Larry David has lifted the lid on his HBO sketch comedy series that he’s making with President Barack Obama.
The Curb Your Enthusiasm creator and star has revealed the name of the show and its premiere date alongside a trailer of the show.
Life, Larry & The Pursuit of Unhappiness will premiere on Friday June 26 at 9pm.
Details of the seven-episode limited series, which features comedy sketches about different moments in history, were unveiled at SXSW, where David was talking with his colleague Jeff Schaffer. Each episode will feature four different sketches.
In the trailer, which you can see above, David is playing a sailor moments after the famous V-J Day in Time Square photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt that shows a U.S. Navy sailor kissing a woman in the street after victory over Japan. As with most things David, it does not go well and he’s soon labelled a “pervo-Nazi”.
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The series will also feature the likes of Bill Hader, Kathryn Hahn, Jon Hamm and Sean Hayes as well as Obama himself appearing in one sketch. Other Curb stars such as Susie Essman and Vince Vaughan are also expected to appear.
The half-hour limited series is written by David and Schaffer, who also directs. It is produced by Obama’s Higher Ground with David, Schaffer, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Vinnie Malhotra and Ethan Lewis exec producing.
It marks the first project that David has worked on since Curb Your Enthusiasm ended with its 12th season.
David and Schaffer, at a SXSW featured session called A Waste of Time with Larry David and Jeff Schaffer, joked about working with Obama on the show. Schaffer said the former president ragged on David for his golf game “and for how much sunscreen you wear.” At one point, David said he had to tell him, “I’m the president here.”
David was a history major in college, he can list all the U.S. presidents in order and recited a good chunk of the Gettysburg Address from the SXSW stage. He said the show is was the first time he’d really gotten a chance to use his knowledge.
For instance — Mary Todd Lincoln was so bereft after President Lincoln was assassinated that she wouldn’t leave the house for six weeks. “Thats just a stupid thing that I knew,” he said.
Hader will play Abraham Lincoln. David plays the aide de camp who convinced him to go to the theater that night to see a play. “I’d heard good things about it,” David said, in character. Hahn plays Mary Todd Lincoln.
David and Jerry Seinfeld reunite as Lewis and Clark. Essman plays Susan B. Anthony. Hamm and Hayes appear as the Wright brothers. As in Curb, the actors worked off an outline with lots of improvisation.
Life, Larry runs from colonial times to modern day and doesn’t directly address the current U.S. political situation although “the political climate is touched upon various times throughout the series,” said David.
“There are things we are doing that are in the past that allow us to comment … on things that are going on now,” added Schaffer. “Because we have made a lot of the same mistakes over and over again.”
Schaffer did refer to recent M&A headlines, calling HBO “the cool division of Oracle.” The software giant was co-founded by Larry Ellison, father of Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison. Par has an agreement to acquire HBO Max parent Warner Bros. Discovery.
