No soup: David on HBO

By Matt Manser

Daily Arts Writer

Do you remember on "Seinfeld" when George Steinbrenner used to be on, except it wasn't really George Steinbrenner, it was just the back of someone's head and a voice coming from offstage? Do you remember that voice? That voice belonged to Larry David, who co-created "Seinfeld" and wrote several of the episodes from the first seven seasons. Now Larry and his Steinbrenner-esque voice is in front of the camera, as he stars on his own series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which airs Sundays at 10 on HBO.

Larry David plays - you guessed it - Larry David, the co-creator of "Seinfeld." On "Seinfeld," the George Costanza character was based on David, which is quite clear after just a few minutes of "Curb." David has a temper, lies to get out of trouble and is easily distracted by the seemingly insignificant. For example, in the third episode David is at a golf driving range when another golfer's ball bounces towards him. Normally David would help the golfer and pick up the ball, but he does not because he finds the golfer's hat with bolo string (strap around the chin) too distracting. As David said, "I see certain items, and I recoil in horror."

Like on "Seinfeld," these tiny events come back to haunt the protagonist. In this case, it's when David gets lost on the way to a party. By coincidence, he finds the golfer on the road, who just happens to be going to the same party. David says he couldn't bend over to pick up the golfer's ball because of a sore back, and asks the golfer if he can follow him to the party. The golfer then asks if David should be going to this party, with his bad back and all. David says his back is fine now, so the golfer says, "then maybe you should bend over and kiss my ass, and then maybe next time you'll remember to pick up a fucking ball." (Did I mention it's on HBO?)

On "Seinfeld," George Costanza almost got married, until Larry David wrote the episode where George's fiancé died from licking poisonous envelopes. However, on "Curb," Larry David is happily married. Cheryl Hines plays his wife, named Cheryl. The other main character is David's agent Jeff, played by comedian Jeff Garlin ("Mad About You"). Okay, so there's not a lot of creativity with the characters' names, but that can happen when characters are essentially playing themselves. Many of David's celebrity friends have also appeared on the show as themselves, including Richard Lewis, Kathy Griffin, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen. Julia Louis-Dreyfus will appear on a future episode. But in spite of all these guests, David is clearly the focus of the show, and he's so good you have to wonder why he wasn't in front of a camera sooner.

So far my only complaint about the show is that the dialogue is mostly improvised. Larry David comes up with the basic storyline, then the actors just make up their own words. As an aspiring television writer, this offends me. He could have asked me to write for "Curb," but he never even called me. Oh well. It's hard to complain when the improvised dialogue is so good, like in this scene, when Larry is trying to make up with Cheryl after he did something stupid.

"Larry, please, it's fine," Cheryl says. "I don't know what you want me to say right now."

Larry says, "How about 'Honey, I forgive you, would you like to have sex?' Or any combination of that. Either forgiveness or the sex, of course both would be great, that'd be ideal."

Courtesy of HBO

Larry David flies solo in HBO's "Curb."