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  After visiting the very large theater, Larry gets cold feet. He goes into HBO and tells the executives that he can’t do the show because his stepfather was in a car accident and he has to fly to Florida to be with his mother. It’s tempting to speculate that Larry David came up with this idea when he himself had second thoughts of doing a whole stand-up show. The fictional Larry resorts to outright lies (he doesn’t even have a stepfather), setting a useful precedent for the series.

  Larry will prove to be a man who hates obligations and responsibilities. The last shot shows him waiting for the elevator and whistling happily. The real Larry David, however, is not quite like his fictional persona. For in agreeing to turn the special into an ongoing show, he will take on ten heavy responsibilities a season. Larry David, it seems, prefers to whistle while he works.

  Season One

  EPISODE ONE

  The Pants Tent / Original Airdate: October 15, 2000 / Directed by Robert B. Weide

  For this first episode Larry David gives us, as his main narrative line, a story that is not in any way sexy or sexual but nevertheless has to do with sex. It is a little naughtier than NBC would have allowed on Seinfeld (although, in this case, not much), but it is more about social acceptability than it is about desire, lust, or relationships.

  And what is the very first opening shot of the first episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm? It is a close up of Larry’s crotch. That’s right, Larry is flicking down the “tent” or “bunch-up” made by his corduroy pants when he sits down. Moments later he calls his wife Cheryl to come and take a look, immediately introducing the second-most-important character in the series. (Some might argue that Jeff Greene is, but the call is a close one.) Larry knows that he needs Cheryl as reactor, as sounding board, as the disapproving superego of his conscience, and simply to soften the harshness of his own character. Cheryl doesn’t do a lot in her first appearance, but she comes across as rather sweet: an easy-to-live-with person.

  This episode also lets the viewer, who is likely as not a Seinfeld fan, know that this show will work in at least some of the same ways. It will have multiple, overlapping plots to enliven and reinforce the main story. This one has three, the first of which involves a car-to-car cell phone conversation with Larry’s agent Jeff (our first introduction to him) in which Larry calls Cheryl “Hitler.” Little does he know that Jeff’s elderly Jewish parents are also in the car listening. The second plot involves Larry’s friend Richard Lewis (famous friend number one), whom Larry runs into at a movie theater where he has gone to see a Dustin Hoffman picture with Nancy, a friend of Cheryl’s. (Larry David is showing his age here. While Hoffman is still working, he is no longer expected to carry a film. A “Dustin Hoffman picture” comes from Larry David’s time as a young man.) Larry gets into a ridiculous argument with a dark-haired sexy woman in a low-cut dress (she won’t let him pass her to get to his seat); she accuses Larry of looking at her breasts. (Possibly true.) The woman turns out to be Richard’s new girlfriend. The third plot line comes when Nancy, soothing the upset Larry by rubbing his arm, notices the bunch-up in his pants and assumes that her touch has given him an erection.

  If the episode has three stories, it has one theme: forgiveness. Well, not forgiveness exactly, but rather the need to apologize in order to keep the social order. In his office, Jeff is writing a letter of apology to Kathy Griffin, not for any particular reason. (The show offers no information as to who Kathy Griffin is. The viewer is expected to know she’s a stand-up comic, a former member of the Groundlings — the troupe where Cheryl Hines learned improv — and once a guest star on Seinfeld. One of the charms of Curb Your Enthusiasm is that it treats people in the industry as if they aren’t in the slightest way special.) The second apology comes from Larry himself, who goes over to Jeff’s house to make things right with Jeff’s suspicious parents. Unfortunately for Larry, as he pastes a Band-Aid on one wound, he opens another by refusing to go upstairs and admire the sleeping children. He refuses, however, to apologize to Richard Lewis’s girlfriend. In fact, he shows for the first time in the series that he can be truly nasty, when he refers to her (likely) artificial breasts as “chemical balls.” This about his best friend’s girl. Nice, Larry.

  Two great lines stand out. The first occurs at home, where Cheryl has invited her friend Nancy to explain to her that Larry didn’t really have an erection. Nancy doesn’t believe it, causing Larry to lose his temper and begin shouting. (Shouting is Larry’s way of showing extreme emotions. A lesser emotion evokes a pained look.) Larry insists that he knows when he has an erection, whether or not the cause is “mysterious” or something he can exactly “pinpoint.”

  The other line is a throwaway, not issued by Larry but by Jeff’s old, hunched father in a new, hot restaurant when Larry and Cheryl are forced to share a table with the Greene family. The same Kathy Griffin happens to be there (tying up loose ends in the Seinfeld manner) and when she walks away from the table, Mr. Greene (played by veteran actor Louis Nye) says with admiration, “Look at the way that girl walks. Look at it. What rhythm she has.” Ad-libbed or not, it’s a priceless line.

  EPISODE TWO

  Ted and Mary / Original Airdate: October 22, 2000 / Directed by David Steinberg

  One of the weird pleasures of Curb is seeing celebrities living like relatively ordinary people. Okay, ordinary people who seem to spend their time shopping, going to the latest hot restaurant, and otherwise passing their days in useless activity. What exactly does this tell us? That life is the same for celebrities as it is for us? Not exactly. More like, celebrities are as trivial as us, they just get to express it more.

  David Steinberg, the Canadian stand-up comic turned director, is at the helm for this one. And the first shot is of Mary Steenburgen sending a strike ball down a bowling lane. Steenburgen is, as many people know, half of a celebrity married couple, the other half being Ted Danson. And there’s Ted himself, sitting with Larry and Cheryl, cheering his wife on. With one frame to go, Larry needs to make a strike or the Davids will lose the game.

  If this were an episode of Seinfeld, George would (a) throw a gutter ball, (b) try to cheat, or (c) try to create a diversion so as not to have to throw at all. But Larry is not the shlemiel that George was, neither incompetent nor unsporty. So what does he do? He rolls a strike.

  The episode, however, is not about bowling. Nor is it just about friendship. Rather, it’s about marriage — or rather the effects of an innocent flirtation on a married couple. And it’s about self-knowledge, or the lack of it. What the episode comes down to is Larry finding himself smitten with Mary. This is why he risks hurting Cheryl’s feelings by going on about what a wonderful person she is, with a true “inner beauty.” And why he laments the fact that society frowns upon a married man having a married woman as his friend. It’s also why he makes snide comments about Ted Danson; he unconsciously resents the fact Ted gets to have Mary and he doesn’t.

  Does this mean that Larry wants to have an affair with Mary? Of course not. He sublimates any such feelings. It’s all about friendship. And it’s a friendship he gets to pursue when he hears that Mary is going to Barneys for some clothes shopping. The next thing we know, Larry (who hates shopping, we later hear from an amazed and disconcerted Cheryl) is moving up the stairs of some high-end shopping mall. And buying something that he describes as “half shirt, half jacket” because Mary has one too. (It’s worth noting in passing that many, many a Seinfeld episode revolved around a piece of clothing.)

  A related subplot involves Larry’s shoes being taken by another bowler so that Larry decides to order a new pair, only to renege when the shoe thief reappears at the bowling alley with the shoes on. The subplot highlights one of the important activities in the life of a leisured American: shopping. And it also allows for two rather funny guest spots. Tim Bagley — a highly successful character actor who was a member of the Groundlings, the same improv group where Cheryl Hines cut her teeth — plays the shoe salesman. Bagley plays the character as
slightly effeminate and brimming with moral outrage. Meanwhile, the shoe thief is played by Joe Liss, a comic and writer who did his time at Second City. Liss plays the thief as a wide-eyed, amazed innocent. They underline the fact that Larry David is much more comfortable drawing his talent from the world of comedy clubs and improv groups. Curb Your Enthusiasm is not so much an actor’s dream gig as it is a showcase of comedians.

  Back to the main story. This new friendship of Larry’s is bound to backfire and the cause of it is, of course, Larry himself. Having lunch with Mary and her mother after the Barneys shopping spree, he takes a sip of water from the mom’s glass instead. “Aauugh!” he cries, practically spitting when he finds out. As a result of this insult, Larry is sure that Mary and Ted are reneging on an offer of luxury box seats to a Paul Simon concert. (One of the perks of celebrity friends is celebrity-style freebies.) Although they don’t renege, in the end Larry gets stuck in the box with Mary’s mother, who falls asleep on his shoulder. And just like the previous episode, the last shot is of Larry looking miserable.

  How does Larry come off? As selfish, unfeeling, and a little crude too. But although Cheryl is hurt, she is never a scold. Nor is their marriage threatened. Cheryl and Larry appear to be a solid couple and take their relationship for granted — in a good way. This provides a kind of sweetness to the show that undercuts the sour.

  EPISODE THREE

  Porno Gil / Original Airdate: October 29, 2000 / Directed by Robert B. Weide

  To put it bluntly, this is the weakest episode in the first season. Yes, it pushes the envelope more than a little in its verbal descriptions of pornographic filmmaking, an unusual source of humor. But it also points out another fact about Hollywood. In the glittering, dream-making machine, there is more than one way to be a star. When ordinary middle class people go to a party where they feel out of place, it might be because their hosts are blue-collar workers — car mechanics, say, or postal workers. But in Larry David’s world, they’re former porn stars.

  The main story involves Larry and Cheryl being invited to a dinner party at a former porn star’s house. Cheryl is reluctant to begin with, but then has to endure Gil’s nauseating war stories about sex in front of the camera. (Is it true that Tabasco sauce up the rectum will keep an erection hard? So Gil, played by Bob Odenkirk, tells us. Feel free to find out for yourself.) Larry upsets Gil’s wife by breaking her lamp and wearing his shoes indoors, and it’s her insane anger that is most funny. (“When you walk through my door you play by my rules. You take off your fuckin’ shoes!”)

  A couple of side plots are worth noting in the episode. One is the opening incident, when Larry refuses to pick up another golfer’s ball simply because he doesn’t like the bolo string on the man’s hat. Sure enough, the man shows up again and takes his vengeance. (This plot is sketched in a rather cursory way.) The second plot is Jeff, Larry’s manager, needing bypass surgery and asking Larry to sneak into his house and take out his porn tapes so his wife doesn’t find them if he dies. Jeff, as later shows will prove, is allowed to have far more nasty habits than Larry.

  What makes the episode weak, at least for this viewer, is that Gil’s porno stories are unpleasant without also being funny and that the resentful golfer story line feels like something left on the cutting room floor of Seinfeld. But what is most likable about this episode is not really its humor. It’s the marital spats that occur between Larry and Cheryl. After enduring the porn star’s party, Larry wants to know “what’s the level of anger here? What am I dealing with?” The answer is 8.7 out of 10, Larry having won some “pity points” for having been screamed at. He’s both a little afraid of his wife’s anger and relieved to know that her affection is salvageable. They even hug, something that will prove to be a rare occurrence.

  EPISODE FOUR

  The Bracelet / Original Airdate: November 5, 2000 / Directed by Robert B. Weide

  Richard Lewis has some similarities as a comic to Larry David. They’re both from Brooklyn, both Jewish, and they both consider themselves hypochondriacs. But to prove the truism that nature provides infinite variety, one need only look a little closer. With his long hair, sweeping black overcoats, hunched shoulders, nervous bobbing, and Yiddishy exclamations, Richard Lewis gives the impression of being a Jewish vampire — albeit one who feels too guilty to bite anyone but himself. Even just in physical contrast, Larry is polar opposite; tall and still, hands at his sides, he’s more undertaker than vampire.

  Lewis gets a lot of screen time in this episode, but not before the premise — one that would have been right at home on The Honeymooners — is set up. Larry gets on Cheryl’s bad side when she comes home from a trip to see her family in Tallahassee, only to find hubby too engrossed in a televised football game to pay her much attention. Wanting to get back into her good books, he takes his secretary’s advice and decides to buy her a present — a platinum bracelet that Cheryl had admired. (Jackie Gleason might have picked a box of chocolates, but no matter.)

  But there’s a slight hitch, naturally. Larry goes to the store unshaven and the salespeople, thinking he’s a homeless person, won’t buzz him in. So he calls Richard Lewis to go in for him. “Look at you,” Richard says. “You look like the Jewish Ratso Rizzo.” Lewis has a thing for Dustin Hoffman too. But a blind man in need of assistance approaches the pair. He has just moved into a nearby apartment and asks for them to help him arrange the furniture. When they finally return to the store, it’s closed (a narrative trick Larry David will use occasionally).

  Larry manages to make up with Cheryl anyway, but she still wants the bracelet. Unfortunately, Larry has already told Richard that he can buy it for his girlfriend. The two of them arrive at the same time and while they fight to get into the store, the salespeople call the cops.

  There’s quite a bit of funny business between Larry and Richard, some of it verbal and some of the slapstick variety. Perhaps for the first time, Larry’s chilly selfishness is made all too clear. He offends Cheryl, won’t help in her charity work, and doesn’t want to assist Michael, the blind man. The ending fight — a ridiculous, hand-flailing knockabout — would have made the Keystone Kops proud.

  EPISODE FIVE

  Interior Decorator / Original Airdate: November 12, 2000 / Directed by Andy Ackerman

  Two small threads link this episode to previous ones and foreshadow how the show will grow in terms of narrative complications. One is the appearance of a lamp identical to one that Larry broke at Porno Gil’s house (season one, episode two), which also gets knocked over. The other is the episode’s opening trigger. Larry, having hurt his finger in the tussle with Richard Lewis, goes to see his doctor. (Larry David did actually sprain his finger shooting the previous episode. He revised his outline for this one to include the incident.)

  The episode is rife with complications, resulting in multiple scene changes and various supporting characters. There’s the Asian parking lot attendant who lets Larry out even though he doesn’t have the cash to pay, only to corner him later, screaming: “I know that face. It’s the face of a liar!” There’s the interior decorator Cheryl wants to use, who also happens to work for Diane Keaton and who, in the middle of a physical tussle, suddenly kisses Larry. (The woman’s name is Carmen and her appearance is accompanied by music from the opera of the same name, a sort of musical joke.) There is the chubby young woman whom Larry chivalrously allows out of the elevator first, only to have her get in to see the doctor before him. There is Larry’s doctor, who uses a take-a-number system to see his clients and who happens to be married to Larry’s lawyer. There’s the lawyer herself (played by Nia Vardalos of My Big Fat Greek Wedding) who has charged Larry $1,500 to read his script even though he didn’t ask her to. And there is Diane Keaton, who does not actually appear unless you count her feet (or those of the stand-in).

  Suffice it to say that Larry is thwarted at every turn — at the doctor’s, the lawyer’s, at Diane Keaton’s house, even in the parking lot. And it’s not his fault. He even co
mes across as rather charming. He holds open the elevator, he honestly runs short of cash, and it’s not his fault that he’s late for his meeting with Diane Keaton, whom he wants to act in a film he’s written. But as the injustices pile up against him, he turns into one angry guy. His anger causes him to take social justice into his own hands but the one who suffers is, of course, Larry.

  EPISODE SIX

  The Wire / Original Airdate: November 19, 2000 / Directed by Larry Charles

  Larry Charles, whom Larry David met on the set of Fridays, was later known as Larry’s first lieutenant on Seinfeld. Charles was responsible for some classic scripts (“The Baby Shower,” “The Library,” “The Fix-Up”) that were notably darker than other episodes. Here he’s the director and maybe it’s the luck of the draw, but this is definitely one of the best episodes of the season.