Curb Your Enthusiasm
creator Larry David. Earlier this year, HBO formally announced the comedic genius will star in the show’s ninth season after the series quietly went off the air in September 2011.One of the best shows on HBO, the Emmy award-winning series Curb Your Enthusiasm is a fictional take on David’s everyday life and the multitude of characters that orbit the neurotic comedian. Susie’s foul-mouthed diatribes on everything Larry, Leon’s exuberant and oblivious nature, and Larry’s overbearing neuroses are a few of the trademarks of a show that ran for eight seasons after debuting in 2000.
At the end of season 8, Larry traveled to Paris with Leon (J.B. Smoove) to escape fulfilling an obligation to spend time with sick children. For more than five years, news on a return was scant, but now that it’s official, Digital Trends is your source for all the updates on the upcoming season that should be pretty, pretty, pretty good.
Where is the Enthusiasm?
Not even the social assassin Larry David himself is safe from hackers. Several episodes from the long anticipated ninth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm were leaked by hackers who breached HBO’s security earlier this summer.
After months of rumors, HBO has confirmed Curb Your Enthusiasm will return at 10 p.m. (ET) October 1. Along with a release date, we get insight on what will be happening in Larry’s world this season.
When the new season starts, it will not take long for us to catch up with all Larry and the gang has been up to during their long absence. “You’re going to find out very quickly when the show starts what he’s been up to the for last five years and what everyone has been up to for the last five years,” Curb Your Enthusiasm co-executive producer Jeff Schaffer said at HBO’s Television Critics Association’s summer press tour in July. “Once the show starts to air, it will be self-evident.”
Previously, Jeff Garlin, the longtime cast member and friend of David, announced in an interview that season 9 should be released in “October, if I were guessing.” While Garlin refused to give any details on what they will be getting into on this new season, he does reveal that “the storyline is kind of crazy.”
The new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm finished filming earlier this year. On March 27, Richard Lewis tweeted out a photo of himself, Smoove, and David at the wrap party for the new season beaming with enthusiasm.
Curb 9 wraps with two of the funniest comedians I’ve ever known . @ohsnapjbsmoove pic.twitter.com/JLevkbU01j
— Richard Lewis (@TheRichardLewis) March 27, 2017
Lewis earlier revealed, on his personal Twitter account, that he and David would be shooting together on February 21.
Lost in memories.
I shoot Curb tomorrow with LD and this was him when we started stand-up. He was insanely funny. pic.twitter.com/jVdtHig4gI— Richard Lewis (@TheRichardLewis) February 21, 2017
In an interview in late 2016 with Complex, Smoove assured the world that “we got a few episodes already in” for season 9. In late December, scenes from the new season were spotted being filmed in Los Angeles.
The cameras started rolling again in the world of Curb on November 11. HBO released a video of Smoove banging on David’s trailer trying to lure the reclusive genius out of hiding:
Season 9 of #CurbYourEnthusiasm just started shooting and Larry couldn’t be more excited! @ohsnapjbsmoove pic.twitter.com/o1PWlndFBi
— HBO (@HBO) November 11, 2016
David’s eldest daughter, 22-year-old Cazzie David, celebrated the day by sharing a photo from the set on her personal Instagram account:
Curb Your Enthusiasm first entered our lives as a 1999 TV movie on HBO. It played out as a mock documentary on Larry David’s everyday life before spawning the long-running series. In September 2015, Chris Law — producer of The Rich Eisen Show — hinted that the show could return to its TV movie roots:
Jeff Schaffer says he had dinner this weekend w Larry David. A Curb Your Enthusiasm movie was discussed, as was an additional season #CYE
— Chris Law (@ChrisLaw) September 15, 2015
Part of the extended gap between season 8 and the upcoming season could be attributed to David not being particularly confident in delivering a quality season. He said he was skeptical if his ideas would be good enough for a new Curb Your Enthusiasm season during Larry David and David Steinberg in Conversation in September 2014. But he has since knocked the rust off and has been jotting ideas for a new season since at least early 2015. Michael Lombardo, former HBO programming president, said at a 2015 Television Critics Association press panel that Larry showed him something the Seinfeld creator called “the next season notebook” at the March 2015 premiere of David’s Broadway play Fish in the Dark.
Who’s in on the joke?
The latest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm will have a bit of Portlandia visit when Carrie Brownstein makes her appearance. Brownstein appears in the latest trailer for the new season in the aftermath of a two-day sabbatical from work due to constipation.
TV worlds will somewhat collide as Gilmore Girls star Lauren Graham has been confirmed to have a recurring role on the new season. She took to her personal Twitter account to confirm the news:
Pret-ty, pret-ty, good.
RIGHT? https://t.co/4q9LCOJksw— Lauren Graham (@thelaurengraham) February 24, 2017
It was later revealed in an Entertainment Weekly interview that Graham will play an NBC censor who falls for David. This story arc may reflect David’s real life in the way the Seinfeld reunion did, as he had his fair share of interactions with NBC censors during his Seinfeld days. “Larry’s always had a complicated relationship with NBC censors. Now he’s dating one,” Curb executive producer Jeff Schaffer told EW. Schaffer also revealed Graham’s character has a child, and “that can complicate things.”
When Curb Your Enthusiasm returns, there will be some new, but familiar faces joining the cast. Elizabeth Banks, Jimmy Kimmel, Bryan Cranston, Nick Offerman, and Judge Judy herself are a few of the upcoming stars confirmed to make guest appearances on the new Curb Your Enthusiasm season during HBO’s TCA summer press tour.
Chris Williams will reportedly reprise his role as rapper Krazee-Eyez Killa from season 3 in the eighth episode of the new season, according to initial episode details released on IMDB. IMDB also revealed that Iris Bahr, who appeared as Rachel Heinemann in two season 5 episodes, will reprise her role in the season 9 premiere episode. But apparently, all of the season 9 details have been removed from IMDB.
Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen will reprise their roles as themselves for the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The married couple has appeared in a combined 18 of the show’s 80 episodes, including being the subject of the series’ second episode, entitled Ted and Mary. Danson has a penchant for being in hit shows. Steenburgen did not give details on any season 9 plots the pair are involved in but did promise it will leave people with a few questions.
“We’re going to stir up a little bit of a hornet’s nest with it, I’m afraid, but it’s how he saw it and what he wanted to do,” Steenburgen said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. The fourth episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm’s seventh season, The Hot Towel, was the last time both Danson and Steenburgen were in an episode together.
Susie Essman (Susie) and Smoove confirmed they will reprise their roles when they gave updates on filming dates. Essman even went as far as to say “half the old crew from six years ago is coming back,” referring to season 8, which aired in 2011. Richard Lewis also announced he will also be back to bump heads with David again on the show:
Off the road. Gearing up for Curb Season 9! I will never lose a fight again with LD or I will be his butler for life. pic.twitter.com/VhsTCZAliF
— Richard Lewis (@TheRichardLewis) October 10, 2016
Even though Larry’s character was divorced from his longtime TV wife, Cheryl, played by Cheryl Hines, at the start of last season, TV can bring anyone back together. Hines confirmed she will reprise her role as Cheryl for the upcoming season in a September interview with The Wall Street Journal. What her character will actually be doing is a mystery to everyone, including her. “I know that I’m going to be on this season, but I haven’t even talked to Larry,” Hines told The Huffington Post.
Update: Added new trailer for season 9, information about Lauren Graham and Carrie Brownstein’s characters, as well as information about IMDB removing all of the initial details about the new season it had on its site.
