Back in February, Kenny Kramer (the model for Cosmo, and still close friend of Larry David) commented in a live inter- view with me that "in the finale, no one learns a lesson, no one gets married, and nobody dies." And he warned that the charac- ters would all survive but their lives would take a dark twist...
Well, he got THAT right. And we found out something else about Jerry and Larry...not only were they giving us dark and sardonic satire about their generation and about contemporary values...they turned out to have a touch of the moralist about them too. These characters DON'T manage to get away with it, free of all consequences...though the final irony is, they also don't seem to have understood what happened to them. Even a year in the pokey won't probably change them...and that's the final dark twist in a nine year run with more twists than a marble rye.
For those of you who think this is a prelude to a reunion film or renewed series in 1999...forget it. People close to Jerry say he's wiped out and needs a year just to chill out, do some standup and recharge his batteries. That's precisely how long he's going to spend off the air and on the road, retiring his current bank of about 18 years of standup material and composing a new basic routine. Then, no films, no new series, maybe a talk show, maybe not. Fall 1999 does open up a lot of possibilities for him (Letterman probably walks when his contract ends, all three networks will be hurting for prime time fare), but could you blame him if he hasn't even thought them out yet?
Who knows? Maybe he'll gradually retire from public view like Johnny Carson, another brilliant comic who we all miss...but let's hope not. We need more good laughs.
Bob Smith, afternoons WXXI-AM 1370, Rochester NY