Despite having appeared in nearly every season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ted Danson has admitted he was initially skeptical about the sitcom when he was shown the pilot.
Danson, 76, made his first of many recurring appearances alongside his wife, Mary Steenburgen, in the HBO comedy’s second episode titled “Ted and Mary.”
However, before the Cheers alum went on to become a fan-favorite with his portrayal of a more pompous version of himself, he said he thought the show “sucked.”
Speaking on the latest episode of his self-hosted Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, he revealed that after watching the 2000 debut episode, “I thought it absolutely sucked, and I felt sorry for my new friend, Larry David.
“So, in trying to be an encouraging kind of thing, I said, ‘If you ever need us to play ourselves, we’d be happy to,’” he confessed. “And in that sort of idiocy, I ended up being part of something that changed my life.”
Curb, which ran for 12 seasons, “reinvigorated my desire to be funny,” Danson said.
The Good Place actor ended up featuring in 34 episodes of the unscripted sitcom, which follows creator and star David as an exaggerated version of himself.
Last month during an interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Danson recalled belatedly finding out that his character was actually one of David’s character’s nemeses.
The A Man on the Inside star remembered filming one scene where he was supposed to walk passed David and another co-star on his way to the dry cleaning. However, after four or five takes, Danson said he accidentally arrived on his mark too early and overheard a bit of dialogue in which David says: “Danson, he’s a real asshole.”
“I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ Because I never read the scripts,” Danson recounted. “I went to Jeff Garlin and he said, ‘You don’t know? You’re the worst human being on the planet. Larry hates you!’”
Originally born from an hour-long 1999 special and expected to be a one-time project, Curb Your Enthusiasm became a massive Emmy-winning success that only wrapped this past April. The veteran comedian and Seinfeld co-creator devastated fans when he announced in December 2023 that the 12th season would be the show’s last.
“As Curb comes to an end, I will now have the opportunity to finally shed this ‘Larry David’ persona and become the person God intended me to be — the thoughtful, kind, caring, considerate human being I was until I got derailed by portraying this malignant character,” David said at the time.
“And so ‘Larry David,’ I bid you farewell. Your misanthropy will not be missed. And for those of you who would like to get in touch with me, you can reach me at Doctors Without Borders.”
