VAGUE SPACE

Palestinian Chicken

It's been a banner year so far for Curb Your Enthusiasm, highlighted by this week's third episode, a laugh-out-loud funny episode about Jews, Palestinians, yarmulkes, good chicken, rabbis, marital infidelity, social assassination, and yes, LOLs. 

Palestinian woman:  "I like you."
Larry David:  "What's not to like?"
Palestinian woman:  "Eh, you're a Jew."

Good times.  I've been a longtime fan of Curb, which has been on the air off and on for a long time, we kind of all thought that their 7th season -- the Seinfeld reunion season -- would be a fitting ending to a wonderful show, but Larry's back, nearly two years later, and somehow better than ever.  He's gone back to his roots and the comedy has followed.  And by "roots" I mean, of course, Jew jokes.

Larry Miller: "By the way, your lunch is on me."
Larry David:  "I already paid for it."
Larry Miller:  "Even better."

Little Orphan Funkhouser

This season of Curb has featured quite a bit of Marty Funkhouser (aka the former Super Dave Osborne), and it's been a typically hilarious year so far, highlighted by another stellar episode this week.  If the presence of so much Funkhouser alongside so much comedy is off-putting to you, well just remember, Larry David can make anything and everything funny.  Even a wet-with-sweat 50-dollar bill. 

Funkhouser's mother Ida died in a wheelchair accident while trying to cross a road, and as a result, a Roadside Memorial has been setup on her behalf, full of flowers that somehow end up in Larry's grasp.  But before all that, LD finds himself on line at an ice cream shop with a woman who makes the practice of sampling an art form.  LD has some words with her - but unfortunately she is the dean of the school that Cheryl is trying to get the Black kids enrolled in (along with Jeff and Susie's daughter).  Cheryl is not pleased at Larry screwing up the enrollment process.

Larry: (on confronting a sample abuser) Don't abuse your sampling privileges. She abused the sampling privilege. And you know what else?
Cheryl: What?
Larry: I was also looking out for the counterperson, as well.
Cheryl: If she had a problem with that woman, don't you think she would have said, "Excuse me, ma'am"?
Larry: No, no, 'cause she's always told 'the customer is right,' and in fact, the customer is usually a moron and an asshole.

He's not wrong there.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

I received the 4th season DVD set as a Christmas present and have spent the last 2 days watching it non-stop, unable to break from the sheer brilliance of comedy.  I must say that when I first viewed Season 4 when it came out - I don't know - a year and a half ago I guess, that I was a little disappointed with it, at least compared to the first three seasons.  And while it may still be behind some earlier seasons, it certainly has more than its fair share of great moments and episodes.  I can only hope that the debacle that was the recently concluded Season 5 also ages well over time and partially suffered from my inflated expectations.  Of course, Season 4 didn't produce over 80% of its jokes from Jewish humor.  And there was way less Richard Lewis.  A little too much David Schwimmer for my taste, but that's just being picky.  Anyway, read on for my top 3 favorite episodes from that season.

Larry Goes to Heaven

In a lengthy, bizarre, and at times entertaining final episode to the 5th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry discovers he isn't Jewish, gives his kidney to Richard Lewis, dies, goes to Heaven, and then returns from the dead.  Yeah.  I don't know quite what to say.  At some point this season, my favorite show turned into a cross between Highway to Heaven and the horrible Albert Brooks comedy Defending Your Life.  Except more Jewish.   Clearly Larry hit the wall this year, running out of ideas some point after the third episode, and when it seemed apparent that he was going to die in the hospital, I was actually kind of rooting for it, thinking that yes, the show has come to a close and I was ok with that.  But he did come back, so I guess I have to recap, although I'm not sure I can.  I'm still in shock at what I witnessed.

    Larry (on his deathbed, accepting everyone's last wishes - looks at Susie Green)
    Susie: (with arms spread) "Larr--"
    Larry: "Ehh..." (waves her away)

Ok, that part was funny.

The Korean Bookie

First there were big vaginas, now there are big breasts.  And a once truly inspired show continues to wallow in cheap jokes and incessant Jewish-related humor.  Not that it's not funny, though.   

    Larry: "You go around calling Jeff a fat fuck."
    Susie: "He is a fat fuck.  Oscar's just big boned."

Oscar, the Greens' dog - who Jeff was once allergic to, who is a certified corpse-sniffing canine, and who once assaulted Larry's penis - goes missing (which is another recycled plot idea) shortly after meeting Larry's bookie, a Korean flower salesman who seems unusually taken with the large-sized mammal.  In the meantime, Larry is trying to fix the mess he made in last week's episode, when he let the Orthodex Jew girl jump from the ski lift.  As usual, nothing ends well.

The Ski Lift

On this week's episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, regular Jew Larry David takes on Orthodox Judiasm, poking fun at its peculiar rituals, while also offending organ donors, skiiers ("it's a big schlep"), and a perhaps heretofore unknown affliction - women with unusually large... um, "private parts" (no, not breasts - the other one).  The plot revolves around Larry's ongoing efforts to avoid giving up a kidney to save Richard Lewis, whose cousin remains alive but in a coma, with perfectly working organs.

"Comas are very unpredictable," Jeff reminds Larry, but they luck into a chance encounter with George Lopez, who explains that they could help move Richard Lewis to the top of the donor list if they got in good with the doctor who runs the "Kidney Consortium".  The only problem?  He's an Orthodox Jew.  So Larry crashes into his car, leaves a note, and arranges a meeting, in full kvetching Jew mode.  And yeah, I'm not sure I'm using any of these Jew phrases correctly.  You know, Seinfeld at least made its show about topics that gentiles could follow for crying out loud.  And what the fuck is a Mitzvah?

The Seder

Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry guest stars on this week's Curb Your Enthusiasm as a convicted sex offender who moves into Larry's neighborhood, befriends him with golf tips, and then attends the Davids' Passover feast.  But what was much more disturbing was my viewership of an actual Jewish Seder, which as far as I could tell involves a lot of eating, kvetching, and making kids go through an unnecessary amount of trouble just to get a dollar.  Actually that sounds like a typical weekday, so I'm not sure what the big deal is. 

    Cheryl: "Seems to be a lot of trouble you people go through."
    Larry: "I don't know if I like that phrase 'you people'."
    Cheryl: "Ok... you Jews."
    Larry: "That's better."

Lewis Needs a Kidney

    I gotta choose healthier friends.  This is no good.  The next time there's any sign of anything wrong with any of my friends, I'm just going to drop them like a hot potato.

Larry David, the master of caring only about how everything affects him, is distraught at hearing that his oldest and closest friend, comedian Richard Lewis, is in need of a kidney transplant.  Larry's not so much concerned that his friend might die, but rather that he's being counted on to perhaps donate the kidney that could save his life.  He might just be trying to spare the world any more of Lewis' brand of "comedy", but it probably has mostly to do with the selfishness.  And knowing misery loves company, Larry guilts Jeff into offering to donate as well, resulting in a very hilarious episode and an embarrassing use of a former Seinfeld bit - the second time they've done that this season.  I'm so disgusted by the entire "eeny meeny" - "Wait! It's bad?" routine that George and Jerry delivered line by line a decade ago that it almost ruined the episode for me.  But the ending did redeem it.  And of course, Larry trying to get out of giving up the kidney...

    [Jeff]'s are bigger.  It's a big hefty kidney that could just... handle a bigger load, I would think.

Banzaii!!!

    Larry: "How do you know?"
    Cheryl: "He sent me a suicide e-mail."
    Larry: "Suicide e-mail?"
    Cheryl: "Well he had some things he wanted to say before... you know."

In a very strange and uneven episode of a very strange and uneven season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry is again an equal-opportunity offender, making fun of Japanese traditions, senior citizens, nursing homes, Kevin Nealon, and either doctors or pharmacists, I'm not sure.  I'm also not sure about some of the plotlines he's exploring this year, but overall it was a pretty funny episode. 

   

The Racist Dog

  In the first 5 minutes of this week's Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry sets a record for most people offended in the shortest amount of time.  He gets them all in - the handicapped, blacks, Muslims, lesbians, and his wife.  And his new dog is a bit, shall we say, racist.

"You got a clan dog.  Looking at me like I'm a fucking T-bone," Wanda Sykes.

Larry is as usual gleefully oblivious as to why anyone might be offended, and takes great offense himself, when he finds out for instance that lesbians no longer love him after his overly excited response to Marty Funkhauser's (played by "Super Dave") announcement that his chick-loving daughter Jodi (played by "Blossom") has started dating a man.  And he's also not happy that a black private eye (not played by "Shaft") is unwilling to take on the case of his possible adoption after he shushes some black people at a party.  And by the way, one of the cool things about CYE are the number of celebrities that cruise through an episode, mostly playing themselves, and everyone loves the Danson and the Jason Alexander and the Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the Ben Stiller appearances but come the fuck on, isn't it a little excessive when we have to see Blossom's fat ass waddling through another cable program?  Hey, I loved her on Fat Actress - she was damn funny - but she served no purpose here.  I mean, Rosie freaking O'Donnell was already guest spotting on the show.  Between them and Jeff Garlin, Krisy Kreme must have had to pull up at least a half dozen catering trucks to the set.