Talk:Larry David/Archive 1

Miscellanea
MERGH What is to happen to Curb Your Enthusiasm? I have seen all the espisodes so many times and need my curb fix with a new one! I met Larry on the set of Seinfeld years ago. He wanted a Entertainment Tonight book on Seinfeld that I had. At the time I did not know who he was. He came up to me as I was talking with Jason Alexander. Would love to meet him again one day. I collect comedians autographs in the first edition of the first book they wrote. Does Larry have his own site? I also appreciate his efforts as well as his wife's on environmental issues! The show when he fakes being a Republican is to die for... Global warming and having a Hummer! Hah!! Oh and he does not need to have Jewish on there. A lot of stong Christians don't show that that they are Christian. My goodness, everyone knows the guy is Jewish! Ya just gotta love the guy.

Is Larry David jewish? NO! if so shouldn't his ethnicity be mentioned in his description? I don't think he would mind if we called him and jewish-american, I've seen many other wiki articles that state the ethnicity of people(ie: erdos)

I believe Arniep should be repremanded.
 * Sorry but this is not my personal opinion, nationality goes in the header not ethnicity. Arniep 13:17, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes it should be added. He is a jewish american, and his comedy show seinfeld was considered very jewish in nature.


 * It makes no difference if he's Jewish or not. In what way does his Jewishness influence who he is or what he does? Damn you labelites. Damn you all to hell! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.79.192 (talk • contribs)

Funny, he doesn't look Jewish.152.163.100.138 02:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)Lestrade


 * It can be added, just not in the header. Arniep 21:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Why is my contribution on David swearing on his kids not accepted?
 * The exchange went like this:
 * Alan : Larry, if there's something else going on, now is the time to tell me.
 * Larry : I don't know what you're implying by that, but I swear on my childrens' lives...
 * Alan : Say no more.
 * So part of the joke is that Larry never swore anything specific on his kids' lives. Okey Dokey.

Appearance on Sopranos
Is it worth adding his appearance on the Sopranos where the elderly gangster Junior thinks he is watching himself on TV when he sees Larr David in Curb, because of their physical similarities? Magic Pickle 14:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It's an in-joke for chrissakes. HBO make both shows. It's not worth mentioning.(Sasquatchuk 23:33, 4 June 2006 (UTC))
 * Sorry. Geez. Magic Pickle 00:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

executive producer
is it worth writing that larry is the executive producer of envy? this info is available on imdb, i dunno...
 * why not?

Ok then, if it isn't too controversial, something will be written on his executive producer credit...Mrfixter 02:09, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Cool 81.157.5.201 00:37, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comments about sour grapes
I would like to say that the sentence though it's defended heartily by some stalwart David fans is not encyclopedic. I am a massive fan of Mr. David, which fans are criticising sour grapes? Its pointless to have that statement in. --Mrfixter 03:38, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

though i didn't state it as well as a good wikipedia writer can, it's not pointless. i'm new to writing like this, so i'm trying to figure out how to make 'sour grapes' not sound like it's perceived globally as a total failure, which it isn't (my evidence comes mainly from visiting different review sites). if one wants to get nitpicky about being encyclopedic, there's no substantial difference between saying "some stalwart David fans" (which you criticized in your edit summary) and saying "fared poorly both critically and at the box office" (which you left in your edits). one can just as easily counter, "who are these critics?" or "whose criteria for the box office? what was the budget? how many theaters participated in the release? what were their intentions?" if you can write a smoother, more accurate tag to counter what is only negative about 'sour grapes' in your version, then do so. otherwise, i'm gonna keep hammering at this whether you like it or not. you can't use the word "encyclopedic" correctly to deny balance. if 100% attribution is the way you want to play it, then i'll just follow you around and delete all your non-attributed/substantiated comments. do you want to help me with this, or shall we fire up (rather, continue) the revert game? i don't have a problem with you axing the autofellatio part, but it's also not encyclopedic to allow 'sour grapes' to sound universally disliked. SaltyPig 05:53, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * "Some stalwart David fans" is vague. Claims about critics and box office can be supported by reputable sources. For a list of some critical reaction, see IMDb's list of external reviews for Sour Grapes, including a review from a nobody called Roger Ebert. Those reviews, at very best, can be described as lukewarm and to be honest, the majority are not flattering reviews. Saying that Sour Grapes was mauled both critically and at the box-office is not denying that there are fans who love this movie. By your reasoning, we should also put "but some stalwart David fans also dislike Sour Grapes". What fans think about Mr. David is totally irrelevant to an encyclopedia article about Mr. David, unless he has actually said something about his fans etc. Inserting that fans of Mr. David like Mr. Davids work is not relevant. Opinions about whether someone liked or disliked Sour Grapes from a non-reputable source are NOT relevant. Maybe you liked the movie. So what? I like Mr. Davids shirts, but what is important is facts, and perhaps annoyingly, facts about opinions and critical reaction that can be proven IS factual.


 * I would also argue that "small cult following" is also irrelevant. It is so small as to be vanishingly small, and therefore irrelevant.


 * 100% attribution is a good idea. This is an encyclopedia, not a forum for original research.


 * If some stalwart David fans are just you and your buddies, or me and my buddies, it is not relevant. NPOV does not mean every opinion has to be heard. Mr. David and I may think that Sour Grapes didn't do very well, but that doesn't have to be balanced with anything, because it DIDN'T do very well. My intention is not to smear Mr. David, or soften the blow. My intention is to write a kick-ass encyclopedia article about Mr. David.


 * You raise decent points about Sour Grapes budget etc., and I think that these issues should be dealt with on the Sour Grapes article.


 * On your 'hammering' comment above, I would advise you that editing articles on wikipedia are not tests of stamina. I would like to keep the atmosphere civil, and assume good faith. Threatening to follow someone around is also not a tactic you should employ.


 * I think we can and should work together and make this article excellent, one that does Mr. David proud, but avoids hagiography or hero worship, because that does a disservice to the readers.


 * Articles we both need to take into consideration:


 * Avoid_weasel_terms


 * Neutral_point_of_view


 * Cite_sources


 * What_Wikipedia_is_not


 * Wikiquette


 * Wiki Style and how-to


 * --Mrfixter 13:54, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * i will look at those links and perhaps comment more knowledgeably later, including regarding the practice of targeting one user for extra scrutiny. however, i know already that there's a fundamental dishonesty operating at wikipedia in those who would forge from nowhere a line separating statements such as "fared poorly at the box office" from statements such as "small cult following". fared poorly according to who? small cult following according to who? what's the difference? this illusion that everything is verifiable with a godly source is nonsense. i looked further last night into the release of 'sour grapes', and it was trickled into theaters. variables such as that make it quite dubious to retain "fared poorly at the box office", of which you apparently didn't disapprove, while jettisoning "small cult following" as "irrelevant". what exactly is relevant? you decry "what fans think about larry david" for this article, yet "poor box office" is nothing but the financial manifestation of the same thing. i really think this artifice of clearly drawn lines i've seen at wikipedia is not helpful to the larger goal of spreading accurate information about a subject. but like i said, i need to look into it more.


 * it does seem to me that you disliked the autofellatio subject, and decided to nitpick the miniscule part that the writer of that paragraph (me) wanted put back in. if that's not the case, then, being such a big larry david fan, perhaps you could temporarily move attention away from 'sour grapes', and deal with provable inaccuracies/vagueness such as, "In 2000, David started his own show for the HBO cable television channel, entitled Curb Your Enthusiasm,...", and "...he became a writer for NBC's Saturday Night Live from 1984 to 1985."


 * for now (until somebody adds more, or until i get better at writing in this style), i would be happy changing the 'sour grapes' portion to the following: "Hoping to move from TV to movies, David wrote and directed the 1998 film Sour Grapes, about two cousins who feud over a casino jackpot. It was not a commercial success."


 * what is your opinion of that? it's true. it's actual... is everything satisfactual? SaltyPig 14:45, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * "Fared poorly at the box office" is provable! There is evidence! We can both agree that it wasn't a success, according to the general understanding of "success". Prove small cult following! Your opinion is NOT evidence. The difference is that one is provable, one is not. However, I am willing for the whole comment about Sour Grapes commercial and critical failure to be left out, and moved to Sour Grapes.


 * Mr. Davids output is relevant, and its critical and box office reception are also relevant. It gives the non-fan reader information. The so-called "fact" of the "small cult following" of Sour Grapes adds nothing to the casual readers understanding of Mr. David. It just broadcasts that Sour Grapes has a small cult following. Tell me why this small cult is relevant to anyone apart from themselves. It reeks of POV-fanboy nonsense. Why not put CYE has a large-to-medium cult following?


 * RE:innacuracies CYE was started in 2000? Whats your problem? I hope you're not confused by the fact that in 1999, Mr. David appeared in an hour long special on hbo called Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is separate from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Maybe I would change "show" to "series". Maybe there should be something added about the HBO special?


 * As far as working for SNL, will check out the documentary on Seinfeld dvd, I think it is discussed on it. Is it wrong?


 * Hoping to move from TV to movies - Did Mr. David say that in an interview? He made Sour Grapes to hopefuly move from TV to movies? Source. I don't mind putting stuff about commercial and critical unsuccess.


 * Let's try and work together. You may have noticed I have not reverted your small cult following yet, I am trying to show good faith.


 * In the spirit of working on other parts of the article, what about adding Mr. David to other categories like American Actor? Also, why not list all the awards he has won/been nominated for? He has some emmy heat for seinfeld check it out. And perhaps mention his wife?


 * --Mrfixter 17:20, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * i guess it wasn't obvious that i wasn't arguing in my last post to keep "small cult following", but rather to ditch both that and "fared poorly at the box office," as in my last suggested 'sour grapes' section, on which i don't think you commented specifically yet.


 * "fared poorly at the box office" might be provable, but it certainly is not without as deep an investigation requirement as "small cult following". am i faring poorly at the box office right now? i don't have a movie in theaters, and nobody's going to see this movie i don't have in theaters. box office mojo indicates that 'sour grapes' was released in a grand total of 28 theaters for one weekend. so, as with many arbitrary things at wikipedia, the question is, "where do you draw the line?" if nobody knew about "sour grapes" (and i, living in DC, certainly didn't), did it fare "poorly"? "poorly" is hardly a beacon of objectivity in this case; there are many questions that must be answered before you can state that factually. "was not a commercial success", however, passes muster, wouldn't you say? larry has stated in an interview (linked below) that it cost roughly 13 million, and box office mojo tells us that it made $123,104 in its small release. i'd say that qualifies as not a commercial success, which also leaves out worrying whether there's a cult following, what an arbitrary list of critics thought, etc.


 * are you okay with my proposed change to the sour grapes section (as in my previous post)? i have no desire to make it longer than that in the larry david article. i think it's clear enough from this interview that larry hoped to move from TV to film. that's an important larry detail given that he had a hit TV series about 4 years later (the notorious bumbler to success). along those lines, it might be worth adding in the curb section that larry wasn't known as an actor at all. it's damned unconventional what he did -- not that i need to tell you that. i think that's also something good to get into about him, in that he was apparently seen as dead wood when seinfeld started shooting (source, new seinfeld interviews w/him, seinfeld, michael richards). if that can be made encyclopedic, that would rock. against marked "TV expert" opposition, he followed what he knew was funny, and with the lovable seinfeld as his medium, put misanthropy on the pop TV map.


 * re curb your enthusiasm, i'm not quibbling over show v. series, though i guess series is better. i'm talking about the assertion that he started the series in 2000. although the usual phrase for "began work on" is just that, "started" may also be construed as "began work on". however, even that's not my main point. the pilot (intended as such or not) for 'curb' premiered in 1999. when they shot the series proper, they intentionally tried to duplicate the pilot (or whatever you want to call it). how about rephrasing so that none of these is an issue?


 * re SNL, my quibble is with the grammar more than anything. it basically says that he became something "from 1984 to 1985". if '84-'85 was the range of his employment, then he became an SNL writer in 1984, not an extended period -- unless one wants to argue that he once again "became" an SNL writer following that saturday night he quit after "marching in" to dick ebersol's office (only to come back to work the next week without saying anything). i doubt that's what's intended. i suggest a rephrase here as well, for accuracy. he was an SNL writer from x to x.


 * yes, i think larry should definitely be in all categories of his major work areas -- writing, acting, directing, producing, comedian, etc. As for awards, i don't have a big problem with somebody writing about it in the article, but such things to me are even less noteworthy (though arguably more readily encyclopedic) than "small cult following". i won't stand in your way. the wife? absolutely. she's "roundly considered" (uh oh!) to be a big influence on his PC politics BS. i do agree that we can make it a better article together. we can start by nailing down the 'sour grapes' section. is my last suggestion (last post) okay as written, or do you have changes?SaltyPig 02:47, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree that the hour-long HBO special should not be EVER referred to as a pilot for CYE. It was never intended to be a series, the fact that CYE owes a lot to the special is undeniable, however. He started the SERIES in 2000, the special was NOT the pilot for the series, see IMDb and the interview of Mr. David on the CYE dvd series 1.


 * Also a quote from the official HBO CYE site:


 * Having evolved from the 1999 HBO special Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm, this series proves how seemingly trivial details of one's day-to-day life--


 * I think HBO phrase it very neatly, don't you?


 * A pilot is all about "intention', surely? It was a happy accident, undoubtedly. My instinct would be to avoid talking about whether the special is or isn't a pilot here, and insert whatever you feel like on Curb Your Enthusiasm.


 * Go for the grammar change.


 * Awards Mr. David has been nominated and won is far more more noteworthy than any unsourced nonsense about "small cult following". This page is not a fan site for Mr. David, its supposed to be an encyclopedic article!


 * On that note:


 * Hoping to move from TV to movies - source. A direct quote that is what Mr. David said, not a general feeling about it, or your opinion. Let's try and keep what we think about Mr. David out of the article, and stick to what he says and does. The rest is fine.


 * he was apparently seen as dead wood when seinfeld started shooting - who said he was seen as dead wood. my understanding of the Seinfeld documentary was that it was NEVER suggested that Mr. David would EVER act in Seinfeld in any serious capacity.


 * --Mrfixter 21:00, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Just quickly, how much money Mr. David made from Seinfeld can also go in. Check out Jerry Seinfeld.
 * --Mrfixter 21:10, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * okay, i'm jamming on it. start making changes! i don't agree on the awards comment and some other stuff, but we've argued enough here. i think you're headed in the right direction about the "hoping to move from TV to movies", although he did say pretty clearly that he was sticking to film, and not sure if he'd go back to TV. i'll defer on that, since i truly don't know if that's what he hoped, or if it was just what was going on. i'm also going to learn how to do refs, and hopefully add that in to the article as suggested in the wiki docs. the main ref for my recent changes is here. SaltyPig 08:05, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Great work!
Yeah! --Mrfixter 15:14, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

thanks! same to you. nice argument. SaltyPig 08:54, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

bald fixation
67.173.131.195, please defend your insistence upon mentioning only that larry david is a bald actor. why not "tall"? why not "white"? what's the point? SaltyPig 04:04, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I would like to know that as well...--Mrfixter 12:13, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Simply because he makes a great deal of his baldness, in Seinfeld (through George Costanza), Curb and his stand-up. Sludgehaichoi 21:26, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I suggest the bald fixator bring his own head to this issue.(Sasquatchuk 23:33, 4 June 2006 (UTC))

Adding to Category:American television writers
I am adding this article to Category:American television writers, even though membership in this category is implied by having the article listed in Category:Saturday Night Live writers. Most people probably associate David with his non-SNL work, so even though these two categories have a parent-child relationship, it would seem appropriate to list the article in both places. Lbbzman 20:39, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Seinfeld Appearances
I rearranged the list of Larry's appearances on Seinfeld. It is now chronological. Additionally "The Pen" was listed as the 20th episode of season three when it was the third. Wangoed 15:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey, are we sure that Larry does the voice of Fidel Castro? I was watching that episode just a few days ago, and it really doesn't sound like him; I was expecting it to be him because of the Castro-Steinbrenner parallel, but it really didn't sound like him. --Clickie 05:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I recently watched the episode also and took a look at the credits with a different actor credited as Castro. This is definitely not Larry portraying him. Sfufan2005 05:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Are you sure LD just isnt credited?--Gephart 13:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Usually when LD does an uncredited voice, no one is credited for the role at all; if there is another name, it makes it seem more like it wasn't Larry. --Clickie 07:01, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

today I was watching the "Millennium" episode of Seinfeld. This is from season 8 episode #20 and Larry does the voice of George Steinbrenner. Maybe this should be credited. thanks.--Gnr21 03:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No need since it is already mentioned e.g "Season 5 onward". Thanks for pointing that out though. Sfufan2005 03:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I added one about a guy heckling The Understudy in a cab, but it seems to be removed (?). Check it out, it's gotta be him.

Broken Link
Reference 3 ("Curb" Curbs Injustice. E!. Retrieved on June 20, 2005.) no longer works. If anyone can point this link in the right direction, it'd be fantastic.

This looks like nonsense to me
David has expressed an interest in the philosophy and practice of chaos magic. [2] B. Meijlink 21:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

"David was also gay for a 2006 Emmy Best Actor Award for his work on the show. There was speculation that the show would be ending after the fifth season; however, The New York Post reported in 2007 that the show will return on September 9, 2007, airing at 9pm Sunday nights on HBO." Should this be changed?

What about LD's early work?
There's only very little mention of David's work on Friday's and SNL, and absolutely nothing on him as a stand-up comic in the 1970s. Is there no research on him then? Shouldn't it be included? It would be very interesting to know more about his formative years. In defense 17:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

David's Style
This article needs a statement on Larry David's unique style of comedy. Prometheus912 12:27, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Death
Is he really dead? - Ndrly 03:23, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure this is vandalism. No official news reports anywhere else. I reverted it back to normal, and I think this article should be locked from editing for the time being. 03:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

"Constant and Extreme Profanities"
Under the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" section I found a line that seemed a little over dramatic.

"Because HBO is a premium cable channel available only by subscription, the show can explore more explicit themes (examples include a pubic hair being stuck in David's throat, and a woman keeping a baseball in her vagina) and dialogue (the show contains constant and extreme profanities)."

There is swearing on the show and they do use some of the more explicit ones, but 'exteme' feels a little nonobjective, and I couldn't say it is constant throughout the show.

In short, I'm removing it from the section.