Larry David– who doesn’t love him? After last night’s “Saturday Night Live” monologue, maybe a lot of people.
David– whom I adore 99% of the time– made Holocaust jokes last night during the show’s opening monologue. And then, to make matters worse, he talked about Jews being most of the recent Hollywood sexual harassers. It was just all wrong, all of it. You could feel the audience tuning out. It will be interesting to see the overnight ratings for “SNL.”
At the same time, there’s a little ratings trouble at HBO for “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” a show I — and many others– longed for with a new season.
“Curb” came in 1.5 million total viewers when it turned to Larry and his fatwa. Premieres are always high, so the next week “Curb” leveled off to 1.1 million, where it remained for three weeks.
But last Sunday, with the World Series booming away, “Curb” dropped to just 800,000 viewers. Will it come back tonight? We’ll see. But last night’s “SNL” wasn’t a very good promo for “Curb,” I think, even for the most fervent fans.
What happened? “SNL” is not a comedy club. It’s not even HBO. Those are smaller, more defined audiences. In today’s climate of Anti Semitism and social media, David’s monologue on a major network was a mistake. The whole thing was received, even by fervent fans, like a kick to the gut. Larry could learn from Trump– don’t offend the base.
