When the 76th annual Primetime Emmy Awards concluded on September 15, 2024, Curb Your Enthusiasm again walked away empty-handed. The long-running HBO sitcom created by and starring Larry David has become the most-snubbed TV comedy in history, winning just two Primetime Emmys out of 55 nominations between 2002 and 2024. For one of the most beloved TV shows on air over the past two decades, walking away without a single Primetime award following its 12th and final season is a giant slap in the face.
While many fans and industry pundits believed Curb Your Enthusiasm had a legitimate shot of winning Best Comedy Series following its series send-off in April 2024, the dark showbiz series Hacks walked away with the honor. For a popular show that has been on the air for 25 years and garnered positive reception from critics and TV lovers alike, the Curb Your Enthusiasm Emmy snub is one of the biggest TV injustices of the 21st century.
What Is Curb Your Enthusiasm About?
Created by Larry David in his follow-up to the landmark TV sitcom Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm is an improv-based sitcom that follows the personal and professional exploits of Larry David. While David plays a heightened version of himself, the show blurs reality and fantasy through its cast, many of whom portray themselves. For instance, Larry’s real-life best friend Richard Lewis plays himself on the show, as does Larry’s so-called nemesis Ted Danson, with various Hollywood celebrities poking fun at their public image in awkward cameo appearances.
However, other actors play fictional characters, including Larry’s wife, Cheryl David (Cheryl Hines), his friend Marty Funkhouser (Bob Einstein), his roommate Leon Black (J.B. Smoove), his live-in girlfriend Irma (Tracy Ullman), and more. The show’s brilliance is how a loose episodic outline is provided for the actors, where they are given free rein to improvise dialog on the spot and create impromptu jokes while filming. Between the actors playing made-up characters and the real-life celebrities ad-libbing throughout each episode, the result leads to hilariously unpredictable results. Without much plot, the show focuses on Larry’s horrible acts and petty grievances as he overcomes his stubborn personality to continue his post-Seinfeld career in Hollywood, a far cry from his New York roots.
Curb Your Enthusiasm remained on the air for 12 seasons and 120 episodes aired on HBO between 2000 and 2024. Despite Larry David winning two Primetime Emmy Awards in 1993 for his work on Seinfeld (Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Comedy Series for “The Contest”), David never won a Primetime Emmy Award for Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Awards & Accolades
Although Larry David has been personally nominated for 18 Primetime Emmys for his work on Curb Your Enthusiasm, he has never walked away with a single statue. That’s a befuddling statistic considering how Curb currently ranks #59 on IMDb’s Top 250 TV Shows. Moreover, loved by critics and TV watchers, the show boasts a sterling 92% Rotten Tomatoes Critics score and a 91% Audience Score. For a show to garner that much love critically and publically, only to be snubbed year after year for a quarter-century, is one of the all-time greatest TV injustices.
To be clear, Curb Your Enthusiasm has won 2 Primetime Emmys out of 55 nominations, equaling a .013 chance of winning per nomination. In 2003, Robert B. Weide won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series (for the episode “Krazee-Eyez Killa”). In 2012, Curb earned its second Primetime Emmy when Steven Rasch was honored for Outstanding Single-Picture Editing for a Comedy Series.
Despite winning 2 Primetime Emmys a decade apart, none of the main actors and writers ever received TV’s highest honor, nor did David for writing all 120 episodes between 2000 and 2024. Many fans thought David had his best chance of winning the honor of Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series when he was nominated in 2024, three months after the show bid farewell to the public. The Emmys often reward a program in their final season as a quasi-lifetime achievement honor. Alas, Jeremy Allen White was named the Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his work in The Bear at the 76th annual Primetime Emmys.
A Closer Look at Curb’s Emmy Snubs
With a paltry 2/55 success rate (.013%), Curb Your Enthusiasm is now the most-snubbed comedy series in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards. Adding insult to injury, the two awards the show received were for direction and editing, completely shutting out the contributions made by David, Jeff Garlin, Susie Essman, J.B. Smoove, Cheryl Hines, and the other creative stalwarts who contributed to the show for so long. Similarly, after winning Best Television Comedy Series in 2003, Curb has been shut out of the Golden Globes for the past 20 years. Although Curb improved with each passing season, it’s been unfairly relegated to the back of awards voters’ minds.
What’s extra upsetting about the Emmy snub is how Curb brilliantly rectified the series finale that infamously backfired in Seinfeld. In one of the most creative storylines in series history, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld atoned for the TV sins they committed in 1998, playfully toying with the mechanics of the Seinfeld finale to give Curb fans a much funnier and more satisfying sense of closure. Fans and critics agreed that Curb nailed the finale that eluded them in Seinfeld, leading to a potential award-winning send-off.
When an excellent series finale like “No Lessons Learned” doesn’t earn an Emmy Award (9.3 IMDb rating), much less a nomination, then it’s easy to see how Curb Your Enthusiasm has become the most-snubbed TV comedy on record. Of course, knowing Larry David, the grand irony is that he’s probably prouder of the snubs than any superficial award victory.
Showrunner Jeff Schaffer told The Hollywood Reporter in August 2024 regarding an Emmy nod:
“A nomination is a real compliment. But I think I speak for both of us when I say that Larry and I haven’t learned how to take compliments. We haven’t really parsed our odds. We just figure it’s cool we got nominated again, whatever happens, happens. As for what the Best Comedy category looks like, I hope whoever wins is the funniest show.”
Fortunately, the extended Curb family may get a shot at Emmy glory. According to Schaffer, David and J.B. Smoove have been in discussions to star as Larry and Leon in a potential Curb spin-off, telling THR:
“I’ve definitely been chatting with J.B., who has a million ideas. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Leon. I don’t know how or when, but Leon is going to get his.”
Curb Your Enthusiasm is available to stream on Max.
