“Curb Your Enthusiasm” may be over, but some of its concepts seem to still be knocking around in Larry David’s head. The principle that “Happy New Year!” is a sentiment that expires on Jan. 7, for example. Or the offense he takes from a “chat ‘n’ cut,” an etiquette breach in which someone uses a quick catch-up with an acquaintance as an excuse to skip ahead in a line. Or the loathsomeness of a “pig parker” — a person so selfish they hog multiple spaces rather than take the time to make sure they’re leaving room for others.
All of these ideas first popularized by “Curb” recur in David’s latest HBO project, the sketch show “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness.” The repetition is uncanny for students of David’s rigorous taxonomy of petty human failings, which he spent 12 seasons cataloging as a (barely) fictionalized version of himself rather than retire with his “Seinfeld” riches. (It turns out that, for David at least, money doesn’t buy you happiness — just the ability to fixate on ever-smaller problems once your basic needs are more than satisfied.) But it’s not quite accurate to say that “Life, Larry” merely rehashes “Curb.” After all, the callbacks are intentional, and they occur in a new context: full-on historical reenactment, retroactively projecting David’s well-known persona onto our nation’s past.
