Books and Movies Reviews: (Series) Curb your enthusiasm conceived by Larry David

Sunday, June 27, 2010

(Series) Curb your enthusiasm conceived by Larry David

This is one of the most successful American comedy series so it is a bit of a surprise that it is so little known in India.

This is all about the most cynical social misanthrope that you cant help but fall in love with!!! Larry David, creator of Seinfeld, plays himself, albeit in a highly exaggerated form. He plays a semi-fictionalized self, living as a semi-retired writer who has made a lot of money after the uber-successful Seinfeld series. A lot of other characters play themselves – Ted Danson, Richard Lewis, Mary Steenburg notably. A lot of delightful guest appearances happen throughout the seven seasons (there is another one to come out in 2011) – people like Mel Brooks, John McEnroe, Martin Scorsese, Ben Stiller, Shaquille O'Neal, David Schwimmer, Lucy Lawless and the Seinfeld cast play themselves in sometimes more than one episode…

The show in mainly centred around the relationship that Larry shares with the people around him – his wife, his friends, his manager, his friends and a lot of people that he meets daily – waiters, drycleaners, drivers and so on. He is a misanthrope with highly eccentric ideas and theories especially about social conventions and suffers from a foot in the mouth syndrome. But he is eventually good at heart and frequently goes out of his way to help his friends and other people around him, though he still manages to put off the people who he is helping.

The main feature of Larry’s characters is that he is absolutely socially incorrect. He would say and do things that people would not because, well, we have been taught not to do so. Larry is always getting into troubles for this reason, frequently being thrown out of people’s houses and having to try and try and make up with people who are upset with his improper frankness.

He would almost always say what he has in mind even if it is completely out of context (which is very usual) or offensive (from mild to extreme). He is constantly getting into one warped situation or another. His manager, the incorrigible adulterer Jeff Green (played by Jeff Garlin) is almost always a partner in all the troubles – either as a direct participant or as an advisor or a confidante. In almost all the serials, Larry gets a tongue lashing from Jeff’s foul mouthed wife Susie (played by Sussie Essman).

At the end of each serial, Larry ends up with more trouble than he started out with. At the end of each serial, you wonder how people tolerate him at all. And at the end of each serial, you wonder why his frequently embarrassed wife, Cheryl (played by Cheryl Hines) doesn't leave him (she does in a season, but comes back eventually).

And at the end of each serial, you end up laughing and grinning away like crazy – at Larry’s antics, his theories, the embarrassing situations he gets into and the way things always seem to go wrong for him. And it takes just one serial for you to get comfortable with the characters and it is soon that you become addicted to the series. You just want to see what other troubles he can get himself into…

This is one comedy series that you can keep for a long time and which you can watch anytime. There is no irritating canned laughter and that's the way I like my comedies. I want to hear my laughter. And I was constantly hearing it throughout the seasons…

I was almost heartbroken when I got through with the seasons. Life seemed a little less joyful but hey I can always watch them as re-runs. After all they are all on hard drive!!!