www.bangitout.com by Rabbi Simcha Weinstein (www.rabbisimcha.com)
Curb Your Enthusiasm returns to HBO on September 20, and this seventh season of the critically acclaimed, award-winning comedy series may turn out to be its best yet. That’s because this season will really be a combination of two hit shows in one.
In the alternate showbiz universe of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the cast of Curb creator Larry David’s previous (real life) hit show, Seinfeld, are getting together for a (fictional) cast reunion special.
Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards and other stars of that classic 1990s sitcom will show up to work out the reunion’s logistics with their old colleague Larry, and hilarity will no doubt ensue.
When this plot line leaked out, you could sense the, well, enthusiasm in the media and beyond. Anyone who wondered if the world still cared about some “old” sitcom called Seinfeld got their answer: a resounding yes. Seinfeld marked the beginning of a new golden age of Jewish comedy. It still matters.
I’ll take that one step further, and argue that Curb Your Enthusiasm matters even more.
For comedy buffs like me – after all, I “wrote the book” about modern Jewish humor, called Shtick Shift – these new episodes of Curb will be a fascinating blend of old and new.
Seinfeld aired from 1989 until 1998, and was one of the most popular shows in television history. Its characters, situations and catch phrases (like “yadda yadda yadda”) became part of the cultural currency.
More importantly, Seinfeld was a highpoint in the history of American Jewish humor. All those great comedy pioneers, from Fanny Brice (with her broad Yiddish accent) to Woody Allen (with his neurotic nebbishy character) had paved the way for those hilarious 22-minutes a week with Jerry and his friends. If the previous hundred years of Jewish comedy had been a funny run-on sentence, then Seinfeld was its exclamation point.
Yet ironically, even through Seinfeld is now considered the definitive Jewish sitcom, the first seasons featured few openly Jewish storylines. Sure, characters Jerry, Elaine and Kramer were obviously Jewish, but not explicitly so – more like “Israel-lite.”
After a few successful seasons, Seinfeld’s sensibility gradually became more explicitly Jewish – and ironically, the show became even more popular to a wider audience.
In an episode that seemed like a knowing wink to all the non-Jewish fans of the program, Jerry’s gentile dentist converts to Judaism – “for the jokes”!
Jerry: Elaine, the guy's Jewish two days, he's already making Jewish jokes.
Elaine: So what? When someone turns twenty-one, they usually get drunk the first night.
Jerry: Booze is not a religion.
Elaine: Tell that to my father.
The nation had “converted” to Jewish humor.
Eventually, Jerry’s Upper West Side neighborhood took over from the legendary Lower East Side to become New York City's (and the world's) unofficial Jewish capital.
The breathtaking success of the Seinfeld “experiment” gave the show’s executive producer, Larry David, the creative freedom he needed to follow up with the most openly Jewish comedy series ever: Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Which means that when the Seinfeld gang enters Larry David’s upscale Brentwood domain — a fairyland-shtetl of posh boutiques, exclusive restaurants, therapists and acupuncturists — they will finally become authentically Jewish, no longer just “Jew-ish.”
From its very start seven seasons ago, Curb Your Enthusiasm took the famous Seinfeld sensibility to a radical extreme. The 21st century had just begun, and Curb Your Enthusiasm reflected changing times. America had assimilated Jewishness, Jewishness had assimilated America, and Curb Your Enthusiasm would exploit those realities.
Curb Your Enthusiasm concerns the actual (more or less) off-screen life of Larry David. Post-Seinfeld, the wealthy, successful (and mostly miserable) David is now semi-retired, having left the good old Upper West Side for glamorous Brentwood, Los Angeles.
He hangs out with his manager Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin) and Jeff’s wife Susie (Susie Essman) and lives with his wife Cheryl (Cheryl Hines).
At least, he did, until that unfortunate Season Six incident with the TiVo repairman… Curb Your Enthusiasm fans have been waiting impatiently to find out if the couple will reconcile in season seven.
Soon they’ll have their answer. With another example of impeccable comic timing, Larry David’s all-new offerings will start airing on September 20, right after Rosh Hashanah. (Which would be the perfect time for Kramer actor Michael Richards to repent of his racist rant a few years back…)
As a rabbi, I can’t think of anything better after two days of giving a bunch of sermons to kvetching congregants than watching the King of Kvetchers himself, Larry David, unveil a new season of this modern TV classic.
Simcha Weinstein is an award-winning author, whose latest book is Shtick Shift: Jewish Humor in the 21st century (Barricade Books: 2008) is out now.