Marvin Kitman

Seinfeld's Larry David quietly funny in new show

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is Larry David's first new comedy series since "Seinfeld" ended in 1998

(Los Angeles Times Syndicate) -- There are more "Seinfeld" writers/producers/creative geniuses, or whatever they are called, currently involved in new TV productions than people who came over on the Mayflower. Larry Charles, Steve Koren, Jennifer Crittenden, Spike Feresten, Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer, Andy Robin and Greg Kavett, David Mandel, Carol Leifer, Peter Mehlman -- yada, yada, yada -- are a few names that come to mind.

The problem is that in cases like these -- and the same thing was true of "MASH" and "Cheers" creatives -- we never know exactly who is rowing the boat or piloting the ship.

It's not like Gilbert & Sullivan, where one wrote the music and the other did the lyrics. TV sitcoms are collaborative efforts.

The Hollywood School of TV Writing and Rewriting requires authors to sit around and schmooze committee-style. In extreme cases, this is done in the producer's pool, where all the writers bob up and down in the water and the producer holds his writers' heads under water until they come up with the laugh.

It's hard to tell exactly who did what on any show.

	SCHEDULE
'Curb Your Enthusiasm' airs Sundays at 10 p.m. (EST) on HBO

But when it comes to "Seinfeld," everybody knew it was Larry David. He set the style, the tone, was the heart and soul of what we know as "Seinfeld." Or was it Jerry himself?

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" -- which premiered Sunday, October 15, at 9:30 on HBO and is Larry David's first new comedy series since "Seinfeld" ended in 1998 -- offers a clue. Actually, it's the smoking gun that ends the mystery of who done it.

I was only semi-thrilled with David's 1999 HBO special, also titled "Curb Your Enthusiasm." My enthusiasm was curbed by the special, a cinema verite-style mock documentary about Larry's return to the stand-up comedy wars, coming out of hibernation where he seemed to be sulking in his lair after his 1998 movie, "Sour Grapes," sank without a trace.

For an hour we saw all the foreplay, preparations, negotiations and rehearsals for the coming-out party, a big concert performance. But the special ended without viewers' seeing the act, which I had every reason to believe would be hilarious, judging by the bits he was trying out -- like Jerry -- at small comedy clubs. The big tease left me stamping my feet and holding my cigarette lighter aloft in frustration.

The new half-hour series fulfills my happiest expectations. With this show we can see why "Seinfeld" went into the puzzling precipitous decline when Larry took a year or so off to work on his big movie.

Scholars of "Seinfeld" will study "Curb Your Enthusiasm" like anthropologists searching for the origin of the species. It offers startling evidence of David's idiosyncratic input. The David in "Seinfeld" now stands out like the diamonds in the tons of rock. "Curb" is "Seinfeld" -- only without Jerry and the gang.

My enthusiasm for David's new series is more than academic. It's a quietly funny show and great fun.

It's, of course, a series about nothing.

Continuing the cinema verite style of the special, the episodes are improvised by the actors from a story line by David. It is directed again by Robert Weide ("Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth"). His cameras follow David through the minutiae of his life, that of the above-average man in sneakers in the streets of the Nouveau Riche People's Republic of L.A. He is a genuine millionaire creative-type eccentric on the loose. The verite is enriched by the usual maximizing and minimizing of reality that is the core of comedy.

Returning from the special are the two people closest to a comedian's heart -- his agent, a fat momma-and-poppa's boy named Jeff (played by Jeff Garlin), and his wife, Cheryl (Cheryl Hines).

Sunday night's show starts with Larry noticing that his pants bunch up when seated. "Five inches," he whines to Cheryl. "I got a tent."

You'd be amazed about the complications from this insignificant fashion note. Then again you might not. It's the basic "Seinfeldian" principle that anything, or nothing, can trigger what is known as a "Seinfeld," or, perhaps now, a "David" Moment.

Little annoying things in life bother David. In the premiere it's the people who don't bother to stand up when you enter an aisle in a movie theater. Or people who use the speaker phone in their cars taking calls when others are in the car. Or having to go to the movies with your wife's best friend. Or telling a little white lie to protect your wife's feelings. And all the other little nothings that make up Larry David's complex tortured life.

Little twigs manage to end with a roaring fire of complications. It's hilarious seeing what can happen to a poor guy just because he referred to his wife as "Hitler" behind her back.

David is like a biblical character wandering in the cultural desert, a Job with all his troubles multiplying because of his making something out of nothing.

Along the way you get great guest performances, Richard Lewis, for example, Sunday night. This is the other more real Lewis, the wonderful funny neurotic with "the irregular heart thing," "the recovering alcoholic with high cholesterol," not the abomination we saw in his last traditional sitcom, "Daddy Dearest" on Fox in 1993.

Other friends drop in on David's life every week: Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen on October 22 and Julia Louis-Dreyfus later on. Maybe Jerry will show up for the season finale.

Being on HBO, Larry doesn't have to resort to palliatives like "Master of Your Domain," as was the case at NBC. On HBO, the language all hangs out.

As if that wasn't enough, there is no laugh track. You can decide what is funny or not without those hyenas on the canned track.

David is not what you'd call a likable character. In fact, he is a sourpuss, a member of the deadpan school of comedy. He is a contentious guy looking for a fight. Not only does he have a chip on his shoulder, he has one on both shoulders. In other words, he is not a charmer, like Mr. Ed, the bowling lawyer on NBC; he's more like Jerry Stiller than Jerry Seinfeld.

Actually, one can even say David comes across as obnoxious as Garry Shandling's Larry Sanders. His saving grace is that he loses at the end of each episode.

"Curb Your Enthusiasm," despite HBO's wildest dreams, is not the new "Larry Sanders Show." That is because it's really a one-man show. What made Shandling's prickly whining character so easy to take was his being surrounded by strong likable characters, like Artie (Rip Torn) and "Hey, Now" Hank Kingsley (Jeffrey Tambor). "Curb" needs a stronger agent to play off.

Still, nothing can dampen my enthusiasm. I haven't enjoyed a new cable comedy so much since the first episode of "Larry Sanders."

Kitman is the television critic for New York Newsday. His column appears regularly on CNN Interactive's Entertainment section. E-mail Kitman at MarvinKitmanShow@worldnet.att.net

(c) 2000, Newsday Inc. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

HBO: Larry David

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