The classic TV show Ted Danson felt sorry for: “I thought it absolutely sucked”
The cast of Cheers has all done very well for themselves.
Kelsey Grammer’s appearances as Dr Frasier Crane landed him his own spin-off, which went on to match the original in terms of longevity. Woody Harrelson is now a massive star in Hollywood, and Rhea Perlman and John Ratzenberger have also become household names.
Sometimes with a show like this, where so many of the supporting players go on to have excellent careers, the original lead actor can get left behind. Not this time, because we’re talking about the one and only Ted Danson.
Since playing womanising barman Sam Malone for 11 seasons, Danson has established himself as a major player on screens both big and small. In movieland, he’s been in everything from Saving Private Ryan to an animated film about a talking dog, and on TV, he’s done crime shows, science fiction adventures, high-concept comedies, low-concept comedies, and just about everything in between.
One show Danson was heavily involved with was Curb Your Enthusiasm, where he plays a fictionalised version of himself, a common trope on the series, in 34 episodes, and while the show is now part of comedy legend, the actor took a little while to be won over.
Speaking on his podcast, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, he revealed that his wife, Mary Steenburgen, loved the pilot episode of Curb when she first saw it. “I thought it sucked,” he said, “I thought it absolutely sucked, and I felt sorry for my new friend, Larry David. And in that sort of idiocy, I ended up being part of something that changed my life.”
David, who had previously made his name co-creating and writing for Seinfeld, starred in a one-hour HBO special called Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm in 1999. The standalone episode features the comedian playing a version of himself preparing for a fictional special on the same network, a level of meta-humour that did not die down once the series began in earnest one year later. It’s unclear if Danson is referring to this one-off or the first episode of the first official season, for he didn’t appear in either, as his character, accompanied by Steenburgen, also playing herself, didn’t show up until episode two.
As Danson humbly explained, he was dead wrong about the show, and Curb Your Enthusiasm would go on to become a monster hit, finally wrapping up in 2024 after 12 seasons. The series quickly became a cult favourite for its mixture of celebrity bashing, dark humour, and critiques of everyday life. It was a near-annual presence at the Primetime Emmys, picking up a staggering 55 nominations across its lifespan, and routinely appears in lists of the funniest series ever, adored by both viewers and fellow comedians alike.
The reason why Curb Your Enthusiasm is so well-regarded these days is that it broke the mould. Nobody has ever seen anything like it when it first premiered, and Danson was like so many others when he thought it wouldn’t succeed, but he has happily been proven wrong. Although how he didn’t fall in love with the show the moment he heard that iconic theme tune is a complete mystery.
