Larry David returned to HBO Friday night with one of the more unlikely collaborations in television history: a historical sketch comedy series co-produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, timed to the nation’s 250th birthday, in which David crashes through American history with the same petty, frictionless grievance that made “Curb Your Enthusiasm” a twelve-season institution.
“Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness,” created by David and longtime collaborator Jeff Schaffer, premiered June 26 on HBO and runs for seven episodes, with new installments dropping weekly through a finale on August 7. Like “Curb,” the dialogue is largely unscripted and improvised from structural outlines.
Schaffer has described it as “‘Curb’ in costume.” The concept is simple: for every Founding Father trying to free the colonies from British tyranny, there was a Lawrence who believed sharing desserts and umbrellas should be banned by the Declaration of Independence. In another sketch, David sides with Rosa Parks on that Montgomery bus — not out of any concern for civil rights, but because he is seated in the aisle and does not want to get up.
The series marks Higher Ground’s first scripted comedy and the first time a former U.S. president has appeared as a cast member in a narrative series. Obama opens the show by describing history’s great disruptors as “deeply unpleasant people who stood in the way of progress,” bookending the action with appearances of his own.
The working dynamic between the two was apparently combustible from the start. In their first meeting, Obama offered one note after spending considerable time praising the material, and David immediately pushed back — prompting the former president to point out that when he was in the Oval Office, he listened to his advisors. David’s response: “Yeah, but I’m the president of this.”
The cast spans Bill Hader as Lincoln, Kathryn Hahn as Mary Todd Lincoln, Jon Hamm and Sean Hayes as the Wright brothers, Jerry Seinfeld during the Lewis and Clark expedition, and Chris Parnell as Benjamin Franklin, alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda, Isla Fisher, Vince Vaughn, Jeff Garlin, J.B. Smoove, and Rita Wilson.
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Early reviews on Rotten Tomatoes have landed at 60%, with critics divided on whether David’s signature persona can sustain seven episodes across entirely new terrain. Some found the single-joke premise wearing thin, while fans of David’s persona are likely to find exactly what they came for.
