Would Larry David thrive in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic?

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https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/3/...rys-mocha-joes

"In some ways, the days of social distancing seem like TV Larry’s time to shine," says Ben Lindbergh. "Earlier this month, a friend of mine who felt sick got tested for COVID-19, and his employer put him on mandatory sick leave while he awaited the results. 'I can’t say I’m too upset to be forced not to go to work,' he told me via text. (His results came back negative; it was nothing time and Imodium couldn’t cure.) That sounded like the makings of a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode: Larry feels fine but gets tested anyway so he can use the uncertainty as an excuse to stay home. Larry loves a cancellation, and nothing causes more cancellations than a pandemic that prohibits physical contact. It’s not as if TV Larry would be consumed by compassion for the infected. On the other hand, he’d miss sports. Shortly after my friend’s test, the pandemic picked up steam and the world changed. Being ordered not to go to work wasn’t so special: Almost everyone who wasn’t laid off was working from home. And after a few days of self-isolation, solitude didn’t seem so desirable. Larry might mine some material from the fear of contagion, the etiquette of remote gatherings via video, the dos and don’ts of face masks, the stringent rules for senior citizens, or the Covidiots who hoard supplies or keep partying while others dutifully flatten the curve. But so much of Curb’s comedy comes from social proximity, which generates the friction between TV Larry and the rule breakers or abiders who clash with his views. COVID-19 has the same effect as the MAGA hat Larry wears in Season 10 when he wants to protect his privacy: No one wants to go near anyone else."

ALSO:

• J.B. Smoove credits Larry David for keeping Curb Your Enthusiasm relevant: "Larry has a way of attaching himself to the heartbeat of whatever’s going on in the world," he says. "It just annoys him so much that he has to put it on Curb. Everything from the MAGA hat to the spite store to all the things we did this season, he mirrors what’s going on in the world. He finds a way to think of things that annoy him, that annoy people, and he finds a way to make it work in the show, and that’s great writing.”
• There are all kinds of crazy new norms and social codes in the coronavirus world -- Larry David should mine them in Season 11
• It took 10 episodes, but Season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm did reckon with personal accountability
• The most important "Larry Lessons" of Season 10
• Quiz: Are you Mocha Joe or Latte Larry?
• Every Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, ranked

[Chocolate Moose]

It could potentially be very, very funny!!!

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Curb Your Enthusiasm boss: "I guess Larry was prophetic, right?"

"He was putting Purell on the tables at Latte Larry’s and he has been practicing social distancing for years. He just didn’t know what to call it, but he’s definitely been trying to do it," showrunner Jeff Schaffer says of Larry David's 10th season of his HBO comedy, which was completed last October, long before the coronavirus pandemic. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Schaffer was asked how David would handle the coronavirus crisis since he's the ultimate germaphobe. "Everyone is asking, 'What would Larry do? What would a season of Curb be like in the time of coronavirus?,'" says Schaffer. "It’s always tricky for us because you don’t want to lock yourself into a time that is hopefully very specific and hopefully distinct, and with an end. If you get too specific with the moment in time, it may not be timeless and the context might be so different from when you come out that it may just seem like a time capsule. You have to be very careful to not always write for a moment when you may not air for another year or more. But, like I said, Larry has been practicing social distancing his whole life, so some of the stuff is just innate to him. He has been trying to teach people how to behave that way for years. Maybe now people would finally listen."

ALSO:

• Curb Your Enthusiasm team should wait a while to depict Larry David in a post-coronavirus world
• What happens when a 4-year-old watches Curb?
• Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld are the Lennon and McCartney of comedy
• Curb's theme song is the gift that keeps on giving on social media

Larry David's antisocial and anti-capitalist Curb Your Enthusiasm behavior comes off as an unintentional prophecy amid the coronavirus

"The season finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm aired on HBO this week and the episode — titled 'The Spite Store' — was a welcome snapshot of pre-pandemic America, a seemingly foreign place that existed as recently as February," says Christopher Mosley. "It also acted as something of a metaphorical harbinger of the current dire turn in world events. That's no surprise, as the show thrives on a litany of complaints centering around the hypermundane pitfalls of capitalism, which Curb star Larry David has sharpened to an extremely fine point over 30 years, going back to his first success as co-creator of the over-achieving Seinfeld. Both Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm have taken everyday consumerist dread to operatic levels. But whereas Seinfeld had a grittiness and claustrophobia attached to it inspired by David's days as a struggling comic, Curb is largely a rich man's comedy. It's a fantasy retirement diary of walking the earth in loose-fitting clothes and comfortable shoes, owing nothing to everyone and raising your voice in protest should anyone object. Both vehicles exploit and question the unspoken social contracts that connect and police the service workers, retail, health care, airlines, and various other industries that frame the contemporary Western lifestyle. But in our current social climate, the antisocial aspects of Curb's 10th season often come off as an unintentional prophecy. What was once supposed to be paranoia now reads as shrewdly protective. Ever the fan of social avoidance before it was an inescapable necessity, there is Purell hand sanitizer readily available at every table in David's coffee shop, Latte Larry's, out of a healthy germophobia. Latte Larry's also refuses to stock bath tissue in the restrooms so as to discourage any activity that may require it." ALSO: Chaz Bono, who auditioned for Curb, says: "I feel like the chemistry with Larry is there — you feel it. I loved working with him."

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Larry David was initially "semi-resistant" to do a coronavirus PSA for California's governor

Curb Your Enthusiasm boss Jeff Schaffer tells The Rich Eisen Show that his wife Jackie, who's been working with Gov. Gavin Newsom's office, helped pave the way for David doing a stay-at-home public service announcement. Schaffer says David was initially hesistent to do it, but he eventually relented and filmed the PSA in one take.

Coronavirus has turned America into a nation of Larry Davids

Larry David's public service announcement for California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office this week urging people to stay home "helped me realize that we’re all Larry Davids now: suspicious of other people, overtly worried about hygiene, and trigger-happy on the bottle of Purell (if you even have one)," says David Sims. "Before March, crossing the street to avoid someone walking toward you on the sidewalk might have seemed rude or suspicious; now, cautiously avoiding close personal contact on any stroll around the block is the norm. That shift eliminates one of David’s ultimate fears in Curb Your Enthusiasm, the 'stop-and-chat,' where bumping into an acquaintance outside might necessitate a longer conversation simply out of politeness....For decades, David has built a comic persona around the little foibles that come with in-person human interaction. Those idiosyncrasies surfaced in multiple characters in his sitcom Seinfeld, which he co-created with Jerry Seinfeld; there, Seinfeld’s character was known for his excessive neatness and his discomfort with physical contact, such as a 'kiss hello.' Curb Your Enthusiasm, though, took that itchiness even further. David is certainly disturbed by physical contact, but it’s really every layer of socializing that he struggles with, from the various protocols of the service industry to dinner-table banter with his closest friends." Sims adds: "As I methodically wipe down packages that I bring into my home, walk in the road to stay away from people, and fixate on the noises my neighbors make stomping around their apartment, it’s hard not to feel like a Larry David acolyte. But just as these recent weeks have been an inadvertent affirmation of his grouchiness and uncharitable view of human hygiene, I live in hope that sometime in the future we’ll be able to firmly repudiate it, and go back to a world of stop-and-chats and warm hellos. The bottle of Purell on every table, though? That might be sticking around for a while."