Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness (2026) is HBO’s seven-episode stumble through the last 250 years of events that allegedly made America great (or whatever) as interpreted through Larry David’s trademark bitching (or was that “biting”?) humor, because apparently nothing in this country’s past was worth treating with dignity.
He picks a fight with Benjamin Franklin (Chris Parnell), tags along with Lewis and Clark (Jerry Seinfeld), and harangues the Wright brothers (Jon Hamm and Sean Hayes) about their terrible inflight service. The parade of historical figures in American history who probably deserved better is pretty long … or maybe this is exactly the treatment that they earned; that said the cast list is impressive.
My impression, based solely on the trailer, is that this is in the same vein as The History of the World Part I and II, but for whatever reason, Larry David’s comedy style doesn’t click with me the way Mel Brooks’ does, so I’m not sure if I’ll be giving this more than a cursory glance.
The costumes don’t really inspire me, either, looking more like the kind of costume stock you pull for an episode of Drunk History. Oh wait, that’s because the designer is Christina Mongini, who worked with David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, also was the costume designer for Drunk History. Which, ok, yeah, now the costumes make sense. It’s exactly what you’d expect in that context.
Oh, and the writing credit is shared with Barak Obama, so that’s fun. At any rate, if Larry David is your jam, please enjoy and report back what you thought about the series!
Will you be watching this one?
No, thank you; I’ll just watch Drunk History again. :)
I’ll do the same.
Hard pass.