Mark's Blog

I've been watching the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm (IMDB Listing). regularly Thursday nights at 10:00 and 10:40 on Showcase. The show stars Larry David, the writer and producer of many of the Seinfeld episodes, as a somewhat bumbling character whose speciality seems to be turning little situations into major problems. There are occasionally cameos from Seinfeld stars such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander.

For some reason, people seem to have difficulty remembering the title, "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Perhaps it's because it's not a usual language phrase for a title, being an imperative sentence. It seems to refer to Larry David, who seems to get into more trouble the more enthusiastic he becomes. Amusingly, tonight's second episode, featuring a cameo from Shaquille O'Neal, ended with a number of bad things happening to Larry, however this made him happy because all was back to normal in his world. Apparently the George Costanza character is based on Larry David himself.

The mechanics of a typical "Curb" show are similar to Seinfeld, in that coincidences and connections cause unforeseen events, but focussing on Larry's adventures alone. Typically Larry will accidentally offend someone at the start of an episode, who will end up being linked to someone that Larry needs a favor from later on in the episode. One of the major differences is that "Curb" is unscripted. David writes an outline, and then the actors take the situation and run with it. There are really only three major characters, Larry, Cheryl (his wife) and Jeff (his manager), and all three play their roles very convincingly.

This show is highly recommended, if you like Seinfeld. There is some profanity, which can be good for an extra laugh if not overused. There's definitely some adult humor, which is presumably why they show it later at night. Seinfeld is a hard act to follow, but this is a pretty impressive followup.