Prater Tell

Larry David may be known more for using his comic genius to write and executive produce one of the most popular shows of the 90s and all time, Seinfeld, but in recent years he has impressed audiences with the eccentric and unconventional farce, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Loosely based on his Jewish, awkward, multimillion-dollar daily life in Santa Monica, California, this contemporary comedy-of-manners actually ends up being a frank performance that has more in common with the everyman than a wealthy California king.

In an offering of poetic justice from the comedic Gods, CYE takes the place of the no-plot situational comedy or “show about nothing.” Professionally, there is rarely progression of characters in either of these shows and even moreso they are hindered from ever ridding themselves of being a victim of their own confrontational, graceless neuroses. Being placed as the star of the show in issue, and the victim of most occurrences in the show, Larry David is the most important personality to canvass. Larry’s inherent ability to get himself into mischief, willingly or not, is the scenario of the show if there ever was one; better yet his inability to admit guilt, stoop to apology, and lack of contrition takes up what is left. In any public setting Larry is outspoken and offensive and at times he is even too determined to avoid uncomfortable situations. For example in an episode during the second season of Curb Your Enthusiasm titled “Trick or Treat” Larry is outside of a theatre following a movie premiere that was directed by a friend of his who happens to be wheelchair bound. While standing near the curb credulously, a friendly passerby stops Larry and converses with him minimally but then brings up their old days of golfing and asks Larry if they should golf again soon. Tensely perturbed as if the main character in the “Tell Tale Heart,” Larry denies that he plays golf anymore on the basis that he does not want to gloat about his spritely legs in front of his handicapped friend, in consequence he is later pinned as a liar by both of these friends. This is common incidence on the show and all lanes lead unlucky Larry into a cul-de-sac of egoistic injury. In spirit, Mr. David was trying to do a moral undertaking by fibbing and in a (sometimes) less complicated way the average man is working off the same moral basis when he tells his wife she looks good in a dress when she most certainly does not. Both situations will, on paper, most often lead into no trouble but upon discovery of the untruth both situations yield no pleasure.

If you are not properly introduced to this show, do not let the aforementioned act of gauche kindness mislead you, Larry David is much of the time a self-serving idler just like the rest of America. In an episode named “The Car Pool Lane” soon after buying over-priced marijuana that he intends to coax his glaucoma-afflicted father into using, Larry starts on his way to meet a friend at a spur-of-the-moment baseball game at Dodgers stadium. After his friend disappointedly cancels, unable to use the car pool lane alone, Larry is stuck either combating the traffic in the regular lanes or heading home. Just at the moment he hangs up the phone with his friend, Larry is approached and propositioned by a hooker who states “Hey daddy, you wanna date with mama?” to which Larry replies, stuttering like a jalopy with a Yiddish dialect, “Get in the car.” Employing the short-cut method is as American as capitalism pie, individuals that have attempted this are many and sundry and all have both dually failed and succeeded.
Coinciding with the folly of his every day, Larry is incongruently balanced by the characters around him in his long-lasting life story. Larry is often deterred from abysmal situations by his conscientious worded wife, Cheryl, who is frequently by his side when problems occur and most of the time has tried to prevent it. Jeff, who is Larry’s best cohort and also his manager, is his enabler and persistently goes a long with the almost every scheming ruse Larry constructs always intensifying the situation. Pick any person off the street and they too will have their inhibitors and a very own straight man to their stooge.

The linked association between a purposefully comedic fictional characters daily life and the everyman’s daily life is humorous in itself. Every man’s desperate grasp on controlling his own life will always lead him to cutting through his neighbor’s yard or brown nosing his way to the top by complimenting his boss’s Tabasco necktie every morning. Culturally it is not implausible to imply that someone’s life on national television is so different from a common man’s, it is after all partly why viewers find it amusing, because they can imagine themselves in a matching situation to that of the character’s on screen. Curb Your Enthusiasm is a sweeping blend of fantastical comedy and ordinary realism and Larry David is the heralded architect of this endeavor.