs.
When Seinfeld left the air in 1998, I thought there’d never be a comedy cast that brilliant. Then Curb debuted in 2000 and David did it again — this time starring in front of the camera and surrounding himself with Cheryl Hines as his wife Cheryl, Jeff Garlin as his smarmy agent Jeff Greene, Susie Essman as Jeff’s foul-mouthed wife, and J.B. Smoove as his free-loading house guest Leon Black.
Along the way there were guest appearances by Richard Lewis, Tracey Ullman, Sienna Miller, Ted Danson, Wanda Sykes, Rob Reiner, Shaquille O’Neal, Joan Rivers, Alanis Morisette, Martin Scorsese, Mel Brooks, Ben Stiller, David Schwimmer, Hugh Hefner, Super Dave Osborne, John McEnroe, Dustin Hoffman, and this season’s unforgettably hilarious scenes with Bruce Springsteen. And dozens and dozens more. Actors lined up to work with Larry David.
Not since Seinfeld on Thursday nights did I make sure I was home to watch a TV show like I did for Curb Your Enthusiasm. Sunday night was Curb night. Taping it to watch later was out of the question. I have friends who watched each episode of Curb, then watched it again right away, then we started texting each other about our favorite lines. Can you believe when Susie told Larry to …
Nothing was off limits on Curb. The front of my face was laughing, but inside my brain couldn’t believe what I just saw. Curb wasn’t like a network sitcom that returns each year until it gets canceled. Curb would air on HBO only when David felt he had something to say. There was once a gap of seven years between Curb seasons. David produced only 10 episodes a season — 12 seasons, 120 episodes over 24 years. Every episode was worth waiting for.
The last few years felt like that could be the end. Then would come the good news, David would do another season. But Sunday night was the end for keeps. David is 76 years old. It’s time. He gave it everything he had.
But one thing’s for sure, Larry David is leaving ‘em laughing.
