Curb Your Enthusiasm - C or D?

The first three seasons definitely feel more improvised than a lot of what came after it. I remember Season 4 feeling like a pretty sudden change of tone (and it's my least favourite probably). They've loosened a bit again since there and scenes with Jeff/Richard/Cheryl still feel broadly improvised. Chemistry between the actors helps a lot I think - you got the same feel with Jerry in S7 in a way that you don't with some of the other characters.

Hated Funkhouser at first, started to come round to him with the Car Pool Lane, now he's hilarious. Better when he's having misfortune upon misfortune piled on him though. Shame he's run out of parents to kill off really.

One other thing I noticed and this may just be me but there's at least one moment in each show where the ADR (post-production overdubbing) is reallllly obvious; seems like in S7 they kinda leaned on "fixing" the narrative flow of a few scenes after the fact a lot (which is especially strange to me since, as I said, it feels less improvised on the whole)

Another thing that might be just me - am I alone in thinking that Larry moves and walks like a much younger guy? Sometimes when you see him just walking down the street his whole body language is like a teenager's

I'm looking forward to Sammy's continued evolution into a mini-Susie as well. When you saw her standing in the driveway and the mariachi music started playing was a proper 'OMG' moment.

that's the gait of a man who is freed from any social burden to be decent to other people~

funkhouser is super dave osborne! and albert brooks' brother! ive always loved him

Part of the strange weightlessness of this show is that because of Larry's megariches there never seem to be any real consequences to his behavior - each episode portrays this totally self-absorbed pinball careering around the world, seeing how long he can last before - inevitably - falling down a hole. But he's always got more quarters!

well yeah. a big part of the show's appeal is the fantasy of what it'd be like to go through life never filtering anything, and also being rich as balls. he suffers social consequences of course, or the the show would be intolerable

But the social consequences are by and large restricted to an episode, he manages to bounce back between episodes somehow. Possibly because most of the characters actually really like Larry deep down. The exception to all this is obviously his marriage but even that lasted an amazingly long time, and Cheryl still seems kinda friendly towards him.

Haha was on the verge of writing that in the beginning I had always wondered how he wife was still with him. So in S7 it was nice to see that at least SOME kind of consequence had visited him.. It's true that in each episode he usually manages to acquire heaps of opproborium. But as you say Matt everything kind of resets afterwards. That's its link to the sitcom tradition, I guess.

Yeah it goes back at least to Fawlty Towers. The Doll is a brilliant example of this, or Palestianian Chicken, build up to a completely chaotic and ridiculous situation and then leave without giving the viewer any idea of the way out of it. Then back to normal next week.

I have to say I loved seeing Jerry in S7. The guy just makes me laugh without even saying anything.

have they only just started calling him the funk man? swear I never noticed it before

funkhouser is super dave osborne! and albert brooks' brother! ive always loved him

And he's 70!

All of these old guys are just bouncing around.

http://www.gifsoup.com/view4/1345103/curb1-o.gif

http://www.gifsoup.com/view4/1345111/curb2-o.gif

HE IS SEVENTY? Damn! He sorta looks like he's maybe had a few eye lifts and stuff but still. That's p amazing.

I knew he was Super Dave but I don't think I knew he was Brooks' bro.

Palestianian Chicken, build up to a completely chaotic and ridiculous situation and then leave without giving the viewer any idea of the way out of it. Then back to normal next week.

Really wish he was sticking with the Palestinian nympho, tbh.

What's not to like?

Funkhouser is hilarious because he's so painfully earnest in an environment where everyone else is the exact opposite.

I knew I'd seen him somewhere before.
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.aoltv.com/media/2008/06/einstein6808.jpg
George Bluth's surrogate in Arrested Development!

very curby episode of curb, although no big lols until the last minute or two imo.

Poor Oscar!

Great episode. Few things are funnier than seeing Richard Lewis stood up in a restaurant by Larry.

liked that episode a lot -- my favorite scene was easily when the woman tries to get back at larry by asking him when was the last time that he jacked off, so he answers truthfully, and she gets creeped out and leaves the table

I sometimes think Larry is only friends with the uber-needy Lewis because he loves pissing him off.

Nah, whenever he's not pissed off they riff off each other as well as Larry and Jeff do.

The way this scene shifts halfway through is typical:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkmrDvKPdps

^^^^^^^this is the best scene -- one of the truest moments of curb's improvisational genius

my only thing w/ lewis is that i always wonder how he could be so wealthy as the show portrays him -- what is he even famous for?

Larry genuinely laughing at richards mime comment :)

"shirtmaker in manhattan" slays me every time

one of the truest moments of curb's improvisational genius

yah i love how totally sidetracked they get by it even coming up w/ the shirtmaker fantasy its p genius

yah i love how totally sidetracked they get by it even coming up w/ the shirtmaker fantasy its p genius

― Lamp, Monday, August 8, 2011 5:29 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think what makes the scene is lewis' pause after larry asks "do you say bin laden or ben laden" because there's a tense moment there where you don't know if he's going to go off on larry for being a dick or start riffing on the bin laden thing, and then he spins off a great yarn

He can't decide himself! He wants to stay pissed off but he has that 'competitive comedian' instinct too.

I think it'd be a great scene even if you cut it off before that, just for the few seconds in which they pause to consider 'Is life too short? It's too short, isn't it?'

Harry Crane!

yup

rewatched the season tonight.

i think the palestinian chicken episode is top 5 all time. incredible.

i realised i much prefer the episodes that are larry and his friends shooting the shit to the ones that are him getting in (difficult to watch) awkward situations with strangers/new characters. and this episode was pretty much all that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbIKrMo-QH4&playnext=1&list=PLF9870FC3F5DD94C3

Letterman was always best with Super Dave. Charles Grodin was good at the same routine....

Kinda think that Larry and Jeff eating Oscar's last meal warranted a much bigger bollocking from Susie - had been looking forward to that all episode. Didn't even get a proper "you fat fuck!"

matt otm

Catching up. It is still da best.

Was this week's good? Haven't watched it yet.

Good enough, but not one of the better ones.

That one was a bit rubbish, apart from some great Larry/Suzie stuff.

Gervais (not) bringing the lols as usual.

It still felt very much like a California episode

I'm not screaming "Where were the rats?!?!?!" but still. That was one clean subway station.

Haven't seen the new one but I'm a bit disappointed that Leon and Funkhouser don't appear to be going to New York with them.

leon was in the preview for next week making himself at home in larry's apartment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=doAm5VSrSxI

leon and jeff around the one minute mark