The Pants Tent (15 Oct. 2000)

In the premier episode, Larry jokingly refers to his wife Cheryl as "Hitler", offending his manager Jeff's conservative Jewish parents. Since Jeff cant go to the movies with Larry, Cheryl ... See full summary »

Director:

Robert B. Weide

Stars:

Larry David, Jeff Garlin, Cheryl Hines

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
Larry David	...	Larry David
Jeff Garlin	...	Jeff Greene
Cheryl Hines	...	Cheryl David
Richard Lewis	...	Richard Lewis
Kathy Griffin	...	Kathy Griffin
Sofia Milos	...	Richard's Girlfriend
Susie Essman	...	Susie Greene
Mina Kolb	...	Jeff Greene's Mom
Laurel Moglen	...	Hostess
Louis Nye	...	Jeff Greene's Dad
Robin Ruzan	...	Nancy
Tucker Smallwood	...	Restaurant Owner
Antoinette Spolar	...	Larry's Receptionist

Storyline

In the premier episode, Larry jokingly refers to his wife Cheryl as "Hitler", offending his manager Jeff's conservative Jewish parents. Since Jeff cant go to the movies with Larry, Cheryl sets Larry up with a friend of hers. But a bunch-up in Larry's trousers results in many misunderstandings.

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Genres:

Comedy

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

15 October 2000 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Home Box Office (HBO)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

29 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Larry and Cheryl mention having several kids in this episode, even though they are never seen. In the series they never mention having children and, obviously, they're never seen.

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Goofs

When Richard Lewis is in Larry's office, in one shot Larry's feet is on the ground and in the next shot his feet is propped up on the table.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Larry David: Cheryl, come here for a second.

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Connections

References Sour Grapes (1998)

User Reviews

Solid Start, but a bit predictable.

Funny, entertaining start of this show.

Only concern is that they might over-use these typical Seinfeld scenarios where one clumsy social thing (in this instance referring to his wife as "Hitler" while more than he thought overheard the conversation) and then covering it up by a lie, only to have to lie once again only to have it all revealed in a socially embarrassing setting. These long twists just may not work out as good in this show as it's trying to appear realistic.

Don't get me wrong, I really love them but I think they need to work on keeping them plausible and not have to many of them in each episode. In short, this episode consisted of 3 different of those twist, namely:

1. Larry's pants fake erection => Cheryl's friend feeling convinced it was genuine.

2. Larry having an argument with a random woman on the cinema, which turn out to be someone a friend of him is dating.

3. Larry referring to his wife as "Hitler" to Jeff => Jeff's sensitive Jewish parents overhearing this => Covering it up by a lie => Lie detected by coincidence.

Although I guess all of these coincidences are plausible individually, it is sort of hard to swallow that three of those occurred during this period of time (which I get the impression is supposed to be something like one week).

Trust me, I do realize in order to make entertaining situational comedy there is a certain need for these coincidental twists, but I found that even though number 1 and 2 are OK and they work out fine, especially the third one just makes it a bit over the top of what we can absorb as far as regarding the show to be a realistic description of Larry's everyday life.

When Larry and Jeff agree for a cover-up story about the "Hitler" event to prevent Larry's wife figuring out he called her Hitler, we all know this is going to end up with Cheryl somehow figuring out that Kathy Griffin in fact never had made the phone call the lie was constructed around. It was too obvious and although a funny final scene, it sort of ruin the show's basic idea of being a truly genuine and improvised description of everyday scenes from Larry's life.

I think they are good at showing Larry's personal desire to get everyone to like him but at the same time feel he is entitled to confront anyone who he finds act somewhat inappropriate no matter how insulting it may be for the person to hear this, often making him appear outright rude or having double standards regarding his own behaviour compared to others behaviour. This is really great stuff and they should focus more on that.

I think this combination of desires are something many can identify themselves with and it has a great potential alone to create funny incidents.

What I hope they keep on showing is Larry's great way of ridiculing social norms, such as in this episode:

* The complex science of restaurant table reservation. * How people act as if it's the end of the world if they have to stand up to let someone into their row at the cinema. * The excessive urge people have to make formal apologizes for minor inconveniences, often without even really knowing why. * The complex nature of acting appropriate in the presence of friend's parents.

This is really great stuff I think and I hope they will emphasize more on those aspects and try and avoid making to many complicated and unrealistic twists stories that, although funny, make the show lose much of it's realistic feel.

So all in all, a solid episode, but just hope they in future episodes manages to keep the apparent sense of realism they are trying to make you sense.