It’s days like this when the universe proves it has a sense of timing: within 24 hours, not only did Don Imus debut a TV show in the aftermath of a racial scandal, but Michael Richards returned to TV in the aftermath of his racial scandal. (If you’re David Letterman, by the way, are these comebacks a reminder of how mighty entertainers can fall or proof that the public has a short memory?)
In any case, Curb Your Enthusiasm’s show-within-a-show reunion of Seinfeld began last night, and I was impressed with how natural—and how Seinfeldian—the players all were with each other immediately. (With, of course, the additional element of Larry David on screen.)
It was a wonderful and bizarre thing to see Jerry’s living room recreated on HBO, but even more so to hear that dialogue again. David fell into an argument with his alter ego, Jason Alexander, over how unlikable his character George (a stand-in for David) was, and on the practice of negotiated tipping. And David’s exchanges with Seinfeld—”You shifted!” “There was no shift!”—seemed like an odd dream in which you found yourself watching a Seinfeld rerun that never existed in real life.
Did you enjoy Larry’s getting the Beatles back together? Or was there a shift?