DVD Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete First Four Seasons

The second season is more of the same, and for fans, that's a good thing. The closest thing to an arc is David's season-long pitch to the networks for a new show starring former Seinfeld stars Jason Alexander and Julia-Louis Dreyfus. Each network is lampooned, especially HBO, which David has a bad history with in this alternate world. Sure to repel those with soft funny bones, Curb's acerbic comedy allows jokes where David is accidentally framed--if ever so briefly--as a child molester, wife abuser, or murderer. But for those who do love his shtick, there are big laughs, especially when we bump into characters as unbridled as David, like a fellow writer who is quite protective over his dad's invention, the Cobb salad. Many comic actors pop up, some as "themselves" (Richard Lewis, Rob Reiner) and others as characters (Rita Wilson, Ed Asner) along with the delights of co-stars Cheryl Hines as David's wife and his affable manger, Jeff Garlin. There are several touchstone bits: what a thong brief can do to a relationship, a run-in with pro wrestler, Larry's first baptism, and one very collectible doll. To pick one episode to capture this second season--and its grandstanding nature--it would be "Shaq," in which the NBA star is accidentally tripped, changing David's usual bad luck with gut-busting results. --Doug Thomas

The third season of HBO's comedy sensation offers more of the same. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," to quote Larry David's other television series, a certain little sitcom called Seinfeld. Consequently, Curb Your Enthusiasm's junior year means more Larry and more of his hilariously embarrassing mishaps. It also means more of his patient spouse Cheryl, avuncular manager Jeff, Jeff's foul-mouthed wife Susie (Susie Essman), and assorted celebrity pals, including Richard Lewis, Ted Danson, Wanda Sykes, Paul Reiser, and Martin Short, all playing themselves (or, like Larry, versions thereof). The theme that (loosely) ties these 10 episodes together is Larry's involvement in upscale eatery Bobo's, in which Danson and Michael York (yes, that Michael York) are co-investors. As expected, the restaurant will serve to complicate Larry's life in every conceivable way--and vice versa. But the funniest (and most profane) episode must surely be "Krazee-Eyez Killa," starring Chris Williams (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) as the fidelity-impaired gangster rapper to whom Wanda has become engaged. This riotous installment, which sends up Jewish, Italian, and African American gangsters alike, won an Emmy for Robert B. Weide's direction and features that old master-of-direction himself, Martin Scorsese, who first appeared in "The Special Section" (in which Larry bribes a gravedigger to relocate his mother's gravesite). It's also the episode in which Larry gets a hair stuck in his throat. That hair, which once belonged to someone rather close to him, will remain lodged there for the next several episodes, until a "divine intervention" in "Mary, Joseph and Larry" dislodges it once and for all--along with the last of Larry's dignity.

In Curb's fourth season, Larry David continues to say--and do--whatever he wants whenever he wants. In the first episode alone ("Mel's Offer"), in which Mel Brooks offers him the role of Max Bialystock in The Producers, David offends a doctor, a lesbian couple, a wheelchair user, and Ben Stiller (by not shaking his hand after he sneezes). Then, in the second ("Ben's Birthday Party"), he offends a blind man--by telling him his girlfriend's not as hot as she claims--and pokes Stiller in the eye with a skewer while attempting to show agent Jeff Greene his new golf move. Larry continues to offend Stiller until he drops out of The Producers and, in the fifth episode ("The 5 Wood"), David Schwimmer (Friends) steps in. The following episode ("The Car Pool Lane"), in which David attends a Dodgers game--with a prostitute, so he can use the carpool lane--made history when it set an innocent man free. Unused footage from the show, entered into evidence by the defense attorney, confirmed his client's alibi that he couldn't have committed a murder because he was at the game (alas, the Braves still trounced the Dodgers). Other guests include Ted Danson ("The Weatherman"), Russell Means ("Wandering Bear"), and Gina Gershon ("The Survivor") as a Hasidic hottie. In addition, the hour-long season finale ("Opening Night") boasts a bevy of stars, including David's old colleague Jerry Seinfeld, Nathan Lane (Broadway's original Bialystock), and fellow Tony Award winner Anne Bancroft. As they've done since the early days, Cheryl Hines, Susie Essman, Richard Lewis, and Wanda Sykes do what they can to keep one-man demolition derby David in check. --Kathleen C. Fennessy