The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Hall of Fame: “Funkhouser’s Crazy Sister”

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to discuss Season 7, Episode 1 of HBO’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’: “Funkhouser’s Crazy Sister.” Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Joe House Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We have loved Kirby enthusiasm since it premiered in 2000. It has been in our lives now over two decades. Two thirds of our friendship. I feel like this is out of every show ever. This is the one I've called you the most on the phone after. just to rehash and discuss like a pregame show. And now it's coming back again, October 24th. So we thought we'd do a Hall of Fame episode.

What does this show mean to you? What does it mean to our friendship? Just go. All of our adult lives, because we really were not adults until we got to age 30. Yeah, until the 30s. Yeah. We have had this show in the same way that we've had the great sports leagues that we love

and the teams that we love as a thing to sit down and just in excruciating and completely undeserved detail, try and make sense out of all of it. And it has been a glorious, glorious journey, a wonderful opportunity for us to, you know, live our worst selves through this show. And thank God to have the show so we can come out. It's a show that evolved.

You know, and I did a mailbag thing. I think 10 years ago where I did each year, each season, like pitching stats. The show we're going to do is season seven. It's the first episode.

It's called Funkhauser's Crazy Sister. It's September 2009. It was kind of the end of the era when you could cross all the lines that this episode crosses. But going backwards, he shoots the pilot. It becomes a series in 2000.

If you watch that, and I've done rewatches for this a couple of times, The first couple of years, Larry's not fully there yet as an actor, as a performer, but it still has great episodes. Our favorite one was Gilbang. Yes, amazing. Which I think was the third one. Welcome to the House that Come Built forever.

Season two, two Pantheon episodes that year, the doll and the shrimp incident, has the shack, has the happy ending masseuse. It's really starting to round into what the show is. Season three, I think, is considered to be the best season. It's got the best beginning to end subplot, which is them trying to open the restaurant. It has crazy eyes killer, which is the show I think you and I have enjoyed the most, just going back and forth. It's going Hall of Fame, wing, that show. It's got episodes, and I wrote this back then.

Any true curb fan will know what you mean. Chet Shirt, Ben and Joe Brownie, Club Soda, Nanny from Hell, terrorist attack, mom's grave, corpse sniffing dog, crazy eyes killer, the housekeeper, Tourette's Chef. Susie yelling Fuck you, you carwash cunt at Cheryl is probably the single funniest one-liner in the show.

It's just so good as it goes, it goes and Susie comes in and it's like, that's when Susie became Susie. That's true. I like that. Sorry for my language. Season four was the producer's season.

Not quite as good. Yeah. But had the episode where he takes the call go to the Dodger game, the carpool lane episode, and a couple other good ones. Also, we get Mark. Funkhouser that year, which he's a very important part of this season. Season five,

this was the kidney transplant season. Now it's like, ah, it was fine. There's no Pantheon episode that year. I thought Larry's race's dog was close, but it just seemed like the show was petering out at this point, right? We started to get worried. I'm not afraid to say it. It was too much Richard Lewis. Yeah, too much, yeah. Too much Richard Lewis. His usage rate was too high. Too high. Yeah, you're right. Season six, comeback year, we get the We get... Unbelievable. We get a Hurricane Katrina subplot, a Displace family.

We get more Funkhouser. We get the Freakbook episode. And we get Loretta Black. Yes. And we get J.B. Smooth. And it's just all of a sudden, the show is a completely different show in a good way. It brings in this whole cultural element that is just incredible. Larry playing off them.

J.B. Smooth, nobody kind of knew really who he was at that point. Amazing. He takes off. It's hard to believe that he wasn't in the show from the very, very beginning. Right. He seems like a staple. Yes. Crucial. He and Super Dave. That seems like both of them have been there the whole time.

That's right. So that one has a, that Freakbook's probably the best episode. It has a season finale where Larry gets separated. Yeah. That's the, I mean, there's big dramatic developments. He gets separated from Cheryl. Then. You know, I need Cheryl.

He goes to Loretta, which sets up season seven. Now, season seven, this is the return of Seinfeld season. This is the best episode of this season. I actually really like the Seinfeld stuff. I think it's held up nicely. Yeah. The Costanza versus Larry kind of in Jason. It's like, wait, who own this character?

Right. How they handle the Michael Richards stuff. The friendship of Seinfeld and Larry just really comes out in some of the ad lib stuff. and then we also get the this is the second time I'm saying this C word, Marty. This is a by the way, P.S.

your cut is in the sink, which is probably the single funniest moment of the history of the show. Yeah, right. But this also kicks off with Bunkhauser's crazy sister, which this is the end of an era, right? The end of 2009.

This is the R-rated comedies. This is comedy pushing the envelope. Twitter hasn't really come into a shape yet. And people crossing lines, maybe there were some lines that were unfortunately crossed, but people are crossing lines from a comedy standpoint. And we're all kind of in on it. There's nuance to it. It's like, this is part of what's funny is, I can't believe you said that.

I can't believe you did that. I think this might be the all time. I can't believe you did that episode. There are at least six different instances where, I mean, conventions are destroyed, cultural sensitivities are obliterated. It's at the window. At this point, the show's like, we're immune. You can't come at us.

I rewatch the show without doing any research ahead of time because I wanted to see how they treated one particular thing, which is what is Bam Bam's real name? Guess what? they don't tell us. They just refer to this woman, Marty Funkhauser's relative, as Bam Bam, and all the adults call her Bam Bam,

and nobody thinks, I mean, it's just stunning that this is what you could do in 2009. How do you think Bam Bam? I feel like now the Bam Bam Bam thing would be received totally differently,

where they would be like, you're making fun of mental illness, this is this character at an issue, or do you think Curb is, just immune because curb might be like Charles Barclay where it's just immune. No, I don't think curb is immune. I think curb would handle it differently

now. I think there were... That is overt. I can't right. I can't because now that would feel like you're beating somebody over the head. Right. Because of all of the development of sensitivities around mental illness and awareness and it's right. So you wouldn't

just introduce a character. They call it the crazy house. You know, it's in the the title. It's Funkhaster's crazy sister. We're going to put her back in the home. That's the way of dealing with her illness. She's in the home. Oh, she's got to go back to the home because she's still crazy. Jeff's screaming at her at one point.

She's crazy. She's like to have the whole thing. But, you know, in 2009, they're just going for the laughs. They're trying to, the show had a way of like, we're going to push the envelope. We're going to all the places nobody else wants to go. So the big theme of this episode, Larry needs a new. purpose to win back Cheryl. That's the setup for this season. Yes. I'm still in love with Cheryl. I went down the road with the blacks. I got to get out of this. You have Lorette. The ABC

D. St. St. stories are Loretta may have cancer. Larry's starting to think like, what did I get myself into? He can't even control the temperature in his house anymore. The B story is they, the Funkhauser asked him to babysit Bam Bam for two hours, who's out of an institution. So he brings Jeff over there. The C story is Susie's having a dinner party, and Larry's upset that he does know the guest list, inadvertently invites the funk houses. So everything's collided in there. And then the D story is he runs into Cheryl and realizes, oh shit, I might like you. And she says in that scene, you know, you weren't doing anything. When you had Seinfeld, you were going to work every day and doing all these things. Now you just kind of sit around and complain about stuff. Too much Larry.

Too much Larry and you can see the light bulb going off. I need something again. When this show really works, it has the four stories like that that are somehow all being juggled at the same time and at least three of them collide. That was the old side club blueprint. This is the best opening of a season episode it has because this is like you're sending up all this stuff.

The show itself, everyone's at the top of their game. You're jettisoning last year's storyline. bringing in this year's storyline, doing it with a little cliffhanger at the end. I think this is the single best 30 minute episode just from a structural, what they're trying to achieve, how funny it is,

all the things that are going on, that it has. I don't know if it's the best, I don't know if it's the funniest, but it does the most things. It's the most impressive to me. Yeah, right. As an accomplishment,

as a thing that takes the previous season, it gives you all of it. It's amazing that it's only 30 minutes. That's the thing that like... Think of all the things he has to do in this. All the things that happen in this 30-minute show. I mean, and we can go down the line. Even the device of Wanda Sykes

saying to him that he's going to be up for an NWACP award. Like the constant jives at him for his relationship with the blacks. And also how guilty he feels. Like he knows it's probably going to end at some point. Yeah. But to be able to... You have to tie up the previous season storyline

as quick as possible, because we got to, we got to get out of that one, we got to move forward, we got to get to Seinfeld. We got to figure out the Cheryl thing. But then also, like, we have to remember,

like, Larry's a bad person. Yes. So we almost have to, like Larry became too good of a person near the end of season five. He finds out he's adopted. He realizes Cheryl doesn't love him. He finds real happiness of love with the blacks.

But ultimately, we can't have Larry being happy. Well, I mean, the whole setup to the thing, the thing that really takes it over the edge with why he has to break up with Loretta before the results come in. Two parts. She keeps the bedroom too hot. He can't tolerate how hot. He doesn't want to take care of anyone because he's a narcissist. And he's worried that he's going to have to take care of her.

And the expression on his face is he thinks through when Auntie Ray tells him, well, look, it's so lucky that she has you because you're going to be there. for all of these potential moments that she's going to have to have, if the biopsy comes back negative, and you see him physically, visibly, crestfallen is understanding it. He's devastated. He's devastated by it. He's trapped in devis.

Well, the opening shot of this whole episode and the whole seventh season is him walking upstairs with a tray. Slowly trudging. He's now like a servant for Loretta. A beaten man. And he can't get out of it. morally there's no way out. How do you break up with somebody who has cancer is like one of the only, this is the only show

that would ever even have that argument. And Jeff, he and Jeff makes them like, you know, Jeff gives him advice as a concedonialieri. Yeah. It's got to be, you got to do it. You got to do it right before. Right before. You can beat the doctor. Which ends up with him in basically in a race with the doctor to see if he could break up

with Loretta before she gets the biopsy results. Literally a race. Best scenes. the uh him arguing with jb smooth and loretto about the temperature in the house is so fucking funny yes it's unstoppable 78 it's got to be 78 78 or higher take that motherfucker up to 80 and then he says when he goes to a hotel he puts it at 100 jb smooth god damn uh he's just flinging heat and it's it's it's hard to tell how much they were ad-libbing in that but it's just the three of them together are so good he's so good with j b smooth and they realize it yes um class

Classic scene. Another one. Jeff hooks up with Bam Bam. We go from them sitting awkwardly across from her. Larry walks off, doesn't know where they went, and we hear sex in a room and her going, fuck me, fat boy! Well, that's the other one.

Another, they just call him fat boy. Oh, yeah. Right to his face. Lots of fat jokes. He's fat, but it's fine because Jeff is a bad person. He, yeah, he is. And he accepts it. And then it goes in there.

right to them in the car. Like, how could you do that? It's so good. That was great. The, I didn't know you were gay scene is hilarious. Spectacular. With him and he's just, he's just back.

He's just back. It's like almost like Tony Soprano is back to killing people again. Larry's just back to being a bad person. It wasn't part of the genius of that. You know, many moments in the show throughout all of the seasons do produce a tiny cringe. I do get a like self-conscious and, you know, as time has gone on. It becomes a medium cringe.

Yeah. Yeah, the mores have changed, the tastes have changed. I didn't, that didn't, because of how he delivered it, it was such a classic Larry delivery. Right on the nose. It was perfect. Right. Yeah, he was still confused even after they were telling him. Yeah.

Why is he offensive? I don't understand the offense. People who, somebody who offends two other people, but then also gets defensive about that he offended them. Yes. That's happened on this show multiple times. Right after they go talk to Marty and does

what did you guys do to them? How did you make her so happy? I've never seen her this happy. They're looking at each other. And he was like yeah, and Jeff was there. He was like, oh, no wonder she was singing. I love the fat boy. And it's just it's going. And you know, Super Dave, one of the greats.

Incredible. It's been hard to watch this show without him. This is just a classic Superdave episode. Happy Sad. Happy Sad. I was watching. Deadpan. He gets mad a couple times.

Then we get him at the table. All that stuff. The dinner scene is the funniest scene. Can I do anything? Well, yes. Do you mean that? Well, you could come over at 1 o'clock and sit with her for two hours. Right.

What? The dinner scene with Bam Bam. Yes. is a tour to force. This is where everything collides. We have,

she's making sex mouth gestures at Jeff. Larry's watching in complete horror, knows the train wrecks coming. Bam Bam admits

that Larry took food from the fridge or accuses him. Yeah, properly. The doctor gets upset because Larry's already gotten mad at him for that. So now it's got the hypocrite

Angole. Frigerated were hypocrite. And then finally, Bam Bam goes nuts and Susie flips out. We wouldn't say Bam Bam goes nuts. No, Bam Bam leaves the table.

She storms off. Because she talked about the circumstances under which Larry was allowed, you know, making the sandwich. And what she was doing was having sex with Jeff. Right. She told the truth. So she tells the truth. Susie's just immediately goes in the full Susie mode. She believes it immediately.

Yeah. She's the first, her first instinct is, you fat fuck, you mother. Yeah. I've only, all the Susie language. Yes. She immediately is indicting him. But she accepts his explanation. Yeah, Bam is crazy.

She's basically like, I'm the only one who would have sex with you. Like, she just has no idea. That seems hilarious. And then Larry finding out Loretta has cancer. When he almost faints, he like, sinks to the ground. And it's like he, it seems like he's upset. She has cancer, but it's the opposite. He's just so selfish.

Yes. He's like, oh, my God. I'm stuck with this lady. What am I going to do? And Schaefer going through, Dr. Schaefer going through the list, the litany of things that Larry is going to be confronted with. Yeah. Repeating himself, did I include incontinence?

Yeah. And then we just go to the credits. Masterful. Directed by Larry Charles, who is always seems to be around all the best episodes, was also the guy that basically was the guy who took over, season one of Entourage. And that's why Season of One of Entourage was probably the best season. This show, there's never a bad scene. It accomplishes so much in 30 minutes.

We also, any good curb has a bunch of funny little bits, right, that Larry clearly wrote down in some coffee shop or something. He has a whole take on neighbors versus thieves. I'd rather have thieves. Neighbors want your time. Thieves just want your stuff. Which I agree with. It's really amazing.

My wife hates that I don't want to be friends with any of my neighbors. It's like, I just don't. I don't want to have a relationship with. my neighbors. I don't want to have 10-minute dumb conversations. I don't want to share my position on this. Pre-breakup agreements. He's almost like a prenuptial.

So you can just text the word. Yeah, text the word. Apricot. Which leads to him saying, killing apricots. Yeah, one out of every 30. He's such a low percentage fruit. The whole thing about not revealing a dinner party guest list is pretty funny.

I do like that, you know, there are some social communications. aspects to it that, you know, it really is the brilliance that that starts with season one and runs through the entirety. Like, it is weird that the doctor went into the fridge without being invited to, you know, would you like a drink? Well, that was the next funny bit. It's like, are you allowed to do that without asking? Well, I wondered if, it's clear the doctor's been to the house before, though. Yeah. So if he's a guest, a repeat guest, is a repeat guest allowed to go into the fridge? I think you should always ask.

Yeah, but the kind of conversation Kerr provokes. Then you can't make an empty gesture to a funk house. There's just a hilarious thing in general. And that pops up over and over again. And then Wanda just loving Larry is so fucking funny. She hated Larry for years, thought he was like a closet racist, and now she's all in. She gets off six of the funniest lines.

It's one of her best scenes. It really is. Yeah. What did you do to your hair? You're called Lil Wayne. You know, you know, you know. You know this number. It's so good.

Unbelievable. What an episode. So this sets off, I think, a really good season. Yeah. And then that run that curb has, I think, season seven and season eight, which has had Palestinian chicken, had Valas Silence, had Social Assassin and Co-Faxing and the Cut and Chat. And it also moved away from the Every Season Needs a Gimick subplot, which up until then. It was like every season has to be tied together in some way. And season eight is like,

fucking, I'm just doing 10 episodes. Of a lot of life. Seven and eight, I think, have age better than one through six in a lot of ways. Okay. Because I watch, because I actually thought we were going to do season three, the season finale as a Hall of Famer. Yeah. Which is the episode with the Tourette chef. Yes. Which is like one of the funniest scenes the show's ever had. There's some dead spots in that episode. Okay. There's some funny stuff. Like they get stuck in a car wash. There's a couple other things, but for the most part, this episode is like filet mignon on the bone. It's a surf and turf. It's filet and lobster. Yeah, you're right. With potatoes o'grotin and broccoli, and a giant martini to start. It doesn't let up for a single second. Before we go,

season 11, what are your concerns? I don't have concerns. I just love the challenge that that Larry David's confronted with, the real life Larry David, as we answer season 11, and the cultural moment that we're in. How does he handle it? Yeah, right. I mean, the full-on focus of the show, the show works off of violating social norms. So how are we going to do it? It's a delicious conundrum for Larry.

Yeah, that was one of the reasons we want to do this one for Hall of Fame, because this is one that probably crosses the most lines with this work in 2021. I'm not even, I'm not even positive. I'll say last season, I thought the episodes were too long. And one of the reasons I love this episode is like, it's like 29 minutes. It's just sings. It's perfect. There's no fat.

And last year, I think he probably took advantage of how much HBO wanted the show to come back. He's like, I'm making these longer. And, you know, to mix results, there were a couple good ones, but there were some other ones that just felt too fat. And I don't think they moved in the same way this one moves. I don't know what he's going to do this year with that. but how he tackles everything that's happened in the last 18 months, 20 months since I can't remember the last time the show was on. Right.

You know, there's a lot of differences. A lot of stuff out there. All over the place, the way Twitter can galvanize, it's never been probably more dangerous for a show like this. So I don't, I don't know how it handles it. I'm going to be fascinated. That's probably, is HBO back? Are all the shows in the can already?

Oh, yeah. It'd be interesting to see if he got Dave Chappelle on. Oh, where. that's like the people in the company got mad about an episode or anything. Yeah, who knows? I mean, and he could have had them on because it happened the last time Chappelle had a special. Oh, you think Chappelle on the actual show? Oh, interesting.

Why not? I mean, he has all comedians of all walks and he loves to have comedians that are edge pushers, I mean, envelope pushers, line crossers, who's your single favorite celebrity kind of cameo thing that's been on this? Because that's one where, you know, they've gone from like Michael J. Fox, was on, Ben Stiller, which I didn't think it was great. I thought the 10 dance and stuff was funny. I love that rivalry.

I almost feel like he's a character, though. Yeah, I agree. I know. It's true. It's true. I'm trying to think, like, Alanis Morissette had a really funny episode that I thought they used her really well in.

But, you know, when they bring in the celebrities, it can be pretty hit or miss. And like Scorsese, they tried to bring him out. I didn't think that totally worked. But then there's been other ones that sometimes I like when the celebrity is not playing themselves. They're actually playing, you know, some sort of character, but it's clearly... I mean, that's dancing.

Yeah. Is he playing Ted dancing? Yeah. Anyway, all right. Curbs is October 24th. Check out more episodes of Prestige TV podcast this week. We're doing a lot of succession, a lot of other stuff, and we'll see you down the road.