Larry David may be world’s best ‘social assassin’

The best comedy currently on television is “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” an HBO show written and starring Larry David, the co-creator of “Seinfeld.”


The premise of the show is simple. David, who plays a funnier and looser version of himself, interacts with people in his life, many of them celebrities, and often gets in trouble because he has a habit of saying and doing the wrong thing.

Although fictional, it’s often hard to tell because of the high number of real people involved with it, the fact David is essentially playing himself and the improvisational comedy that is used for nearly all of the dialogue. Each script for the show is only four to eight pages long – essentially just an outline of what needs to happen – and the actors improvise their own dialogue, most of which is funny and some of which is amusingly awkward.

Nearing the end of its eighth season, “Curb” is firing all of its cylinders and easily having its best season. I say that because each episode has been funnier than anything else that’s been on TV this year. But I could have said that after seeing just the third episode of the season in which David’s manager, Jeff Greene (played by Jeff Garlin), coined the phrase “social assassin” to describe David.

“Seinfeld” was well known for coining popular catchphrases: “Soup Nazi,” “shrinkage,” “re-gifter,” “master of your domain,” “spongeworthy,” “yada, yada, yada,” “close talker” and “not that there’s anything wrong with that,” to name just a few of the most popular ones.

“Social assassin” may be my favorite one, though, and it singlehandedly makes this season excellent.

Greene calls Larry a social assassin after another character said he likes how Larry “says what everyone’s thinking.”

“You know what you are?” Greene said to David upon hearing this description of David. “You’re a social assassin.”

It’s a phrase that soon leads to some of his friends hiring him to tell people they love the things they’re afraid to say themselves to these people. One guy hires him to tell his wife saying “LOL” (acronym for “laugh out loud”) instead of just laughing is not funny, and Greene’s daughter hires him to tell her mother, the loud and obnoxious Susie Greene (the hilarious Susie Essman), that nobody can stand it when she says “ahhhh” after every sip she takes of a beverage.

David completes his assassin missions, but as usual, he says or does the wrong thing again and makes a complete mess of the situation, making himself worse off than he was beforehand.

Despite the mishaps, I’d still hire him for a social assassin mission or two. I know a few people with annoying habits I’d like to tell them to stop, but I’m too nice to actually tell them. Having somebody else – somebody not so nice like David – would be a convenient way to maybe put an end to those habits.

For example, I know someone who doesn’t turn off the bright lights of his vehicle for oncoming traffic. I’ve tried a few times, but it doesn’t seem to register, and getting too bold about it is something I’m not comfortable doing. But I’m sure David would have no problem with it. “Hey man, you should put your dim lights on for oncoming traffic. It’s not only the polite thing to do, but it’s the safe thing, as you could cause an accident if you blind the other driver,” he would probably say, most likely following it up with something so rude the driver would keep the bright lights on just out of spite.

If I’m there to stop David from saying the rude thing, then the mission may be accomplished.

I’ve thought about becoming a social assassin myself, but I don’t have that gene in me that would allow me to say something without feeling bad about how the other person feels. For now, I’ll just have to watch David do it for a few more weeks on his brilliant show.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Sept. 2, 2011.

Protesters would be better off by keeping quiet

Two weeks ago the HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” generated some controversy when the star of the program, “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David who plays himself on the show, accidentally urinated on a painting of Jesus. Catholic groups, as well as a Muslim group, protested the show, saying it crossed the line in mocking religion, as David’s urine was located in a place that caused a character on the show to believe Jesus was crying.
Instead of protesting, an act that has drawn the attention of a number of news media outlets, thus generating attention to the show, those groups should have stayed quiet to keep the spotlight off the show. It’s a mistake too many protesters have made to the detriment of their causes.
I saw the show when it first aired, and my personal opinion of it was that it was one of the show’s weaker episodes, an opinion I communicated to a co-worker who also watches it.
While I understood the show was essentially mocking people who believe Jesus or other religious figures can take the form of such random things as a Cheetoh or a piece of toast, the humor the show was trying to convey got lost in a tirade of other jokes it was spewing at the same time. “Curb” often does this, and most of the time the majority of the jokes work, with the end result being a show that is sometimes funnier than David’s other masterpiece, “Seinfeld.”
Once in a while, though, “Curb” overreaches and the end product is like that clunker of a “Seinfeld” episode when Jerry, George and Kramer went to Los Angeles and Kramer is mistaken for a serial killer in his pursuit of an acting career. I filed the “Curb” episode with David urinating on the Jesus painting into the clunker file, right next to this “Seinfeld” episode, thinking it’s one I’ll never need to watch again.
But then Deal Hudson, author and publisher of InsideCatholic.com, came out and questioned why the episode could publicly show that level of disrespect for Christian symbols, demanding an apology from the show’s producers.
And then Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, also criticized the episode, saying David intentionally mocks Catholics because he is Jewish.
Anyone that has ever watched the show knows David is an equal-opportunity mocker, as “Curb” grabs every opportunity to mock not just religion, including Judaism, but also every gender, race, sexuality, profession, belief and anything that can be targeted for mocking. This season’s mockery even included a way for him to find a way to dump a woman he was dating who got cancer.
HBO acknowledges this fact, issuing a statement in response to the controversy: “Anyone who follows ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ knows that the show is full of parody and satire. Larry David makes fun of everyone, most especially himself. The humor is always playful and certainly never malicious.”
When it’s on again, I plan on re-watching this controversial episode, as I know I’ll find it funnier than my first viewing just because of the controversy it generated. And I’m sure many others who never watched the show before might make it a point to watch the episode, just to see what all the controversy is about. Some of those people might discover the humor in the show and watch other episodes.
I highly doubt the protests against the show are going to cause regular viewers to suddenly stop watching it, which leads me to point out again that protests don’t work. It only helps the subject matter that is being protested.
How many people re-watched Janet Jackson’s “Nipplegate” performance from the Super Bowl after protests made it the top news story? Certainly millions more than would have had people simply said it was a boring performance.
How many people would have bothered to watch “Roseanne” when another woman kissed her? The show was on its final legs at that point, and though it was still popular, it achieved a huge ratings surge with people tuning in to see something others were protesting.
John Lennon once said in an interview that The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” In context, he was saying that Christianity was on a downtrend, as exemplified by the plausible fact a rock band seemed more popular than an entire religion. It was a statement that went unnoticed for four months, but when a teen magazine reprinted part of the quote, out of context, people went on the protest.
Beatles’ records were banned, burned and broken, and some radio stations refused to play the group’s music. Did the protests work? The fact that the group, which broke up nearly 40 years ago, was the biggest selling band of this decade demonstrates it didn’t.
I know I’m giving sound advice to would-be protesters of anything: don’t bother because it won’t work to your favor. I also know it’s advice that will go unheeded.