"Seinfeld" Reunion? Curb Your Enthusiasm

The long-awaited Seinfeld reunion takes place this fall, in the alternate show-biz world that is Curb Your Enthusiasm. The faux reunion is one of the main underpinnings of the entire 13-episode season, and it will definitely be the subject of the show's season finale, which may run an entire hour, rather than Curb's usual 30 minutes.

Curb kingpin Larry David, who was also, along with Jerry Seinfeld himself, the creator and executive producer of Seinfeld, told the TV critics all about it at their summer meeting, after the scribes had watched some clips from the coming season, which starts Sept. 20 on HBO.

"For years, I've been asked about a Seinfeld reunion," David said. "I would always say, 'No, there's no reunion. There's not going to be a reunion show. We would never do that. It's a lame idea.' And then I thought, 'but it might be funny to do that on Curb.'

"We're going to see writing. We'll see aspects of the read-through, parts of rehearsals. You'll see the show being filmed. And you'll see it on TV.... You won't see the entire show. You'll see parts of the show. You will get an idea of what happened 11 years later, and within the show, you're going to — it will be incorporated into regular Curb episodes. So the cast members will be playing  themselves ... while all this is going on.

The Seinfeld cast will be spread among five episodes, David said.

But there is a problem. Larry David does not play himself on Curb Your Enthusiam.  The Larry David character on the show is more misanthropic, egotistical and incompetent than the real McCoy. "I would never do it," says David, but there is a "compelling reason" why the TV Larry goes along with the reunion.

One genius critic (me) asked David if it were possible that TV Larry, given his limitations, would wind up ruining the reunion show.

"He might," said David. "Yeah, you know, do you need a staff job for next season? My guy might consider wrecking something like that, yeah. We will see what happens. My guy could very well wreck it. I'm not saying he did. I don't know."

I'd love the job. Just e-mail: jstorm@phillynews.com