With September coming to a close,Curb Your Enthusiasmseason 11 is only weeks away, withHBO announcing an official release date ofOctober 24. Eleven seasons in, fans know exactly what to expect, namely, starLarry Davidengaging in all sorts of social faux pas that begs the question, “How has this man not been banished to a remote island by now?” Perhaps the reason why is because no matter how cringy his behavior is, it’s always more hysterical than it is embarrassing. Across over 100 episodes, David has engaged in all sorts of socially chaotic scenarios ranging from simply rude to downright destructive, and it’s been some of the best comedy television in history. Here is a list of the 15 best episodes ofCurbso far, celebrating the very best of David’s antics across nearly 20 prettttaaay, prettttaay, prettay good years.
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“Porno Gil” (Season 1; Ep 3)
Guest-starring the incomparableBob Odenkirkas a former porn star Gil Bang, this early episode of the show finds Larry and wife Cheryl (Cheryl Hines) getting lost in the woods on the way to Gil’s house for what Larry thinks is a party, but is really an intimate dinner party. What’s so brilliant about this episode is that in later episodes, Larry’s faux pas would have a much larger scope, but this one wrings so much awkwardness out of small scenarios. Larry’s mishaps include being subjected to the revenge of a fellow golfer after (understandably) not bending down to pick up his ball, getting his directions torn apart by an angry elderly woman after asking for for help while lost in the woods and feeling the wrath of Gil’s wife after breaking an expensive lamp. And to top it all off, Larry refuses to take off his f**king shoes in the house. As the series would again and again prove, these are all scenarios where you would actually feel bad for Larry, if he just didn’t make it all hilariously worse by being himself. In essence, this episode effectively set the tone for the whole series.
Best Line:“My wife refers to it as ‘The House that Cum Build’. ‘Cause of my porn.” - Gil
“The Doll” (Season 2; Ep. 6)
If the series as a whole has proved anything, it’s that Larry is just about terrible with most children, even when he’s trying to be nice. This very fact is the groundwork for one of the strangest, funniest episodes of the series. Thinking it was okay to give the head of NBC’s daughter’s doll a haircut without hinting it may not grow back (“I thought it was understood!”) Larry has to spend the rest of the episode going back and forth trying to replace the heads of a valuable doll named Judy. A ludicrous series of events that involves stuffing a doll’s head down his pants and thus getting a bad reaction on his junk, the episode layers in one element we can all relate to: the terror of an un-lockable bathroom door. Even across a whole series, not a lot tops the visual of a door opening on Larry holding up a severed doll’s head going with the face of “Well, here ya go.”
Best Line:“Get me the fking head, alright! Both of you, because I’ve had it! You four-eyed fk, and you fat piece of shit! Get me the head!” - Susie Greene (Susie Essman)
“Krazee-Eyez Killa” (Season 3; Ep. 8)
This episode remains aCurbclassic for a very simple reason: There’s no world where the idea of Larry getting himself caught up in the intricacies of the hip-hop world and race relations isn’t hilarious. After failing to keep a secret about Krazee-Eyez Killa’s (Chris Williams) cheating from Cheryl and Killa’s fiancée,Wanda Sykes, Larry is all about trying to stay ahead of it, and failing horribly. This episode is full of gems, like David’s childish love of bubble wrap, him saying how giving oral sex is a “whole to do,” and Larry asking Krazee if he’s “my Caucasian.” To top it all off, you got one of the all-time greatCurbendings, fit with a flusteredMartin Scorseseand Larry unable to say his lines because he has pubic hair stuck in his throat.
Best Line:“Are you my Caucasian?!” - Larry
“The Car Pool Lane” (Season 4; Ep. 6)
Buoyed by the constant comedic brilliance of guest starKim Whitleyas the prostitute Monena, “The Car Pool Lane” is an episode where every last second is simply brilliant. Every bit is Larry at some of his most self-serving and ridiculous, including him trying to get Marty Funkhouser’s (Bob Einstein) baseball tickets, despite the fact he’s still mourning his recently passed father, feigning casual racism to get out of jury duty, and turning buying weed from a deal (Jorge Garcia) into a whole production. But it’s when he picks up Monena in the name of simply using the carpool lane that it earns its just praise. Whitley is dynamite and doesn’t deal with Larry’s shit for one second, and the fact these two are with each other for most of the episode makes it an endlessly funny all-timer. Fun fact: Watch the documentary short Long Shot to see how this episode played a huge part in a very real true crime story.
Best Line:“I will pull a titty out!” - Monena
“Opening Night” (Season 4; Ep 10)
The main story arc for season four involved Larry being cast as the lead in theMel Brooks’ musicalThe Producers, and despite his general Larry David-ness, Brooks insisted he was the right fit for the legendary role. However, the finale showed that in a sort of meta gag, Brooks was just using David to tank the show so he could end the nightmare of a production. “No more openings in Cleveland,” he exclaims to his wife, actressAnne Bancroft. This gag puts a great twist on an already terrific episode, which finds Larry avoiding more needed rehearsal for the sake of trying to get laid as part of his tenth-anniversary present, notably with cast memberCady Huffman. The hour-long finale finds Larry engaging in all sorts of mishaps around NYC, and brings in appearances fromRichard Kind,Stephen Colbert,Nathan Lane, and more. It’s a lot crammed into the episode, but it all works, and the ending fit with Larry inThe Producersblends the expected brand of awkward with the unexpected validation that David is a truly fantastic performer.
Best Line:“What the fk were you thinking! A picture of Bush, who gives a flying f? I’d f**k her with a Bush mask on!” - Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin)
“The Ski Lift” (Season 5; Ep 8)
The events of “The Ski Lift” are pure gold in that they show just how far Larry is willing to go to get himself out of a situation, even if that situation involves saving his friend’s life. So desperate to get his palRichard Lewisa new kidney — simply so he doesn’t have to give him one — leads to him faking being an orthodox Jew to make friends with the head of the kidney consortium (Stuart Pankin), and then keeping the ruse going while on a ski trip with him, his daughter Rachel (Iris Bahr), Jeff, and Susie. This is Larry at his most hilariously devious trying to stay one step ahead of Bahr’s suspicious Rachel, her commitment to her faith brilliantly juxtaposed alongside David’s general indifference towards it. Paired with a subplot involving one of the series’ more bizarre elements, featuringMo Collinsas a nurse stealing things from Lewis’ house in her “big vagina,” this isCurbat some of his most hysterically brazen.
Best Line:“I think you took the ball, stashed in your unusually large vagina, and marched right out of here!” - Larry
“The Ida Funkhouser Roadside Memorial” (Season 6; Ep 3)
Larry is often at his most watchable when he’s in ass-covering mode, and he’s at his peak in this season six winner. After grilling the dean of admissions at local middle school for taking too many ice cream samples, Larry takes a batch of flowers from the memorial site for Marty’s mother, sending him on an odyssey of hunting down make-up gifts and cover-ups for other terrible things he’s done that day. The pacing is brilliant, and woven are gags featuring David being cursed by a sweaty $50 bill Marty gave him that no one wants to accept. A perfect episode for anyone who likes to see David constantly fumbling, yet somehow making it to the end with everything mostly intact.
Best Line:“Little Orphan Funkhouser.” - Larry
“The Freak Book” (Season 6; Ep. 5)
Much like “Roadside Memorial” earlier that season, “The Freak Book” is a madcap episode wherein David’s personality and lack of social etiquette gets him into one mishap after another across L.A. At its core is the titular “Freak Book,” and while we never get a look at what’s inside, the reactions from Larry, Jeff, and evenJohn McEnroeare priceless (“Three Legs!”). Really, the whole episode rides on David being a ridiculous human being. So angry with his wife and family that he decides to drive himself to a concert in a limo, only to become an actual limo driver as a favor to the actual limo driver. Ridiculous, and even petty as hell, selling off his grave plot alongsideTed Dansonbecause he didn’t like his “Freak Book” gift. Basically, it’s Larry being Larry at its most gut-bustlingly funny, and I could watch reactions to that book for a whole episode in itself.
Best Line:“What is that?! It’s a pig! It’s a human pig!” - Larry
“The TiVo Guy” (Season 6; Ep 7)
After everything she’s put up with, Cheryl was bound to leave Larry at some point, and it makes sense after he did the most Larry thing he possibly could have: Ignoring a call from her as her plane was going down because he was at risk of losing the TiVo guy. What makes this episode great is not only does it shake up the show after deep into six seasons, but that it shows how much of an impact it doesn’t really make on Larry. Throughout the episode, he still makes big deals over small matters he sees as slights towards him — like Susie giving him a small dinner plate, or a hostess not buying his reason for cancelling his and Cheryl’s dinner reservation. Before the episode is over he’s already trying to get a new lover (in this case,Lucy Lawless), proving that even when his life is still in shambles, Larry is never going to stop being himself.
Best Line:“The penis needs options.” - Larry
“Denise Handicapped” (Season 7; Ep. 5)
Larry is no stranger to offending the disabled, so it makes sense he proved to have learned nothing when he begins seeing a woman named Denise (Anita Barone). Feeling trapped into going out with her after he notices she’s in a wheelchair, he soon begins to take advantage of the situation by getting praise from friends for dating her, and for getting ahead of lines at restaurants. Between his treatment of Denise and another disabled woman he uses to go to a private concert, this is certainly Larry at some of his most offensive, and in turn ,the show at some of its funniest. And of course, Larry gets what he deserves with not one, but probably two beat downs fromRosie O’Donnell.
Best Line:“Have you noticed if she has any proclivity for chopsticks?” - Larry
