CYE: I finally got to see what all the fuss was about!

I watched my first episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" this weekend. (I signed up for DirecTV last month, which included three free months of HBO, Showtime and the other premium channels.) It's great to finally be able to see this masterpiece in its full form instead of the occasional bleeped clips shown on talk shows.

"Another performance by The Two Cheeks" wrote in message news:[email]...

Your local library should have Seasons 1-6 collection in their entirety. It's fantastic. It's Seinfeld set in LA, with profanity, Judaism, and sexual humor not hidden by innuendo/euphemism. It's what Seinfeld would have been without the network censors and advertisers.

Man I feel differently about that show. I never really liked it: it has a feel of forced, makeshift acting with lines told with a hesitation that kills all interest. I mean, what's the deal with "curb your enthusiasm"? Is it reality TV or is it a sitcom? It sure does not feel like reality TV: the lines and scenes are obviously set up and nothing real. It's not a sitcome either: the whole thing is like a teenager with a handycam who talked his parents and neighbors to act along after dinner. Only it's not a California teen, it's good old Larry exposing his same pungent dyspepsia that was thought bad for the show before when they decided to cast someone other than Larry as George.

I don't even know why it went through so many seasons: my guess is that awful reality TV craze, only this one poses as two things that it isn't. I also disagree with you on the profanity bit: the subtle innuendos in Seinfeld were absolutely great. I mean, consider that scene where George talks about how he "got caught" by his mother: where would the humor be if instead the lines just "got the words out"? It just doesn't work for me.

IMHO, Curb your Enthusiasm is nowhere as good as Seinfeld just like no rocker can become Elvis. And I'm the same one who deeply prefers the Seinfeld seasons with Larry on board over the latter ones.

"Dimitrios Paskoudniakis" wrote in message news:[email]...

Hear, hear. I agree with every word. It also has that stupido music.

If that is how Larry D wanted Seinfeld to have been, he should get down on his knees and thank Jerry et al that he was overridden.

Previously, on Usenet "Alexis Machine" wrote:

Lars Stockholm

"Lars" wrote in message news:[email]...

That's a great reason to not like it.

Larry is not stupid. He is worth about $500M more than you, and that doesn't come from being stupid. He didn't want Seinfeld (the show) to be like CYE either, because he knows what a large public audience wants and doesn't want. With CYE, he wants to have fun, do a show his way, and he can afford not to care if you don't like it. CYE is not designed for a mass audience, but a refined audience. Ratings is not its goal. Being enjoyable to create Larry's way is.

It is not a reality show. It started before reality shows were even a dream. The first season was in 2000. It's a show about nothing, just like Seinfeld. You think it's a reality show? He gets kicked out of his Jewish country club, interviews with a gentile country club, picks up a prostitute so he can ride the HOV lane to get to the Dodgers game in time, runs into the country club interviewers at the game while escorting the prostitute, and you think that's reality?

There are no scripts. Every season has a central theme that runs through all of the episodes of that season, and each season's theme is different. Each episode only had an outline, and perhaps a few words were requested to be used; otherwise, the entire dialog is ad-libbed. "They" didn't decide to cast someone else other than Larry as George - Larry did. He's not stupid. He knows for a network show, he is too ugly, annoying, and obnoxious to be a headliner. He's laughing all the way to the bank.

Six 10-episode seasons is "so many"? That's not even three seasons worth of a normal 22-episode season.

I didn't suggest that profanity is better than innuendo. I merely stated a fact, that Seinfeld must use innuendo to get by the censors, while CYE, since it is on HBO, does not need to. Each has their own pluses and minuses. Your example is a plus, as are many others on Seinfeld, such as "the move", "he took IT out", "he won't do EVERYTHING", etc.

I love the CYE episode "Beloved Aunt" where his wife's aunt dies, he sends in an obituary to the paper, and they put in a typo, mistakenly replacing the "a" in "aunt" with a "c". I was on the floor cracking up during that scene as they read the obituary. What's not to like?

Or "The Anonymous Donor", where Larry suspects houseguest Leon Black of, ahem, leaving a semen stain on a blanket, and Leon can't properly pronounce "ejaculate", saying "a jacklette" because he is African American.

By the way, besides profanity, Judaism, and sexual humor, another key feature of CYE compared to Seinfeld is Larry's tension around African Americans. He occasionally showed this in Seinfeld, such as George with his boss Mr. Morgan and Carl the exterminator in "The Diplomat Club". He plays this angle much more in CYE, including the central theme of Season 6 in which he takes in a black family that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

We agree Seinfeld isn't Seinfeld without Larry David's input. However, I view the comparison between Seinfeld and CYE differently. Again, CYE is "hardcore" Seinfeld. It is the same concept (a show about nothing) but with the barriers removed. You choose to not like that as much. I choose to like it more.

Very well said.

Previously, on Usenet "Dimitrios Paskoudniakis" wrote:

I didn't say LD is stupid! His contributions to Seinfeld was brilliant and invaluable.

But while the music in Seinfeld added tempo and gusto to the show, I find the music in CYE annoying and if anything gives the show an air of 50's vudeville designed to amuse peasants.

I recall LD saying in some interview from the DVDs that originally he wanted Seinfeld to be a one camera thing, and something else that has made me think of CYE as his finally doing what he wanted at first.

Good for you if you enjoy CYE. I doubt is going to make Larry all that much richer, or that it will be rerun on countless stations for years to come.

Lars Stockholm

"Lars" wrote in message news:[email]...

You deleted text and pasted my answer to a different part of your answer.

Not fair.

Here's the context:

"> Hear, hear. I agree with every word. It also has that stupido music.

That's a great reason to not like it.

Larry is not stupid..."

I didn't say you said he is stupid. I said he is not stupid, period, in response to your claim that "if that is how Larry D wanted Seinfeld to have been [like CYE], he should get down on his knees and thank Jerry et al that he was overridden."

He certainly did not want Seinfeld to be like CYE (profanity, sexual humor, etc), where luckily Jerry et al overrode that. Not true at all. That wouldn't work on a network anyway. He knew what sells, what appeals to a mass audience, what makes advertising dollars. He did what he did then, and now he gets to have fun and do what he wants without regard to what the audience or advertisers want. He did Seinfeld to please you. He's doing CYE to please himself.

You still don't get it. Of course CYE won't make Larry significantly richer (though it certainly will make him richer, he's not donating it to HBO, and what he makes on it is more than your lifetime earnings, albeit a fraction of the hundreds of millions from Seinfeld), or will be rerun, or even watched by many people (how many people subscribe to HBO?). He's not doing it for those reasons. He's doing it because he enjoys it, because he can, and doesn't care about doing it to please a mass audience (like he did with Seinfeld). If you don't like CYE, or don't like it as much as Seinfeld, he couldn't care less (and neither do I). He already has his hundreds of millions.

"Alexis Machine" wrote in message news:fu3qn2$[email]...

One of the reasons I love it is because it's not like the usual sitcom.

When a show is coming together, there are certain assumptions that fall into it. Like how many cameras, studio audience, script.

In Curb, it takes these "givens" and throws them out.

Why do you "have" to be in a studio, or have a script that's set in stone, or have 3 cameras, or whatever else.

That's why it's not a fast paced, snappy show. Why do you have to have the audience laugh every 10 seconds, like "Friends", "Everybody Loves Raymond", King of Queens", etc.

I like shows that are different from the usual.....Trailer Park Boys, Entourage, Sopranos, CYE. I like some of the "normal" stuff too, but when that's all everybody puts out, it gets boring.

Curb isn't good because of the fact that it's made differently, it's the fact that it's made differently but has great ideas.

"It's not that my penis is small........she has a huge vagina".

Point well taken: you're looking at this from the making point of view, I'm looking at it from the viewer point of view: I'm a simple TV watcher, not a producer or director or writer.

"Incubus" wrote in message news:48146f8f$0$19234$[email]...

- "Great ideas". In other words it has Larry David, the comedic engine that drove "Seinfeld" to such heights.