Curb Your Enthusiasm

Having said that, the running lines "Do you respect wood?" and Jerry's bit about the absurdity of the segue "Having said that …" both captured that distinctly Seinfeldian flair we all know and miss so desperately. The scene where Larry and Jerry marvel over Jason Alexander's pretentious vanity book "Acting Without Acting" demonstrated the more nuanced and (somewhat paradoxically) more punch line-driven tone that comes from Jerry's comic stylings and Jason's, well, acting without acting, getting thrown into the mix.

 

In fact, the reunion-focused episodes of "Curb" this season have demonstrated just how funny this show could be if its writers relied more on relatable observations of modern behavior (constant texting by young kids, the vanity of actors) and less on gripes about tipping, personal favors and perceived insults (angry waiters, angry maitre d's, angry coffee guys) that lead to the shouting matches. Even the predictable setup of Jason borrowing Larry's pen last week paid off in spades when Jerry heard about Jason's indiscretions with the pen, shook his head and told Larry, "You don't lend Jason anything, anything that can be ... inserted."

On last week's episode, when several characters reacted to Larry's scatological reference to a kid's rash with stunned silence, culminating in a doctor leaving the room with Larry and quietly instructing his nurse to call the cops, we got a glimpse of how a little restraint allows the show's humor to shine through. Larry was being a jerk, as usual, but the reactions were subtle and the situation was at least somewhat familiar. (I particularly loved the scene where we glimpse Larry texting to his young fan, "NO I DON'T WATCH WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE, I'M AN ADULT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!")

But even after last week's surprisingly strong episode, the finale didn't disappoint, from Larry's jealousy over the smug camaraderie between Cheryl and Jason to his larger-than-life imitation of George. The best scene, though, had to be this classic diner exchange between Jerry and George, after George's estranged wife Amanda is gone for good.

George: Well, I'll never meet anyone else again.

Jerry: Probably not.

George: Meeting is hard.

Jerry: Meeting is hard. Why can't you meet?

George: Can't meet! Why is that?

Jerry: This is what single people are thinking about the minute they wake up in the morning. And yet we're surrounded by people, they're right next to us, on the bus, on the street! But we can't meet them.

George: Why won't they meet us?

Jerry: Because strangers have a bad reputation.

George: A few bad strangers have ruined it for the rest of us!

Jerry: It's unfortunate.

We'll never meet two jackasses we love this much again, will we? Surely there's some government-mandated way to force them to keep producing episodes, for the good of the nation!

But bringing the best sitcom of all time back from the dead is hard. Why is that? Why won't they come back for us? Because reunions and revivals and comedic resuscitations have a bad reputation. A few crappy reunion specials have ruined it for the rest of us!

Having said that, this revisited, pseudo-"Seinfeld" reunion was about as fun and as satisfying as any "Seinfeld" reunion could be, and for that, Larry and Jerry and the rest have our deepest thanks. 

In fact, their planet is actually a lot nicer and cleaner than ours, because they spent all their time making scientific and technological advances instead of poisoning their delicate ecosystem with carbon emissions and spray tans and "Two and a Half Men" reruns.

But don't confront them -- if decades of sci-fi movies have taught us anything, it's that aliens respond to direct confrontation by sucking our brains out of our ears. Just smile and say, "It was so nice of you to drop by! Please, take a few dozen silos of partially hydrogenated soybean oil when you go – we'll never finish them by ourselves."

We are of peace

With all of that preening and posturing and spreading terror throughout the universe that aliens do, it's incredible that they come from a world of serious scholars and scientists. Did they do all the hard work centuries ago, only to devolve into a land of idle troublemakers and slithering intergalactic playboys? This is why I'm all worked up over ABC's "V" (premieres 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3). Its aliens not only swoop down and hover over our major metropolises, scaring the living daylights out of us with their dulcet newscaster tones and their big, honest brown eyes, but they claim they can share the cure to some of our deadliest diseases, clean up our polluted planet, make our corn dogs taste better and keep outdoor malls from installing those hideous statues of ugly, badly dressed children frolicking happily in water fountains or taking up valuable bench space.

Hold on a minute. These aliens can cure cancer, but they can't hide their lizardy faces better than that? I've seen Nixon masks more convincing than the one that alien is wearing in the trailer. These visitors (as they call themselves) have been here for years, but we didn't even know about them? What have they been waiting for? Why didn't they just take over Oprah and control our minds through her a long time ago?

"They've been printing fake docs -- passports, IDs -- best fakes I've ever seen," says Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell from "Lost") in a scene from the pilot (and featured in the trailer above). So the aliens want to cause "worldwide instability" in a secret plot aimed at the "extermination of every man, woman and child on the face of this Earth"… by printing fake IDs? Why don't they just suck all of our brains out of our ears right now and call it a day? Then tomorrow they can wake up, snort up several tons of crystal meth, and spend the afternoon at Disneyland without waiting in any lines.

But does anyone care if "V" is believable or not? No way. We just want these aliens to be a little bit different than the last imaginary aliens we met. We want that moment in the first episode where Anna (Morena Baccarin), the TV spokesmodel of the alien invaders, instructs news pretty boy Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) before an interview, "Just be sure not to ask anything that would paint us in a negative light." We want to relive that moment, which is creepy and suspenseful, over and over again.

What we don't want, and what we get, is talk of "building a resistance." Building a resistance is tiresome and pointless, it's ground that's been thoroughly trampled by "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Terminator" and "Independence Day" and "Battlestar Galactica" and "Star Wars," and, hell, "Reds." Ragtag bands of grass-roots rebels gathering in secret warehouses to plan how to take down a much larger and more powerful foe? If Han Solo isn't getting called a scruffy-looking nerf herder, I want no part of it.

You've heard by now about "V's" unnerving tendency to borrow phrases from the Obama campaign to hint at the skin-deep emptiness of the aliens' catchphrases. And yes, like Obama, the "visitors" are fine-looking and poised and friendly and just too good to be true. They talk about the "V Ambassador Program" and other populist tricks to lure the masses into drinking their poisonous alien Kool-Aid. The show even premieres on the anniversary of President Obama's election, and ABC previously planned to skywrite big red Vs over the nation's major landmarks as a publicity stunt, all of which might lead to paranoid suspicions that ABC itself is run by sneaky but well-groomed aliens.

The original 1984 TV miniseries "V" concerned fascism, and we might just be willing to encounter these big, obvious parallels as some form of cultural commentary, if they were more intelligently laced into the series. Sure, it's a nice touch, having Erica's teenage son, Tyler (Logan Huffman), all starry-eyed over the hot alien babes with their unconditional positive regard and their promises that Tyler can finally be a part of something bigger and more exciting than the latest version of "Grand Theft Auto." Yes, they are frightfully fake and shiny, with their flashy ships and their relentlessly optimistic Scientology-speak. It's not hard to understand why Tyler or any teenager might find the Vs appealing, even if his scenes have all of the subtlety of a poorly scripted teen slasher flick. "Damn, she's hot!" Tyler gushes when Anna appears on TV. "I know, right?" replies his even-less-interesting friend.

Later, when the two kids board one of the aliens' transports for a tour of the mothership hovering above New York City, they gush to each other, "Dude, this is incredible, man! It's like an amusement park!" And who greets them at the door? A super-hot mega-babe alien with blond flat-ironed hair and a big lip-glossy mouth named Lisa. Hokey? Hokier than a chimpanzee dressed up as Wayne Newton.

Then Chad, the Matt Lauer of "V," asks Anna, "Is there such a thing as an ugly visitor?" Bwahaha! We get it. This whole three ring circus is supposed to be just like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, only with oozing lizard people where the giant smiling Elmo float should be.

But as transfixing as it might be to witness how easily we yield our planetary panties to an alien suitor, as awful as it might be to grapple with a nefarious force that pretends it just dropped by to bring us vaccines and borrow a little uranium before it's on its merry way, "V" doesn't linger for very long in this provocative territory. By the end of the pilot, we're already flipping through the best fake IDs Evans has ever seen and attending secret resistance meetings where surprise-guest reptilian-faced demons are getting their Old Man McGregor masks ripped off, "Scooby Doo"-style. Suddenly this might as well be "Fringe" or "Warehouse 13" or "The X-Files" or "Eureka" or any one of hundreds of shows that involve FBI agents and international espionage and terrorist thugs and secret plots to take over the universe.

Come on, now. Isn't there a new way to handle the alien invasion story? Isn't there something a little more subtle and hauntingly evil out there than sneaky reptiles with really good publicists?

Curb sitters

OK, there is Larry David of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (10 p.m. Sundays on HBO). The writers' room of "Curb" may be the one place in Hollywood where they're determined to tackle the alien invasion plot in a brand new way.

You have to admire their patience, too. Instead of having Larry rip off his Larry David mask in the first few episodes of the show's seventh season, revealing a hideous, oozing lizard-faced alien underneath, they're making Larry act just like a nasty alien would, shaking and pointing and wrestling Rosie O'Donnell to the floor in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

When Larry calls his new girlfriend "Denise Handicapped" or asks if a couple's adopted Chinese daughter is better at using chopsticks than most toddlers, it's not funny because it's not supposed to be funny. It's supposed to be creepy and disturbing. It's supposed to be alienating. Like an alien. Get it?

If the writers of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" wanted the show to be funny, of course, they'd have gotten Jason Alexander into the mix from the start, because George Costanza was much funnier and more believable as Larry David than Larry David has ever been. George can ask rude questions and treat selfishness as a matter of principle and exalt his personal preferences to the status of widely held standards shared only by sane, thoughtful, right-thinking individuals, and it works, because Jason Alexander whispers and mumbles and states things matter-of-factly and, well, he's a great comedic actor.

Larry David, as oddly lovable as he is, is terrible at playing Larry David. He always looks nervous, like he's being watched. He shouts his way through every scene, and it's only gotten worse lately. Did you see last week's episode, where he pretended to be splashing himself every time he peed? He looked like he was wrestling an alligator.

And we're supposed to think it's hysterical and daring when Larry David rolls a handicapped woman into a closet and shuts the door? We're supposed to laugh uproariously as two women in wheelchairs chase Larry around a big house at a fancy party? We're supposed to chuckle when Larry confronts Christian Slater for hogging all the caviar at a party, a lame rehash of the classic "Seinfeld" episode where George is caught double-dipping his chip? We're expected to care that Larry doesn't like the sight of men in shorts? Obviously this isn't a comedy, not even close. Don't be so naive!

Clearly the lack of laughs doesn't come from the fact that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is offensive. Far from it. If this show were a comedy -- which it's not -- it would be un-p.c. humor for very, very out of touch people who haven't noticed that all humor is un-p.c. now. Merely being un-p.c. by rolling out a steady flow of Katrina survivors and flabby-gutted assistants for Larry to insult is like building an entire show around a goofy dad, a meddling mother-in-law and a mom who always burns the pot roast. You could do it in 1985, but you can't do it now. It's like creating a drama series about building a secret resistance to fight off the invading aliens.

But if Larry David is an alien whose plan to exterminate every man, woman and child on the face of the earth involves insulting Chinese adoptees and handicapped women? Well, that's just brilliant.

I just can't wait until he rips off his mask! That is going to be so cool. What do you think he'll do first, eat Jerry Seinfeld's face off, or suck Julia Louis-Dreyfus' brains out of her ears? 


Weide, 49, is a thin man with closely cropped dark hair, a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, and a focused set of brown eyes, protected behind black rectangular glasses. He grew up in Southern California, watching comedy from the Marx Brothers through "Annie Hall," which may account for his somewhat New Yorkerish vibe. "People are shocked when I tell them I grew up out here," he said. "There's a Lenny Bruce bit -- 'If you're from New York you're Jewish, even if you're not Jewish. And if you're from the Midwest you're not Jewish, even if you're Jewish.'" Weide is the kind of genuine man, less common in Hollywood by the second, who lacks slickness, excessive amounts of aggression, the desire to show off, cut corners and name-drop -- all issues broached in his feature directing debut, out this week, called "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People."





The comedy stars "Shaun of the Dead" sensation Simon Pegg in a loose interpretation of former Vanity Fair writer Toby Young, who published a now-infamous 2001 roman à clef with the same title about screwing up in the celebrity-filled world of glossy magazine journalism. It's Weide's first major project since leaving "Curb" after its fifth season, and as a cringe-inducing tale of a smart but abrasive misfit bumbling his way through the glamorous media high life, it's perhaps not an unusual choice after Weide spent years framing a fictionalized Larry David's misadventures in a post-"Seinfeld" Los Angeles. 



Ten years ago this month, Larry David asked Weide to direct the first "Curb" mockumentary, which spurred along the hit series. Weide met David in 1983, while working as the director of development for Charles Joffe, the comedy impresario, who first encouraged Woody Allen to write and direct his films and, with partner Jack Rollins, steered the careers of historic comedians from Lenny Bruce to David Letterman.




In the eary '80s, within three months of leaving the University of Southern California, where Weide had been rejected by the film school three times (a fact he proudly announced in his first Emmy acceptance speech, in 1986), the 20-year-old director was working as a runner for Joffe and producing a Marx Brothers documentary. "The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell," narrated by Gene Kelly and including footage wrangled with Joffe's help, soon became one of PBS's highest-rated programs. Throughout the following years, Weide made more comedian documentaries -- including films about Mort Sahl, W.C. Fields and, of course, Lenny Bruce, whose mother Weide eulogized at her 1997 funeral. He was soon known in the industry for his comedy scholarship and his love for telling truthful stories of inconoclasts' lives.




Still, it wasn't his documentary work but Weide's job with Rollins-Joffe -- to say nothing of spending evenings in comedy clubs, getting to know performers -- that initially brought Weide and David together, pre-"Seinfeld." "Larry had written a script called 'Prognosis Negative' that I loved," Weide said. "That's how Larry and I met. This was when Larry was unhirable; no one knew how he was going to keep a roof over his head, and he was the first to think that he was going to be homeless. In those days, few people considered Larry funny, except me and half a dozen other people. I would always be in the clubs watching him, thinking that if this country ever caught up with this guy's sense of humor, there would be riots in the streets."





Weide gravitated to David's organic contrarianism: "In those early script development meetings at Rollins-Joffe they'd say to him, 'The script is so funny, it's so fresh, so original. But this character is pretty unsympathetic. Do you think there's anything we can do to make him a little bit more likable?' And Larry would go, 'No, I don't think so.' And I said, 'I love this guy.'" 




When David left "Seinfeld," in the late 1990s, the two men began socializing more frequently, which led to a call from David in October 1998 offering Weide the chance to direct a "little HBO special" about David returning to stand-up. "Larry asked me because I directed documentaries," Weide said. "He didn't really know yet how much was going to be real documentary and how much would be fabricated. It was his idea to improvise the dialogue, because he didn't want to memorize lines. He also rightly thought that if it wasn't scripted, the dialogue would sound more real -- the rhythms, the overlaps, the pauses." 




For comedy fans, "Curb" became an unexpected but logical progression to the multicamera sitcom about nothing: a documentary style meta-show about a writer/comic that questioned reality and shined a much brighter light on the dark, comfort-challenging humor with which "Seinfeld" had more subtly flirted. "It was always very divisive: People either loved or hated it," Weide said. "There were married couples that probably had big fights over it. Hopefully it even led to a few divorces."






But "Curb" was also a substrate for Weide's synergistic interests. It allowed him to finally transition into crafting innovative comedy, informed by his masterly understanding of the canon.

 
"If you're injected with the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields and Laurel and Hardy, it absolutely becomes part of your system," Weide said. "I remember some 'Curb' things where Larry and Jeff would get in trouble with their wives and always try to get away with schemes. That's completely Laurel and Hardy. Occasionally in "Curb," Larry would do battle with some little kid -- that's W.C. Fields. Simon Pegg's character in 'How to Lose Friends' also has some Groucho in him; he says outrageous things you're not supposed to utter. There are also numerous moments in the show and 'How to Lose Friends' where I was thinking Mel Brooks."




"Whenever you're doing comedy, it's good to have someone who understands the art of creating it," Simon Pegg recently told me from his London home. "But Bob doesn't just have a classical understanding. He's responsible for some of the best modern comedy around, and he's on top of emergent stuff." 



Pegg noted the brief story of how, when the British star met the actress Gillian Anderson during the casting for "How to Lose Friends," Weide made sure Anderson heard about Pegg's reality-based masturbatory references to the "X Files" actress on Pegg's British TV show "Spaced." "He broke the code!" Pegg said, jokingly. "There is a line you shouldn't cross but that Bob does. And that made me realize how much creative input he had on 'Curb.' He frequently shows that Larry David lack of restraint; he's always the man who ends the joke."





At the beginning of "How to Lose Friends," a boy sits cross-legged, staring at a black and white movie, as the camera zooms into the screen and then back close on the kid's eyes. It's an indication of how the protagonist, Sidney Young, a caustic British journalist who moves to New York and works for a Vanity Fair-esque publication, became entranced with movies and the idea of who belongs on what side of the velvet rope. But the scene references Weide's life, too. "I have some kind of knack for getting to know or becoming very close with people I've long admired," Weide told me. "Kurt Vonnegut and I -- it's not an exaggeration to say we were best friends. And I grew up just idolizing him."




Weide has been working on a Vonnegut documentary for 20-odd years: He's the only filmmaker with Vonnegut's childhood footage and spent many years with the author, even taking him back to his hometown in Indiana, for revelatory author-led video tours through the icon's life. The as-yet-unscreened rough cut still lacks narration but is more illuminating than any other piece of media produced about the American novelist, showing the author speak about his family at the house his architect father designed, discussing the impact of WWII and including reminiscences of his honeymoon at a family lake house.





"Somehow I got a hold of an address for Vonnegut shortly after making the Marx Brothers film," said Weide, who wrote a letter asking the author if he could make a documentary about him. "Vonnegut wrote back, saying that he had seen the Marx brothers film and loved it. That became the foundation of our friendship: old movies and comedies. " Weide eventually penned the 1996 film adaptation of Vonnegut's "Mother Night." "I would tell him, 'If you had never responded to that letter, I would be across the street from your townhouse in Manhattan, with binoculars, trying to get a glimpse of you coming out the door and stalking you for an autograph.' It's true. That's why I tell my wife: one slight move and I'd be on the other side of that rope."



Chief among Weide's passions as a dedicated comedy, literature and film fan are also a documentarian's obsession with accuracy and remembering. The comedian Richard Lewis recently recalled that at Charles Joffe's memorial service Weide didn't just give a moving speech but, after realizing a funny story had been forgotten -- it concerned how Joffe negotiated a million-dollar holding deal for David Letterman before the comic started his late-night show -- Weide returned to the microphone. 



"I never saw a guy go up at a memorial service with notes as if was a Friar's Roast," said Lewis, who admits to thinking of Weide "like a younger brother." "I guess we want to remember the funny stuff," Lewis continued. "Anyway, after Bob sat down, he called from the audience, because someone was stumbling around with some memory, and he was like: 'I know that. I forgot to mention that.' It was a really funny 'Curb' moment -- he's asking the audience at the memorial service if he can go up a second time, and everyone was like, 'Yeah, go up. You can be the first guy to ever go up to the microphone twice at a memorial service.' He so wanted to share and get these stories right."



Likewise, Weide didn't tolerate creative versions of the truth as he shot "How to Lose Friends" in London last year. When Toby Young, the writer portrayed by Simon Pegg in the film, wrote a piece last month for the U.K. publication The Spectator about how Kirsten Dunst, who plays the mag-staffer-love-interest in the movie, had him banned from the set, Weide came to the aid of his actress and the truth. "He wasn't banned," Weide said. "He made several visits. He did screw up one day by giving a note about Kirsten's performance. After that, his visits to the set were closely monitored. But then he writes this piece that he thinks is a humorous piece -- 'Kirsten Dunst banned me from the set of my own movie. Ha, ha, ha.'" So Weide wrote a letter to the Spectator, later reprinted in The Evening Standard, which reads: "Toby has written a number of pieces about this production, and I often read about a fictional character, the director of the film, who happens to share my name. Toby is usually good about running these things past me, and I've told him that I understand that his job is to 'print the legend' for comic effect. But after reading unwarranted Internet criticism of Ms. Dunst for having Toby 'banned,' I thought someone needed to print the truth."



Truth is similarly at issue in "How to Lose Friends." In the film, publicists exact copy approval over magazine editors and writers, spinning articles in positive directions and forcing writers to profile lesser-known clients in exchange for access to big stars. Weide maintains that he and screenwriter Peter Straughan used Young's book only for source material and that much of the film and its characters are fabrications. So don't look for the real Graydon Carter in Jeff Bridge's successful magazine editor, even if he sports the long hair and nice suits.



To be sure, Weide does not appreciate the brand of mythmaking from either side of the journalistic line that has infected the history of entertainment from the early days.
 "On my W.C. Fields film, we took on all these myths," Weide said. "That he had hundreds of bank accounts all over the world in different banks that were left untouched when he died. Then there's the alleged quote, 'Anyone who hates children or dogs can't be all bad,' which he never said. The idea that on his tombstone it says, 'All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.' That's not true. We had this whole chapter in the film -- this four-minute section of the film -- debunking all those myths. We even interviewed one of the publicists who worked for Paramount in the 1930s and handled the Fields account. He said, 'Oh yeah, we'd make that stuff up. We'd run it by him and if he felt that if it was within character, he'd say to print it.'"





At 49 -- the new 39, as contemporary culture would have it -- Weide isn't old. But even though most directors don't win feature gigs at middle age, that's a little less than correct, too. "Paul Haggis broke the 50-year barrier when he directed 'Crash,'" said Weide, who has recently scripted and plans to direct a feature film loosely based on his relationship with Vonnegut. "Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris of 'Little Miss Sunshine' -- I think Jon's two years older than me, and Valerie's a little older than me. At a time in their lives when most people were being put out to pasture, the film opened up a whole new world, and now they're very in demand. I have no idea whether my film will have any kind of success like theirs, but there's something to be said about finally being able to direct movies when you have a point of view about life. The documentaries are one thing -- I was highlighting someone else's work, someone else's genius. Once I had to find my own voice, I'm glad I was a little bit older and had some confidence and had all these great inspirations to draw from."

The global warming yuk-fest has an all-star roster, featuring Will Ferrell, Jack Black, Cameron Diaz, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin and Ben Stiller, among many others. Writers from "The Daily Show," "The Simpsons," "King of the Hill" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" conspired to help with the event, which will be staged live at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

Earlier this week, America's favorite curmudgeon, Larry David, talked by phone from his home in Los Angeles, with some inside dish on the show.

What's your 20-second pitch for "Earth to America"?

A 20-second pitch?

Yeah, why should America watch this?

Well ... [Disgruntled laughter.] I'm not used to being a salesman. This is why I don't do media. I don't even sell my own show. I wouldn't be doing this in a zillion years if it weren't for my wife.

Ten seconds?

You should watch it because if you don't really know much about this subject, this is a very easy, painless and entertaining way to get some information about global warming -- and also see great comedy. There's a lot of different comedy in the show, some of it is stand-up, some of it is sketches, some of it is taped pieces. Most of it is on subject, and all the contributors have found ways into this issue that are entertaining and provocative and stimulating.

What --

Did I answer that question? I'm trying to turn up the bullshit machine here.

"Provocative, entertaining, stimulating." I'm already sold.

Really, though, there's a lot of great stuff in the show. Even if they didn't introduce it as a show about global warming, it would be funny enough on its own, just as a comedy special.

"Seinfeld" and "Curb" are famously shows "about nothing" -- or about minutiae, the tiny indignities of modern life. But global warming is so huge that people can't get their minds around it. How are you going to make it funny?

Well, global warming is a -- it is the -- big indignity of modern life. People have used humor since the beginning of time to cope with tragedy. There are always angles in every subject to find the comedy in it, and in "Earth to America" all the contributors succeeded at that.

How do you walk the fine line between using comedy to make this scary issue feel manageable and accessible on the one hand, and on the other mocking or trivializing it?

Walking the fine line is what good comedy is all about. You want the subject to be provocative enough that the finer the line, the funnier it will be -- without actually going over it. You walk up to the ledge. That's where you should take an audience: right to the ledge.

Could you give an example of a skit that goes to the ledge on global warming?

No, you've got to watch it.

Just one teaser?

OK, here's one that didn't fly: Initially, I was going to open the show with me sitting around a campfire talking to a bunch of little kids. It would be at night, they would be roasting marshmallows, and I'd be telling the proverbial ghost story. But mine would be about global warming: "The earth is going to get so hot you'll have to wear 12-inch rubber soles on your sneakers so it doesn't burn a hole through them." And I would scare the pants off every single one of them. And they'd all start screaming and crying and the parents would come and yell at me, and that's how the show was going to open.

[Laughter.] What happened?

For one thing, it actually came true with Katrina. Because part of that story was going to be hurricanes, you know, the kids having to live in underwater homes. So I couldn't do it. In that case, I would have been over the line.

I remember a scene in "Seinfeld" where Russell Dalrymple, an obnoxious TV exec, becomes so infatuated with Elaine that he joins Greenpeace in a ridiculous effort to win her heart. He goes aboard a dinghy that's chasing a whaling ship and then gets struck by a stray harpoon and dies. It's a tragicomic portrait of the eco-warrior, in which Dalrymple is not only disingenuous but his acts are ultimately pretty futile. What percentage of the environmental movement, would you say, is made up of Russell Dalrymples?

I think that anyone who devotes their time to this issue has got to be sincere. I mean, I can't imagine spending my life doing something that wasn't even paying me any money without being passionate about it. [Laughter.] That just seems insane! So I can't very well say that there are people in this movement who aren't sincere.

Yeah, I suppose environmental advocates have a reputation for taking themselves too seriously, actually -- they're wracked with save-the-world complexes and riddled with paranoia about the consequences of their every action. I guess that makes them rich fodder for satire.

Of course they're rich fodder for satire! That's just the price they have to pay for being out there. But we need them.

If only you could start some kind of funny camp for activists, so they would annoy everyone less.

On the other hand, if they weren't annoying people, the public wouldn't really know about the problem. I don't mind them being, you know, annoying -- which is your term -- but the fact is we need those people. I'm the first to admit I'm not the one who's out there at the rallies and in the courtrooms forcing change.

I loved your "Why I Am Marching" post on the StopGlobalWarming.org Web site, where Laurie is organizing a virtual march on Washington to protest climate change.

What it says is: "The virtual march is a perfect opportunity for the lazy man to do something good without having to expend any effort. This thing was made for me."

It seems you've been dragged kicking and screaming -- or at least protesting -- into the role of environmental advocate by your wife. Is it safe to say that you wouldn't be discussing this issue if it weren't for her?

I started out doing this to support my wife, but you'd be surprised: The more you're around a subject, the more it starts sinking in. You can't help it, it's just by osmosis. It's discussed in my house 24 hours a day. So, I'm becoming educated about this issue just by living in this house, as are my kids. And it's become impossible now that I'm educated about it to completely turn my back on it, the way I do about most things.

What are some of your environmental concerns -- or neuroses?

Well, my toilet paper's been changed. That's been a hell of a struggle. Laurie switched brands on me so it doesn't use the virgin trees.

You prefer the fully quilted variety?

Yeah. I'm finding [the other kind] a little rough.

Tell us how your "Curb Global Warming" campaign came to be. I've seen the commercials where MTV is hauling away your car, and you find out Laurie gave it away without telling you. True story?

True story. I came into my office one day and my assistant asked what I was going to do for a new car. And I said, "What are you talking about?" She said, "Your wife gave away your car." MTV is working with Laurie to promote the "Stop Global Warming" campaign, so my car is the prize in a sweepstakes for MTV viewers who sign people up for the march.

Sounds like a scene plucked from an episode of "Curb." I'm assuming this sort of trick isn't out of character for your wife.

Let's just say I was surprised, but not shocked.

When your wife starts getting attacked by right-wing radio hosts, is it going to piss you off, or give you great material?

Well, anything I hear on right-wing radio pisses me off, but I guess that would piss me off just a little bit more. But you know what? Conservatives really like my show! Tony Blankley and Ann Coulter and others have said some nice things, I guess because the humor is not politically correct. Because of the show, they can't believe I'm liberal. They don't think liberals have a sense of humor.

Laurie has been known to flip off Hummer drivers on the highway and take people directly to task for their bad eco-habits, with the idea that this kind of peer pressure is a critical part of the solution. What is the best way to get America to wake up and demand change?

Well, if you're talking about changing policy, I guess the examples of the '60s -- sit-ins and protests and taking over buildings -- certainly got people's attention and helped change the government's policy on the war. But people have to recognize that there's a problem in the first place. You need to make people aware that a problem exists, but without talking down to them. Without being preachy. I refuse to be a part of being preached to. That's what "Earth to America" is all about.

But I'm too cruel to my comrade with the big glowing screen. Television is our friend. It is what we watch while pretending to listen to our loved ones. It is where the 30 percent of us who vote go to get information from trusted news professionals, until we remember that they're a bunch of jabbering idiots and turn it off in disgust. Yes, truly was it written over and over on a haunted hotel's walls by the patriarch of "The Simpsons": "No TV and no beer make Homer go crazy."

Television is so thoroughly ingrained in our daily lives it's hard to get a handle on it in any objective way. The growth of TV has changed the way we think and perceive events. Many young writers' styles are influenced by the medium, specifically the attention span and information processing habits it induces. At a recent literary event in San Francisco, Zadie Smith, author of the acclaimed novel "White Teeth," joked that she instinctively incorporates ad breaks into her prose.

However, while TV certainly has a profound effect on our culture, let's not get carried away. Upon winning the Emmy this fall for best supporting actor, John Spencer of "The West Wing" called series creator Aaron Sorkin "one of the great writers of all time." So where would that put him, John? After Joyce and before Dostoevski?

Speaking of Dostoevski, did you see Jennifer Lopez reveal her engagement to "Sexiest Man Alive" Ben Affleck in an interview with Diane Sawyer on a November installment of ABC's "Primetime Thursday"?

Unfortunately for America, Sawyer did not inquire into the scuttlebutt that J.Lo had a male assistant on the set of her recent music video, "Jenny From the Block," squeeze her nipples so that television viewers would be able to see her aureolae more clearly through her mesh top while she grabbed her crotch.

We did learn this, however: J.Lo is no diva. She said so. And she seems to really, really like all this money she's making.

One of the more interesting things in the land of television this holiday season was something that didn't happen. Namely, gangsta-pimp rapper and XXX video producer Snoop Dogg's appearance on the Muppets' Christmas special. In the end NBC edited Snoop out of "It's a Very Merry Muppets Christmas Movie." Even though Snoop professes to have given up smoking dope. The marriage of children's puppet shows and West Coast gangsta rap may be inevitable, but the world will have to wait at least another year.

In other end-of-year television news, Al Gore appeared on "Saturday Night Live," an event that was designed to be the final phase of his mission to reinvent his image prior to declaring his intentions with respect to the 2004 presidential election. As it turned out, Gore had already decided not to run by the time the show went to air.

It's too bad, because the new Al Gore was pretty appealing. He acquitted himself well on "SNL" (which so far has failed to plug the hole left by Will Ferrell's departure). Gore was particularly effective as Willy Wonka's brother Glenn, a fastidious accountant exasperated with Willy's childish schemes: "I put up with a lot working here: Riding that insane psychedelic boat to my office every day! Having to step around piles and piles of Oompah Loompah dung!"

But we're talking about the end of the year here. Let's go back to the beginning.

The year of television 2002 began with the second thrilling Super Bowl in three years, in which the underdog New England Patriots kicked a field goal as time expired to defeat the St. Louis Rams. (In 2000 the Rams denied the Tennessee Titans a game-tying touchdown on the final play.)

That game also reminded us that television is the best medium for disseminating propaganda, as it served as the premiere for the Bush administration's ad campaign claiming that anyone who purchases marijuana may be financing terrorists. I humbly submit that, rather than shifting blame for mass killing and a national security fiasco onto recreational pot smokers, the administration should maybe shut the fuck up and think about tracking down Osama bin Laden.

Disney/ABC/ESPN took over the National Basketball Association from NBC, which means we are finally rid of John Tesh's aggravating theme song and gnatlike sideline reporter Jim Gray. Unfortunately, ABC has decided the hoops-watching public still needs to be poked with the long wooden stick of annoyance that is announcer Bill Walton.

Here's what I'm concerned about heading into this year's edition of the Masters golf tournament. And it's not whether Augusta National Golf Club should admit women members. It's whether these tournaments will hire crack teams of security guards to apprehend and savagely beat every cretin who bellows "Get in the hole!" every time a putt is struck.

In 2002 we bid adieu to "Ally McBeal" and agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully of "The X-Files." Both these shows broke new ground before their creators ran them into it. (The ground.) I hadn't seen "Ally" in eons when I witnessed a promo last year in which Ally gets caught bending down and sniffing the blue jeans-encased buttocks of a construction worker played by Jon Bon Jovi, because apparently she has a compulsion to smell men's asses. I knew then I'd made the right decision.

While we're talking about televised drama, "The Sopranos" just wrapped up a disappointing season of mostly boring episodes with a redeeming finale that contained a riveting portrayal of an exploding marriage. The acting remains superb. James Gandolfini eating pasta as Tony Soprano -- head lowered like an ox, shoulders slouched -- is as gloriously nuanced as Al Pacino dabbing his face with a towel as Michael Corleone. "The West Wing" is a well-written drama, featuring superb acting, that I never watch.

"Six Feet Under," yet another feather in HBO's cap, continues to raise the bar in the field of TV drama. "24", the hit from last year that unfolds in "real time," is into a second season. I'm not saying the plot is Byzantine, but this year Nina will turn out to be a quintuple agent.

When does the plug get pulled on "NYPD Blue"? And do its producers have some agenda about rescuing former child and teen actors? First it was Rick Schroder and now it's Zach from "Saved by the Bell."

A winner has yet to emerge in the war of spinoffs between "Law & Order" and "CSI," the two highest-rated crime dramas on television. I don't think they've gone far enough. America needs more. I predict the top three shows in the 2003 Nielsen ratings will look like this:

1) "Law & Order: A Very Special Victim's Unit"
2) "CSI: Boise"
3) "Law & Order: Jury Duty"

In the world of comedy, the unfunny "Everybody Loves Raymond" continues to draw inexplicably huge ratings and rake in Emmy awards. People are still watching "Friends," apparently. "Will and Grace" has its moments. "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" has won critical acclaim, though not ratings, for eschewing formula in favor of the inventive, wacky humor he helped establish on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien."

HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has emerged as the best comedy on television. Larry David, the creator of "Seinfeld," stomps on every last shred of the predictable sentimentality one finds on network sitcoms. David, who plays himself, borrows aspects from the characters of both Jerry Seinfeld and Jerry's pal George Costanza, who was originally based on Larry, according to legend. He's as smoothly capable and in control as Jerry and as painfully antisocial as George.

Even when "Curb" isn't funny, it gets your attention by being flat-out wrong. Witness this year's "The Special Section,' a subpar episode in terms of laughs, in which Larry's sole reaction to the death of his mother is anger over having not been invited to the funeral. Thereafter he uses his mother's death to get out of the most trivial social obligations. Then he hatches a scheme to dig up her body and move it to a better part of the cemetery. With humor that beyond the pale of mainstream morality, David risks alienating his audience if the jokes fall flat. He's got cojones of steel, a condition largely absent in network comedy and one of the reasons for the show's popularity.

Late-night talk shows in 2002 remained the place where Americans go to have the discomfiting and scary news of the day digested for them into harmless jokes. David Letterman, still self-hating, remains smarter and edgier but slightly less popular than the sugary Jay Leno, who gets along and goes along.

When Al Gore played Trent Lott on last week's "Saturday Night Live," it brought to mind a very creepy moment from the 2000 presidential race, when George W. Bush, appearing on Leno's "Tonight," donned a paper Al Gore mask while Leno wore Bush's likeness. The message from Bush to America was clear: The gap between televised illusion -- what you see -- and reality is unbridgeable, there's no real difference between the two candidates, so vote for me because I'm more likable than he is.

I wonder if Trent Lott called anyone a "nigra" while departing the TV studio in his limo after his apology and interview this week on Black Entertainment Television.

In the 12:30 a.m. time slot, the 6-foot-5 redhead on NBC (Conan O'Brien) is still funnier than the 6-foot-5 redhead on CBS (Craig Kilborn). O'Brien is the best comic mind on television, but his show airs too late for most people to see him.

In 2002 large numbers of confused human beings continued to line up to participate in reality television shows, where they immolate themselves for our distraction before they are jettisoned back to the fallow fields of untelevised reality.

"American Idol" was the big summer phenomenon. It was great at the beginning, during open casting calls in various U.S. cities, when the audience got to luxuriate in the absolutely horrible performances of the aspiring superstars. As the insane and tone-deaf were gradually weeded out -- those in deep denial about their lack of talent; those who verbally abused judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson; those who stalked the show across the country -- "AI" got less interesting until, by the end, when only eventual winner Kelly Clarkson and the guy who looks like Sideshow Bob were left, I had completely forgotten it had ever existed.

"The Bachelor," that romantic reality train wreck par excellence, appeared on the scene in 2002 and is still going strong, as is "Survivor."

The Fox television network has added a new and malicious twist to the reality dating genre for 2003 with a show called "Joe Millionaire," in which 20 lovelorn women are flown to France in order to compete for the affection of a construction worker they have been told is a multimillionaire.

What happens when the truth is revealed? The major flaw in this premise, of course, is that by the end of the show, through potential endorsements, Joe the laborer will be worth considerably more than the $19,000 per annum he made coming in. And his worth will be enhanced by his newfound celebrity status, which will probably count for a lot in the eyes of a woman who is willing to risk public humiliation for a few minutes on TV.

In 2002 prudish commentators continued to get it wrong regarding "The Osbournes," MTV's reality show that follows the lives of heavy metal rocker Ozzy, his wife Sharon and kids Jack and Kelly. "The Osbournes," which is in fact a funny and entertaining show, does not signify the end of Western civilization. No, that distinction goes to "ElimiDATE," whose preening, libidinous contestants are seemingly as innumerable as the young starlets of cinema and television who are willing to grasp their bare breasts and pout at the camera on the covers of Maxim, Stuff and FHM. "ElimiDATE" makes me wonder whether we ought to just let al-Qaida win.

What initially made "The Osbournes" such a breath of fresh air was its inversion of the standard put-regular-people-on-TV formula. Here we see the normal lives of a stupendously abnormal family. And truth be told, Ozzy and Sharon -- who is his manager; one shudders to think what would have befallen the hapless Ozzy without her -- are decent, loving parents. Though his neurological pathways have been devastated by years of narcotic artillery fire, which results in much mumbling and doddering and confusion, the Oz communicates ably with his offspring, warning them not to do drugs and have unprotected sex. Hypocritical? Sure. But all parents are hypocrites; it's part of the job.

And though Sharon is by all accounts a ruthless ass-kicker as a businesswoman, we don't see her bring that world home into her interactions with her children. She's goofy. She owns approximately 6,000 dogs that she talks to as if she were a crazy person. She appears to be her daughter's best friend. Jack and Kelly, though spoiled, are both pretty well-adjusted kids. (Better adjusted, I dare say, than the Bush twins appear to be.)

And then there's Anna Nicole Smith, whose "Osbournes" knockoff on the E! television network documents her struggle to negotiate the basic aspects of reality. What can one say about this former model, now addled, obese and manifestly substance-addicted? She's just about hit bottom, it would seem, whatever money she still possesses being the only thing holding her above the abyss. How could it get worse in a second season? I guess she could wind up sucking dick for prescription painkillers.

In 2002, local, network and cable news programs continued to titillate and, in the words of Susan Sontag, "infantilize" the American public with gross misapplications of words like "terror" and "evil" and "news." It seems the new television news paradigm consists of: 1) Fear. 2) Fear. 3) Mindless escape from the fear that's just been promulgated.

And, as ever, "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" provided us with the antidote. "The Daily Show" remains one of the most important shows on television because it's smarter than everything else and it doesn't have ulterior motives. (For regular news broadcasts, those motives boil down to ratings and corporate ownership.)

To paraphrase Trent Lott: If more people watched "The Daily Show," this country wouldn't have all these problems. Here's hoping that in 2003 we see the emergence of more television shows that pierce through the layers of lies and obfuscation and bring us the truth. Or at least something really, really funny.

2. Why you keep handcuffs in your nightstand drawer.

"24." Episode 6 of this season. Jack has full custody of the reviled Nina, who offed his dippy perma-victim wife. And he is in control. No, wait! She's cool, calm and collected, eyeing him as if he's the one in the handcuffs. His lower lip is quivering. She's in control. No, wait. She's still the one in handcuffs, and Jack's got the keys. But hold on -- CTU has sent out a watchdog to make sure no revenge-inspired Nina handling occurs. Nina's in control. No, wait. Jack drugged the bodyguard's drinking water. There's no one to protect Nina from Jack! He's got her where he wants her! He's in control!

And all in just 30 seconds. Screw Bogie and Bacall -- this is war.

3. I'd like to yank the Academy

The Oscars. Halle Berry's overwrought, hysterical reprise of her overwrought, hysterical performance in "Monster's Ball," except unfortunately not naked or wearing a rain-soaked tank top. Memorable because she displays even more Teflon radiance at the podium than Julia Roberts did last year, and also because it was a victory for talentless, gorgeous and physically flawless black women everywhere.

4. "Mommie Dearest" redux

"The Osbournes" offered too many moments to choose from, but how about Sharon chasing Kelly around with a freshly moistened finger from ... yeah, there. Not only a highlight from everyone's favorite domestic train wreck, but also a refreshing reminder when you look at your own mom that, well, it could have been worse. Or better, depending on how you turned out.

5. Best use of the N-word on TV

"Curb Your Enthusiasm." When Krazee-Eyez Killa calls out, "Are you my nigga?" and Larry David nervously responds, "Yes, yes, I'm your nigger." (After pulling the most un-nigga move one can: outing the guy's philandering to his wife.) The layers and layers of what goes on in the exchange could easily furnish at least three Oberlin students with topics for their senior theses in cultural studies. The 2002 answer to Eddie Murphy's "White Like Me" sketch on "Saturday Night Live."

6. Think of it as a short-short with honest product placement

The Ikea commercial with the abandoned lamp. Call me a sucker but I a) felt sorry for the lamp, b) laughed at myself for feeling sorry for the lamp, and c) went to Ikea and bought a lamp. And yes, I accept that there's no distinction between commercials and shows anymore. You should, too.

7. Trent eats (Jim) crow

Trent Lott's interview on BET, in which he alternated between trying to defend the indefensible and stopping just short of claiming that his father was the son of a black sharecropper. What's next, Fox hires Bibi Netanyahu as its new Ramallah correspondent? Pat Robertson guests on "Will and Grace"? Ed Gordon didn't sneer once, and for that he deserves a reward. Maybe Lott's old job.

8. Can anyone say "schadenfreude"? Not on this show.

"The Bachelor." Christie the Psycho-chicken's prime-time meltdown. There is nothing so soothing as to know that even if you've lost your job, broken up with your true love, and haven't had health insurance since before the millennium, at least you haven't pulled a "Fatal Attraction" on national television. Yet.

9. President No. 1: The opiate of the people

"The West Wing." It's the scene we've all been waiting for: While juggling his marital problems with a ripped-from-the-headlines international crisis, and his own personal responsibility for ordering the death of someone-or-other in response to said crisis, President Jed Bartlet finally steps off his moral high horse, dispenses with the history lecture, washes his hands of the great circle-jerk that has become the mildly dissenting left, and engages in some hardcore realpolitik, the way a real leader should.

Oh, wait, never mind. He doesn't.

10. President No. 2: The idiot of the people

President George W. Bush (the actual president, remember?) elevates the level of political discourse once more, with the straight-out-of-"Bonanza" line "After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad." How the West was lost.

10 1/2. Aww -- a father-and-son moment

Really and truly. If you didn't cry along with little Darren Baker (son of then San Francisco Giants manager Dusty Baker) at the end of Game 7 of the World Series, you have no soul.