Is ‘Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness’ a Score-Settling Screed?
Larry David's historical series jabs Trump, RFK, jr., leaves laughs behind
Larry David doesn’t know when to quit.
And that isn’t such a bad thing, at least on paper.
The 79-year-old funny man said, ‘goodbye’ to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in 2024 after 12 mostly solid seasons. He’s fabulously wealthy thanks to that program, plus all those “Seinfeld” residuals.
David co-created the iconic NBC show.
He doesn’t need the money, and his cranky alter ego suggests the “fame” part of celebrity isn’t a top priority.
David still felt the need to star in a new show for HBO Max, one that examines American history through a very Larry David-style lens.
“Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness.”
The show, co-produced by the Obamas, debuted to tepid critical reviews. The finished product, to be blunt, is bad.
Pretty, pretty bad, at least from the sketches this critic has endured.
Yet was there a secondary reason to create such a program? We’ve already seen an extended skit for the show that doubled as an anti-Trump screed.
The HBO sketch show ‘Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness’ surprised us all this weekend. https://t.co/Nmx74ujWqL
— Esquire (@esquire) July 6, 2026
That one recruited the late Rob Reiner, in his final acting appearance, to mock President Donald Trump via a historical re-creation.
The bit proved pure clapter – a sketch meant to inspire applause, not actual chuckles. Painful barely describes it, all the more so given Reiner’s cruel fate.
Now, we’re learning of “Life” sketch that takes a not-remotely-veiled swipe at another GOP target. That’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
The sketch in question finds David playing Dora, the mother of Jonas Salk. The character gets into a fight with a neighbor who takes a strong anti-vaccine stance. It’s akin to people on the Right questioning modern vaccines after being lied to during the COVID-19 epidemic.
A good satirist might use that as a launching point for humor. Not David. He weaponized the skit to call out RKF Jr. by name.
“Drop dead, Bobby,” says Dora. “You should die a dog’s death! You don’t know anything about science, you’re not a doctor. God help us all if some idiot, some moron, ever put you in charge. That would be a dark day for humanity I can tell you that.”
Had David and co. made a sly allusion to modern figures, even those uniformly on the Right, it might have been witty. Funny. Ripe.
Instead, he and his partners decided to go for a crude, obvious approach. That technique turns what might have been humorous into something else.
And it’s certainly not funny.
David could be resting on his sizable laurels right now. Instead, he’s committed himself to a weak tea comedy series that seems to exist to settle political scores.
Except David isn’t a politician. And both Trump and Kennedy are the ones in power.
I guess Reiner’s SON was asked to critique the series – didn’t care for it – presumably!
So Larry DumDum presumes to edumucate his audience on viruses and in the wake of the biggest related F up in the last century, letting the guy that created a pandemic run the pandemic response, That’s how you get policies like stuffing elderly care units with COVID patients in the middle of the pandemic. Far more death in those ‘modern day concentration camps’ than in ICE shootings and everything else that has Lefty’s hair on fire. David’s legacy is no longer ‘the funny’, it’s the audience recognizing just another Lefty political hack that can’t think it’s way out of a paper bag. That’s kind of funny but more so it’s just sad.
The tragedy of the Kennedys is that there are any still alive.