The “Curb Your Enthusiasm” gang was ready to party on Wednesday night as they gathered in New York for the show’s ninth season premiere.
HBO chief Richard Plepler noted that the show’s return (after a six-year hiatus) makes it the longest-running scripted series on HBO, chronologically and by the number of seasons. He called series star Larry David “the William Butler Yeats of comedy” for the exacting work he puts in to make the show look so easy.
The crowd agreed that David is back in rare form, mining gold out of the idiosyncratic stuff of everyday life. As he greeted a receiving-line of well-wishers at the after-party, one party-goer waiting patiently for a handshake confided in his date: “He hates this. I just know he hates this.”
To hear the cast members tell it, season nine of “Curb” won’t be the last. They’re having too much fun after the long absence.
“When Larry first told me we weren’t coming back, I went into a grief period. I had to sit shiva for Susie Greene,” said Susie Essman, who plays the combustible wife of Larry’s manager, played by Jeff Garlin. “As time went on I knew we were coming back. I just knew it.”
Notables who gathered at the SVA Theater for the screening and after-party around the corner at Tao included Amy Schumer, Aziz Ansari, Ira Glass, Graydon Carter, Tom Freston, Keegan-Michael Key, John Oliver and HBO alums Aida Turturro, Andrew Rannells, Steve Buscemi, and Lorraine Bracco.
Also on hand was AT&T Entertainment Group CEO John Stankey, who will soon oversee HBO and the rest of Time Warner once the final approval of the AT&T-TW merger is granted by the feds, which is expected within a few weeks. Stankey said his sons got him into “Curb” a few years ago. His verdict on the two episodes that screened Wednesday night: “Funnier than hell.”
