Curb Your Enthusiasm “Mel’s Offer”

For a couple episodes in season three, there was a subplot that Larry had a role in a Martin Scorsese movie.  Why?  Can Larry act?  Like, at all?  He mostly plays himself.

Anyway, something like that happens for season four, only Larry seems to have sense enough to question it.

Actually, two things happen.  First, Larry and Cheryl’s 10 year anniversary is coming, and Larry reminds his wife that she promised him a one-time-only chance to cheat on her with another woman.  There’s a flashback to prove it where Cheryl (in a wig) tells Larry (with his hair dyed darker) that she wants to marry him and have his last name, and Larry doesn’t even want his last name, so what gives?  She even promises he can cheat on her once.

So, you would have me believe it was Cheryl that wanted to marry Larry?  That seems awfully unlikely, but here we are.

Now, will Larry cheat?  Probably not, and he may not for lack of trying, but he says he won’t, she says she wants him to, and he tells Jeff he doesn’t even have game.  He’s Larry David.  He just gets in trouble.

Like when he riffs to a receptionist that she should give her soon-to-be-coming-along baby a Chinese name, making some pretty racist suggestions along the way, but when the receptionists Asian girlfriend shows up and tosses Larry against a wall and calls him out for it, well…yeah, I can get behind that.

But beyond Larry’s permission to cheat just once before the actual anniversary rolls around, he’s also got of offer from Mel Brooks to play one of the leads in the stage production of The Producers.  Can Larry act?  Or sing?  He doesn’t think so.  Mel’s colleagues don’t think so.  I don’t think so.  Nobody asked me.  Mel just is sure Larry’s the right pick, and he’ll be acting alongside Ben Stiller (who appears later in the episode with his wife Christine Taylor), and Larry won’t shake his hand because Ben just sneezed into it.  That actually seems smart to me, but what do I know?  I don’t think Larry can sing or dance.

That said, Larry may have inadvertently come out on top this time.  He needed stitches in his head, but the doctor (who looked like Seinfeld‘s Library Cop) somehow ended up drooling onto Larry’s head.  Larry got back by taking a painkiller before seeing The Producers when he wasn’t fantasizing about the voluptuous female lead, and he ended up falling asleep while leaning on the balcony and then drooling all over the doctor who happened to be sitting in the audience.

That’ll learn that quack.

Now, someone check to see if Mel needs hearing aids or something.  He thinks Larry can sing because of a karaoke performance.