“You can’t yoo-hoo a judge?”
A lot has changed since 2011, the last time HBO aired a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm—but Larry David hasn’t changed. TV’s most lovable curmudgeon, as we can see in the newly released first trailer for the ninth season of Curb, is still shaming people for being happy, arguing about a human’s bodily limits while he or she is constipated, getting yelled at by Susie Essman (and a bevy of strangers), and yoo-hooing judges. While many people have been adjusting their personalities over the last six years, learning and progressively becoming more empathetic to the perspectives of others—getting woke, basically—David has been pondering how annoying it is when people cry too loud at funerals.
Which is really the best-case scenario. When David and Jerry Seinfeld created Seinfeld, one of their requirements was that the show have “no learning,” and Curb has taken that philosophy to an extreme. David, as a character, is a man who continually behaves egregiously and offensively and continually gets screwed, and yet is never able to understand the correlation between those two things. That’s what makes the show so funny, and the character so incredible to behold. With social media policing offensive behavior so fiercely, it’s refreshing (and a relief) to see that TV’s worst person is still at his worst.
Carrie Brownstein will be playing Larry’s (constipated) assistant; Bryan Cranston—who memorably played dentist Tim Whatley on Seinfeld—will be playing Larry’s psychiatrist; and J.B. Smoove will return to play Larry’s incongruous friend and roommate. Every character will struggle to coexist with him—some may even throw him from a bus—and no one will learn a damn thing.
Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.