Ted Danson says early ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ episodes “absolutely sucked”

Ted Danson has opened up about his time on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and has said he thought some early episodes of the show “absolutely sucked”.

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On his podcast, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Danson opened up about how he came to join the long-running comedy series, which came to an end earlier this year.

“We watched the pilot of Curb, Mary [Steenburgen] and I. Mary thought it was great. I thought it sucked,” he said. “I thought it absolutely sucked. And I felt sorry for my new friend, Larry David. So in trying to be encouraging kind of thing, I said, ‘You know, if you ever need us to play ourselves, we’d be happy to.’”

He added: “And in that sort of idiocy, you know, yeah, I ended up being part of something that changed my life,” adding that “it reinvigorated my desire to be funny” (via The Hollywood Reporter).

On the show, Danson played a fictionalised version of himself who often finds himself at loggerheads with Larry David’s character on the show. In season nine, Danson starts to date Cheryl Hines after she separates from David’s character in the show. Danson and Hines’ characters eventually get married in the show.

Danson went on to appear in every season of the show except two and eight.

Back in April, Curb Your Enthusiasm aired what fans described as a “perfect” finale. The series end aired on April 7 and brought a close to David’s hit HBO show that ran for 12 seasons.

The final episode was a throwback to the infamous 1998 finale of Seinfeld, a show David co-created. The finale for that show became one of the most widely disliked finales of all time.

The Curb finale meanwhile featured multiple references to that show and the finale, and included an appearance with his Seinfeld co-creator Jerry Seinfeld.

At one point, Larry’s friend Leon (JB Smoove) finally got around to watching Seinfeld and asked Larry about the way it ended. Larry directly addresses the criticism the show faced, saying: “I’m not really interested in your opinion”, as the episode doubled down on the Seinfeld finale.

Reflecting on Curb’s final season, David said: “As Curb comes to an end, I will now have the opportunity to finally shed this ‘Larry David’ persona and become the person God intended me to be – the thoughtful, kind, caring, considerate human being I was until I got derailed by portraying this malignant character.

“And so ‘Larry David’, I bid you farewell. Your misanthropy will not be missed. And for those of you who would like to get in touch with me, you can reach me at Doctors Without Borders.”

The show also featured in NME’s top twenty shows of the year, which you can read about here.

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