I watched the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” finale episode the other night. The “Seinfeld” reunion had building up to this point. Now was the time they were going to show at least a portion of the episode that would have been made, were this a real reunion.
And I believe it paid off, big time.
En toto, we probably only got to see about six to seven minutes of an actual “Seinfeld” episode here, but it really hit me towards the end how much I missed seeing all of this. ”Curb” has always been able to fill a lot of my “Seinfeld” needs in the past ten years, but I realized something watching the Episode Scenes last night– “Curb” doesn’t have a Kramer. It provides a lot of George moments (obviously), a lot of Jerry moments, and a few Elaine moments. Even in the “Seinfeld Reunion” episode, Larry has cribbed a lot of his own life for their stories. George loses his wife and tries to get her back, and Elaine has an incident with her daughter’s doll that took place in a Season 2 “Curb” episode.
Having said that, there wasn’t a Kramer moment. Kramer was there and in the one minute he interacts with George, thoughtlessly showing him an article about Bernie Madoff (in their timeline, George made millions and then lost every cent to Madoff), there was an element that has been missing from “Curb” all these years.
But maybe it hasn’t been missing. Maybe the really goofy nature that “Curb” has been taking recently is the Kramer Effect. Whatever it is, I’ve missed it, and will now continue to go on missing it.
I’ll close us out with this brilliant National Lampoon vid where they cut together “Seinfeld” episodes to make it look like Kramer is the one who had the meltdown at the Laugh Factory…
