7 Times Larry David’s Real Life Was Just Like An Episode Of Curb

Thank you, Larry David, for the beautiful character you’ve given us in Curb Your Enthusiasm’s ‘Larry David’. He says all the petty things we want to say. He does all the petty things we want to do. And if he did all those things in real life, according to the real Larry, he “would be arrested, or hit, or whatever.” True.

“The character really is me, but I just couldn’t possibly behave like that,” he says. “You can’t do that,” he says. “We never say what we really feel,” he says. But actually the real Larry David and the screen one have actually got a lot in common. As David’s friend, comedian Bill Scheft, found, David “figured out a way throughout the years to incorporate his life into his work… when you’re with Larry David you never know when a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm is gonna burst out.” Here are seven times Curb Your Enthusiasm and real life have cross-pollinated.

1. The Jesus biscuit

In Season 3, Larry’s on-screen wife had a bright idea. “When I was home in Florida, my family had made a manger scene out of cookies and everyone was walking around saying, ‘Don’t eat baby Jesus.’ And I immediately called Larry and said, ‘If you were at my house right now, you would eat baby Jesus and my family would go crazy.’ And then we started talking back-and-forth and he [loved it].” They did exactly that, and of course, Larry eats baby Jesus.

2. Car Park drama

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Remember the episode in season 1 where Larry misses his doctor’s appointment because he holds the elevator for someone? When he has no cash to leave the $3 parking lot he ends up having to pay ten times that amount in a loan. In real life, over 10 years after this episode aired, Larry was within his free two-hour parking limit when he was asked to fork out $5 to leave a car park. A queue formed behind him, so he approached them to tell them why he wasn’t able to get out, and the video footage – so similar to real Curb Your Enthusiasm – went viral. See him discussing the event with Conan, below.

3.Larry David’s on and off-screen marriage

Larry divorced Laurie David in 2007, and the seventh and eighth seasons of Curb reflected this, with Larry divorcing Cheryl Hines’ character – Cheryl David.

4. Susie Essman having to shout at fans

Susie Greene is a foul-mouthed piece of work, who constantly unleashes sweary tirades against Larry. And, in real life, fans ask her to swear at her. For real.

6. Exonerating a murder suspect

Juan Catalan was suspected of the murder of a teenage girl in 2003, despite an alibi and ticket stub for an LA Dodgers baseball game. When he remained a suspect, the footage provided by Curb, who had been filming at the game, proved that he was innocent.

7. Larry’s friendship with Richard Lewis

Richard Lewis is a fellow comedian whom Larry David asked personally to be involved in Curb when it started. The strange thing, though, is that they go way back, and even better, that they used to hate each other. Aged 12, they attended the same sports camp and were reportedly each other’s nemesis. “The odds that we would become best friends was so unique and so crazy, it bonded us forever,” Lewis has said.

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