Comedian Elon Gould first met Larry David on a 2017 panel discussion between Alan Dershowitz—the famous Trump-era civil liberties attorney Martha’s Vineyard—and conservative talk show host Dennis Prager. After the event, Gold called the creator and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, who attended at the behest of his then-friend Dershowitz (with whom David has since widely fallen out).
“I said, What do you think of the debate?” Gould recalls. And Larry said, I was upset the whole time. I was upset the whole time. And I’m like, ‘What happened?’ Then he said, ‘I saw someone I know, and I pressed the person in front of me to click on the person in front of them, and he refused.’
Gould replied, “He didn’t direct the faucet.”
Cut into season 11 of HBO’s two-time Emmy-winning sitcom, the “Tap Redirect” clip appears in a scene between David and Tracy Ullman, who guest-starred as wonky city councilwoman and Larry’s animal, Irma Kostrowski. Coincidentally, Gould, who David didn’t remember by name — but did remember the “faucet forward” exchange, and save it for future use — also appeared as Hulu’s CEO who greenlighted “Young Larry,” the fantasy series that was shown as part of this season’s arc. .
“This is another part of [Larry’s] genius. “He writes everything,” Gould says. “For him, that’s a puzzle. He’s piecing together all the parts he’s built up for a decade and figuring out where they go and for what scenes. I was in his office last week and I said, ‘Do you remember the front origin?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I remember exactly what it is.'” And I said, “But did you know it was me?” He said, “No.”
The Gold, a well-known Jewish stand-up comedian who has appeared on series such as “American Dad!” And “Crashing,” they got a recurring role on “Curb” in the same season, the exchange between Gold and David years ago could have made his way into an episode, of course, coincidentally. But it can also be “basheret,” a Yiddish word meaning fate or destiny. Buchert is also the guest of a word uttered by star Jon Hamm at this season’s premiere of Curb, along with a few other Yiddish expressions – Tsoris (woe), Shanda (Shame), micky (To my pleasure) — punctuated throughout the show which, while always incorporating Jewish metaphors, pulled all the proverbial stops on this Emmy-nominated season.
To be sure, Curb has always been a high-profile comedy, flipping political correctness at nearly every turn; Season 8’s episode of “Palestinian Chicken” lived up to 1960s Mel Brooks for its disruptive brilliance. David never gave in to the industry’s expectations of what comedy was “supposed” to be. For intelligence, when radio journalist Michael Kay David asked in 2021 if he was concerned about the prospect of alienating Trump supporters given the subplot of the series’ 10th MAGA season, David replied, “Feel off yourself. Go and go away! You’ve given my blessing. No, I can care “.
But with high rates of Jew-hatred in America—according to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic incidents reached an all-time high in 2021—the shameless and unapologetic “rein in” Jew (and Jew), the heart of anti-Semitism (and racial and cultural anthropomorphisms) across the board) upside down out loud that resonates with no regard for what critics, viewers, or basically anyone might think, was one of the most exhilarating examples of young 2022. screen fare.
“I was spraying words like tachlis, which has never been said on TV before and is Hebrew for “real talk,” Gould says of his scenes, all of which are improvised. In “curb”, there is no text.
Larry and Jeff [Schaffer], the director and showrunner, just said, “Go into town and have fun,” Gold continues. “I’ll never forget the first time I did a scene. Larry made me totally comfortable by saying, ‘Listen, until we both are happy with this scene, we’re going to keep doing it.'” This just totally relaxed me. They just came and said, “Get a Jew as much as you can. Enjoy it. Anything you have from the Jewish arsenal, get it out.”
This applies to phrase conversions in colloquial Judaism which David himself did not know.
In the scene where you said Ted Danson is real Mica,’ In real life [David] I didn’t know it,” says Gould. “And that’s when Larry turned to me and said, ‘I totally nailed this,’ and that was a compliment from him. Because everything is getting better so it’s like back and forth, back and forth. I like playing tennis [John] McEnroe. When you hit the ball, he hits it again with more force. Now, you are up to your game. Now you can hit her again hard.”
Susie Iceman, who played Susie Green for the entirety of “Curb’s,” is proud to be the de facto Yiddish advisor to the series.
“Yiddish is the language of comedy,” she says. My grandmother spoke Yiddish and was the funniest person I knew. And I have a few friends who speak Yiddish fluently, so when I want to check the words, I go to them. Jon Hamm speaking to me in Yiddish was one of the most precious things I’ve ever seen. The Yiddish-speaking goyishe god was great.”
But Curb is not a series designed or watched exclusively for Jews.
Gould notes that “Larry gets kind of upset when other Jews think the show is just for them, because it really is for everyone.” “It’s the show with the most observations about human behavior – period – that’s ever been done.”
“Larry writes what he wants to write about and creates the scenarios he wants to make,” Eastman adds. “He doesn’t think, ‘Oh, this would be offensive’ or ‘This would be offensive. “I don’t like to speak on his behalf, but I know it’s not something that comes to his mind. The reason I think it works is because his character is a truth teller. His character is clearly making fun of himself. It’s almost as if he puts his finger in his eye. The reason why people They respond The characteristic of Larry is that he says what everyone thinks but is afraid to say – that’s basically the role of comedians. Your job is to say what other people think but are afraid to say, and then say it in a slightly devious way. The job of comedy is to be a social commentator “.
The eleventh season deals with diverse societal issues, from COVID-19 quarantine supply depots to white nationalism, to “little everyday annoyances,” according to Eastman.
In the fourth episode, Larry’s roommate Leon (JB Smoove) reveals the shame he feels while eating watermelon in front of the “white people”. In a gesture of solidarity, Larry announced that he was buying a gevilt fish and would eat it “with a piece of cream cheese on the bread.”
In that same episode, Larry accidentally spills coffee on a KKK “ecru” Klan man’s robe on his way to a series of hate rallies. After reciting words from the “Tradition” of Fiddler on the Roof in the presence of said Clansman and engaging in an impromptu Talmudic discourse with a Jewish dry-cleaner – “We don’t discriminate!” He pays Larry to clean the robe. When the dress is gone, “Larry” convinces Suzy to sew a new dress. Reluctantly, she complied. The result: a bright white robe with a giant Star of David on it.
“I thought it was cool,” she says.
But like anything else in comedy, someone somewhere will inevitably find something offensive in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” at some point.
“There’s the episode we filmed at the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles, and Larry’s footsteps in the dirty dog, and he stole shoes from piles of shoes in remembrance of the Holocaust. [exhibit] And he’s so funny, and so edgy, you know, I think some people are offended,” Eastman says. “But I always think of Mel Brooks, and he got a lot of criticism initially when he first made The Producers because he made fun of the Holocaust. . And what he said about her, and the thing I totally agree with, was that the only power he had was sarcasm. The only power he had over those people who were evil and did such heinous things was to make fun of them, because he was a comedian. And he was able to do it brilliantly. I think Larry has a similar view. Sometimes, comedy is the only strength you have.”
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