Larry David closed out Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2024 with its twelfth season. However, he didn’t put his argumentative fictionalized character completely to bed. Instead, he injected his iconic Curbisms into a brand new sketch show called Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America.
Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, this miniseries satirizes major milestones in American history to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary. For lovers of Curb Your Enthusiasm, it feels like the fictional Larry has time travelled to unleash his unfiltered views and behaviours across a plethora of eras. The show is generating high praise. But mostly, it has got Curb fans wanting another season. David has explicitly stated there will be no more. However, Curb Your Enthusiasm could live on in a unique universe. Let’s break it down.
Larry David is a Writing Machine
The fictional version of Larry David is conveyed as a wealthy man who has little motivation to churn out new material. As the co-creator of Seinfeld, the Larry of Curb Your Enthusiasm spends his days arguing his way around Los Angeles, trying to teach people manners and life lessons. Whenever he does decide to work again, it is usually upended by some kind of beef. In real life, Larry David is constantly writing.
Known to carry around a notepad, David observes everything around him, seeing near-enough everything as the basis for a storyline, sub plot, sequence, or sketch. This means ideas and concepts are permanently flowing. So, when Barack Obama‘s production company Higher Ground Productions reached out to David because they wanted to make a project celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States, he had plenty of material ready to go. David and his co-creator Jeff Schaffer then developed the actual concept of inserting a curmudgeon into American history. But before they agreed to sign up, they nearly created another show.
“Curb Squared” Explained
Larry David has always loved testing the boundaries of television reality. He famously spent an entire season of Curb organizing a fictional Seinfeld reunion. He then ended the entire Curb series by essentially rewriting the widely criticized Seinfeld finale. Before he teamed up with Barack Obama, he had another mind-bending meta concept tinkering away in his creative brain.
When featuring on A Waste of Time, David and Schaffer went into detail about a TV show idea called Curb Squared. While the premise of Curb is Larry navigating his life after Seinfeld, this would do the exact same thing with Larry now working out what to do with himself after Curb. The plot revolves around a strange, hyper-meta existence: it features a brand-new fictional Larry who is now famous specifically for the success of playing the previous fictional Larry.
In this universe, the real-world actors who played his friends and family on Curb Your Enthusiasm – like Cheryl Hines, Jeff Garlin, and Susie Essman – are no longer characters in his daily life. Instead, they are just his real-life former co-stars, completely shifting the dynamic. This leaves a vacuum in Larry’s immediate circle, making way for a fresh roster of fictional friends, managers, and adversaries to populate this new stage of his life.
Could Curb Squared Actually Work?
The beauty of this idea is that it remains a tantalizing possibility. David and Schaffer haven’t stated the concept has been scrapped, nor have they confirmed it is what’s coming next. It sits in a creative limbo, waiting for the right moment. But if they ever do greenlight it, the mechanism to make it work already exists in reality: Larry David is slowly becoming his own character.
David himself has admitted over the years that the line between his real self and “TV Larry” has blurred, noting that he has turned into his Curb character more and more as time goes on. So, Curb Squared could brilliantly lean directly into this psychological shift. The comedy wouldn’t just come from fans expecting him to be a curmudgeon – it would come from the new people in his life actively noticing that he is genuinely transforming into the fictional monster he created. It turns a meta-sitcom premise into a hilarious, self-inflicted character study. It would also open the door for big names that never got the chance to star in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Because one thing is for sure, Larry David knows how to wrangle an impressive cast.
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