Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good

Larry David and the Making of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm

• Publisher: Ecw Press Digital
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781554906970
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Television

In Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good, titled after Larry David's key catchphrase, readers follow the early exploits of Larry's stand-up career, his days writing for Seinfeld and learn how Curb was conceived and developed. The book also explores Larry's on and off-screen relationships with famous pals like Richard Lewis, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen and the cast of Seinfeld and contains an in-depth episode guide to Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Season Three

EPISODE ONE

Chet’s Shirt / Original Airdate: September 15, 2002 / Directed by Robert B. Weide

This first episode of the new season has to get the story arc started, but it’s busy with a lot of other stuff as well. It might even have the most stories of the season.

The emotions and rituals around a death were a good setting to show the callous self-regard of those lovable Seinfeld characters, and the same goes for Curb. (As we shall see, however, an upcoming episode with a death that affects Larry more closely is a different matter.)

In this case, the deceased is the husband of Cheryl’s friend Barbara, who after four months — not a long time, despite what Larry thinks — is still having a hard time coping with everyday life. When Larry goes over to pick up Cheryl, he can barely manage to fake some sympathy. Instead he notices a picture of Chet, the dead husband, and exclaims, “I love that shirt. That’s exactly the kind of shirt I would wear, don’t you think?” He pesters Barbara until she finally remembers the store where Chet bought it. And in the next scene there’s Larry, happy as a clam, walking down the street with Jeff in the identical two-tone shirt.

This seems as good a place as any to note another conventional aspect of Cheryl and Larry’s marriage. Even though Cheryl has a car, Larry always drives, and often picks her up from places.

It’s not clear exactly who brought the new restaurant idea to Larry, but he and Jeff both decide to join the investors, who include Ted Danson and a remarkably young- and uncomfortable-looking Michael York. At least the restaurant business is a cut above Larry selling cars, but at his first investors’ meeting he makes some inane suggestions — such as a bell on each table for customers to ring when they want their waiter’s attention. As always, Larry focuses his attention on the small, distracting, or even ridiculous details. Another time he will suggest applesauce as a side dish, claiming that it is seriously underrated. It’s a wonder that the other investors agree to let Larry find uniforms for the waiters. (One of the fun aspects of the season is that we get to see the progress of the restaurant, from a raw space in this episode to the handsome, finished dining place in the last, complete with open kitchen.)

Watching Larry and Jeff looking at clothes for the waiters is one of those nice, small scenes that is full of chuckles. Every shirt that Larry suggests is ridiculous — a golf shirt, a checked shirt to match the tablecloths. The one he goes with has military-style epaulettes, reminding Larry of meals in the mess hall when he was in the reserves. There’s even one of those funny, throwaway conversations, this one with a fellow patient at Larry’s dentist, nicely played by the SNL, Second City veteran and comedy instructor Chris Barnes. Sensibly, the other investors reject Larry’s choice (people will think the restaurant is serving airline food) over Jeff’s suggestion of a simple blue shirt over slacks.

The restaurant meetings are an occasion for Larry to have another altercation in his uneasy friendship with Ted Danson. Life, Larry might say, is conflict, and there’s no reason that friendships shouldn’t be full of emotional and sometimes physical tussles as well. After Ted admires Larry’s new shirt, Larry picks one up for him. But when Ted discovers the shirt has a hole in it, he asks Larry to take it back to the store. Larry says it’s Ted’s responsibility. I’m pretty sure most people would find Ted in the right. As Ted says, Larry had a “nice thought” and then ruined it.

The animosity between the two carries on to the birthday party that Ted is giving for his five-year-old daughter, Jill. The party has a Wizard of Oz theme and Ted has asked Larry, Cheryl, and Jeff to play characters in costume — the cowardly lion, the tin man, and Dorothy. Angered by the shirt incident, Ted takes the role of the lion away from Larry and tells him to play the tin man. Larry refuses, not caring if he disappoints Jill. He even calls Ted an asshole in front of the girl, only spelling out the word. But apparently the kid is a good speller and takes the opportunity of swinging at a piñata to smack Larry in the mouth. (Later Larry delivers some pretty funny lines about the “dangerous” pleasures of the piñata.)

The continuation of the shirt plot is almost a little too Seinfeld-esque: Larry has his own shirt ruined by Barbara when she sees the shirt and, reminded of her dead husband, tearfully hugs Larry, staining it with her makeup. Larry has a backup from the store and he and Ted end up wrestling for it, tearing the shirt in half. That moment is forced, but overall this is a good episode, with all the actors sharp and witty. It’s a good start to the season.

Oh, one more word about that wrestling match with Ted. It is awfully like Larry’s various grappling encounters with Richard Lewis. How is it that Larry is always becoming physical with his male friends? Is there some homoerotic impulse at work here?

I can just imagine Larry’s face at the very idea.

EPISODE TWO

The Benadryl Brownie / Original Airdate: September 22, 2002 / Directed by Larry Charles

Let’s get one thing straight. Larry does not live in the ordinary world that the rest of us travel through. Oh, his world touches on the ordinary world whenever he talks to a waiter or needs his television repaired (as in this episode). But he really knows nothing about the lives of such people. He lives in a world where you take it for granted that your friends are famous. Larry does know people who have tried and failed to be famous, but they aren’t really his friends. It’s a world where you need to fuss over the amount of a tip or the price of a meal because otherwise money has no meaning since it is endlessly available. A world where going to the Emmy Awards sounds like a giant yawn.

The Emmys are where Richard Lewis is going to take his new girlfriend Debra — something that she, at least, is looking forward to. Before that though, Larry asks Richard and Debra for dinner so that afterward they can all watch a cut of Richard’s new comedy special before the final edit is locked in. The new restaurant’s chef, Randy, prepares dinner, but Debra turns out to be allergic to peanuts and her face swells up (something which we never actually see on screen). The problem is that she’s a Christian Scientist and cannot take any medicine.

The real energy in this episode comes from the conversations between Richard and Larry. Richard thinks that he may be in love with Debra’s “soul” but nevertheless — as Larry teases — he doesn’t want to be seen at the Emmys with Debra in her present swollen condition. The two of them talking about Christian Scientists has them in rare agreement; neither can fathom the idea of not taking medicine. Whether they are arguing vehemently or nodding in agreement, they look like the old friends they in fact are.

A plot is hatched to get Debra to eat a cookie laced with Benadryl, the medicine that will rid her of the allergy symptoms and make her presentable at the Emmys. Susie Essman, holder of the secret family brownie recipe, is remarkably subdued in her refusal to give it to Larry. Apparently the separation from Jeff has taken something out of her. Maybe calling someone a “fat fuck” is a sign of love, for Susie will not regain her wonderfully foul-mouthed energy until she and Jeff are back together. Cheryl has to be induced to make the brownies instead, but proving herself to have few domestic skills, they come out tasting horrible and Debra refuses to eat them. Richard ends up having to take her, swollen head and all, to the Emmys. Larry and Cheryl watch as the fork-tongued Joan Rivers calls them over to the red carpet, only to take one look at Debra and call her a “hemorrhoid.”

A subplot of the episode involving the TV repairman and Cheryl’s friend Wanda might be titled “The Continuing Saga of Larry and Black People.” Much funnier though is watching Larry at a Christian Science prayer meeting where Debra’s mother invites him to join the circle. Larry has to hold hands with two men and the look of squeamish revulsion on his face is a Kodak moment.

EPISODE THREE

Club Soda and Salt / Original Airdate: September 29, 2002 / Directed by Robert B. Weide

Season three started well, but with this episode it starts to shift into a higher comic gear. It’s also highly educational. Not only do we learn about the rules of wedding gifts, but we are also offered a helpful household hint.

Jealousy has been a ripe subject for both tragedy and comedy since — well, basically since theater was invented. The Greeks, Shakespeare, eighteenth-century French farce, not to mention the development of the sitcom, have all used it. And now it’s Larry’s turn.

The reason for Larry’s jealousy is an actor named Brad who has become Cheryl’s tennis partner. When Larry walks into the house and finds the two, post-game, having a beer, the moment is an awkward one. But not just for Larry; Cheryl herself acts discomfited, as if caught doing something wrong. It seems quite possible that this friendship, though harmless, has some boy-girl attraction to it. (Brad is played by Josh Temple, a graduate of the improv group Bay Area Theater Sports and a host of such reality shows as America’s Toughest Jobs, which also demands strong improvisational skills.)

An old-school type when it comes to marital relations, Larry strongly objects to their friendship. Of course Brad wants to sleep with her, he tells Cheryl. Maybe he’ll get himself a “heterosexual single woman” to play golf with. Later he tells Jeff about the incident and his manager can always be trusted to confirm his view of things. Jeff is like Ed McMahon to Larry’s Johnny Carson. Jeff asks what the guy is even doing in Larry’s house. But really, in this age, a man or a woman can’t have a single friend of the opposite sex? This has to be a threat? No, it does not. Unless, of course, the guy is actually after your wife.

Which turns out to be the case. In order to get rid of Brad Larry offers to play tennis with Cheryl (in a moment in which they have their first onscreen kiss), only to complain during the game that whenever she makes a shot she grunts like “pigs fucking.” (Actually she does.) Unfortunately for Larry, taking a beating on the tennis court does not keep Brad away. He invites Cheryl to see him in a production of Tony and Tina’s Wedding. Cheryl clearly wants to go alone, but Larry insists on coming.

For anyone who has seen this noisy, “interactive” play in which the audience becomes the guests at the wedding, the theater scenes are hilarious. In the bathroom Larry encounters Brad, wearing a tuxedo and speaking in the Italian-accented voice of his character, Angelo. But when he tells Larry that Tina doesn’t love Tony but instead loves him and that one day he’ll be slipping her the “salami,” Larry takes this (correctly, it seems) as a message about Cheryl. And a challenge.

Before we get to the climax of this modern day Othello, we have to follow no less than three subplots that will converge with it. One has the chef Randy quitting over the pressure of opening a new celebrity-magnet restaurant, leaving the investors to find another. During the investors’ meeting, Larry learns about an old restaurant trick for getting out stains in fabric with club soda and salt. Ted suggests his family chef, but when Larry goes over for a meal he finds it “too saucy.” Then he asks the disappointed chef for some dessert and decaf.

In the second plot, Larry and Cheryl have forgotten to give a wedding gift to a couple they know. They had already given an engagement gift, a shower gift, and even flew to Chicago for the wedding. But when they buy a $300 bottle of wine, the couple refuses to accept it. One year is the “cutoff” for wedding gifts, they assert, and the Davids have missed the date.

The third subplot begins with Larry getting into an argument with a saleswoman for following him around a store, and then the saleswoman calls the cops on Larry when she believes he is trailing her in his car. All these plots provide necessary pieces to the episode’s climax in a restaurant after Tony and Tina’s Wedding. Larry has brought with him the $300 bottle of wine, but when the saleswoman’s husband (they happen to be at the restaurant) sees Larry and attacks him, a glass gets spilled on Cheryl’s shirt. Even as Larry fends off the husband, he looks over with horror as Brad — who knows the same household hint — pours club soda and salt onto Cheryl’s shirt and then begins to vigorously rub her breast with his hand. Cue the end music.

What makes this bright, lively episode work is that the jealousy theme is in fact quite believable — both Cheryl’s flirtation and Larry’s response. This is also the first episode in some time in which some real affection is visible between the two of them — a stark contrast to last season’s strained relationship. Larry David seems to be going for a warmer feel these days.

The episode is also notable for having the first reference to Larry’s parents. He has found them a nearby apartment and his mother, who is ill, is to be treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Casually dropped into the conversation, this information is the beginning of the setup for what will prove to be the best episode of the show to date.

EPISODE FOUR

The Nanny from Hell / Original Airdate: October 6, 2002 / Directed by Larry Charles

It is often in social situations that Larry finds himself in trouble and it’s worth pausing for a moment to ponder why. Is it because he has no social smarts, lacks the human understanding necessary to say the right thing, avoid insulting others, etc.? Or is it that Larry knows better and doesn’t care, perhaps considering himself superior to the rules that others live by?

The answer is both.

Witness the two errors he makes at a pool party held by one of the restaurant investors, Hugh Mellon. (Mellon is played by Tim Kazurinsky, another in a long line of SNL vets.) Mellon is a publisher and, judging by his enormous property and beautiful pool and house, a hugely successful one. He has instructed his staff to tell guests to use the washroom in the cabana rather than in the house, but Larry, in this case holding himself superior, insists on breaking the rule. The family nanny guards the back door, but Larry cajoles and wheedles his way past her. This is an example of Larry thinking that rules shouldn’t apply to him. The other incident involves Hugh Mellon’s son. The little boy swims naked and when he gets out Larry notices what a large penis the boy has. “Veys mir,” Larry mutters, the first time he has ever used a Yiddish expression. Others notice too, but Larry is the only one who thinks to mention it to the father, expecting him to accept it as a compliment rather than some rude violation. In this latter case it’s simply Larry’s social stupidity.

When Hugh Mellon finds out that Martine the nanny (played by Cheri Oteri, another SNL alumnus) allowed someone into the house, he fires her. So she comes to Larry’s house, expecting to be taken care of. Larry takes her to Jeff and Susie’s house for an interview, because the two have reconciled over the news that Susie is pregnant. But it turns out that Martine is mentally challenged and goes unhinged when she hears the musical theme from the Loon...