What a night! First Jerry Seinfeld appeared on Curb, and then the Yankees won the ALCS, on their way to a lock of a World Series championship! My television was hopping!
The performance that caught me by surprise, between the two, was Seinfeld on Curb … I had no idea how great the chemistry between two people could be until seeing Larry and Jerry just having some fun. And the most telling part was Larry’s laugh. I have never heard it so authentic, a clear sign that they both enjoy working together, and that a lot of what we witnessed between the two was ad-libbed. It was a beautiful thing.
Okay, so there were a lot of things Seinfeld last night. First of all, Larry and Jerry got into a “choose” over who would go out to talk to midriff girl. “You got odds? I got evens.” Anyone who’s familiar with George and Jerry were taken back in time. And listening to Jerry tell Larry how the situation called for a sensitivity that is his calling card … I could just see George being convinced that that was, in fact, true. Larry, of course, knew it was crap, but he seems to enjoy doing the dirty work.
Their time together was short in relative terms, but the episode covered them working, then driving to lunch, then having lunch, then coming back, then in a meeting with Julia Louis-Dreyfus … it was the little things that made me laugh so much. Their conversation over booth seating? A classic Seinfeld issue over who gets squeezed in, and who gets the luxury seating. Funny that Richard Lewis just walked away.
I think the real fun that Larry and the Seinfeld gang are having is a reunion of classic Seinfeld material, more than any reunion show that they’re trying to put together. And I for one am loving it. I mean, the shushing? That’s great! Julia’s act is getting a little old — is she just a scolding mother now? — but Jerry (and Larry in this context) is working overtime for me.
What turns me off are the little threads that move through one of these Curb episodes independent of everything else, only to come back in the end to make a bow. It’s a tool that Larry David uses well, but I enjoy it a lot more on a macro level, particularly because the micro funnies are kind of stupid to me. Richard Lewis’ entire role on the series makes me yawn, so when he winds his way through an entire episode?
Then the napkins tying into the bald with glasses line (though the police lineup was funny), and the splattering pee that tied to the midriff assistant? The last shot of the night was in really poor taste; her attire has no place in an office, but it wasn’t necessary to cast her appearance in a bad light.
Either way, Larry and Jerry are a tremendously funny duo. Seinfeld looks older and much more tired, but he’s still got it.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Oct 26, 2009 @ 15:00 EST5EDT
Curb sucked last night and the Yankees always suck.
What a disappointing night…
*POST AUTHOR*
Interesting. Do I correctly take that to mean, since you went with the opposite re the Yankees, that you enjoyed Curb last night?
the last shot was in bad taste? That shot was the only thing that worked for me in the whole episode. just the very idea that the muffin-top which he so reviled is the only thing standing between him and certain death is hilarious. And that he latched right on to her front and didn’t wrap his arms around her waist or something? Absurd, deliciously absurd.
*POST AUTHOR*
And so he needed to grasp her stomach fat? I see your symbolism, but come on … that doesn’t mean the shot wasn’t in poor taste.
But that’s a Curb thing, I’m learning. I just felt it was gratuitous.
I agree. It wasn’t in poor taste.