[whimsical music] Hey, I'm J.B. Smoove,
and I'm breaking down some of the greatest moments
on Curb Your Enthusiasm, featuring myself,
Leon Black, getting that ass.
[whimsical music continues]
Leon's Intro.
Larry, Larry, David?
Yeah.
Hey, and where's Loretta?
Loretta!
My journey actually started from season one
through season six of Curb, which I was not involved in.
Sometimes you gotta become a fan
of something that you end up on,
and rarely do people become fans of shows
that they end up on, anyway.
I saw there was a definitely
a demographic missing from the show.
There were no people of color on the show
as a regular character.
I had a a great opportunity to bring something different
to the show itself.
I first got on the show, you know,
I'm coming off of sketch comedy shows.
My speed was still sketch.
It's the mechanics.
So, my first scene with Larry
was actually the stained blanket scene.
Was it cum?
What was it?
And Leon said, It couldn't have been mine's
because I gets mine, Larry.
He said, Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.
Do it more real, don't do it sketchy.
And I said, Oh!
[fingers snapping]
He told me that one time, and after that,
[tongue clicking] we took off.
And what do you mean what kind of cum?
Cum's cum.
Cum is not cum, Larry.
Cum's cum.
Well, it couldn't have been mine, know why?
'Cause I get some mine's, Larry.
I brings the ruckus to the ladies.
On Curb, everyone's playing
an exaggerated version of themselves.
Little different, Leon, my character, doesn't exist.
He is a character.
So I'm improvising within a character,
not improvising as J.B. playing J.B. on a show,
over exaggerated version of myself.
I'm improving what he would say, not what I would say.
I wouldn't say half the sh*t
Leon says in person to somebody.
That's not me.
You know what I mean?
I don't walk around dragging my feet
with f*cking slides on all damn day.
You have to know the character's rule,
the rules of the game of improv,
and rules that you already set in motion for your character.
Let's just take the ejacul*te scene.
Him coming to the door is one thing, okay?
Somebody just popped up who's Loretta's brother,
you know what I mean?
The uncle to her kids, that's one thing.
But to be in a scene with Larry
and go back and forth about
the pronunciation of f*cking ejacul*te.
Not ejacul*te, ejacul*te.
What the f*ck is ejacul*te?
You know, you mean cum?
You talking about squirting on somebody?
And that became the introduction to f*cking Leon.
And I think that is the pace car for the last
to the next seven seasons of who this guy is.
And no one knows if the character
was planning on being there past season six, no one knows.
But you get there, you do a good job, and you work
and you create something that is tangible.
Something that they could see expanding
and becoming more the dynamic between Larry and myself.
Even though the family left that first episode, Leon stayed.
You know, he refused to leave.
Well, everybody left,
so I guess you're gonna be going upstairs.
Eat this f*cking Chinese food
[Leon slurping] in my f*cking room.
He made himself at home.
You got a chance to know that season six, who Leon was,
and who he was gonna be, whether he's gonna be there or not,
but he's unforgettable.
[bright music] Get in that ass, Larry.
Words to live by.
You getting that ass, Larry?
You know what I mean?
You getting that ass, Larry.
A character like Leon coming in opens up the floodgates
because now he's experiencing things he's never experienced.
He's a white rich man in a big ass house.
Executive producer, writer, creator of Seinfeld.
It's almost like you're giving somebody
a new playground to play in.
Larry's never heard getting that ass in his life.
It's also Larry introducing a character on camera,
a class of person,
that's never heard the term, getting that ass.
He had no idea when I say, getting that ass,
what getting that ass was.
What you talking about,
getting that ass? You let the man slide today.
You gotta immediately get into somebody's ass
when that happens to you.
You pull their asshole open, step into their asshole.
His eyebrows went up,
and he didn't know what the f*ck I was talking about.
But he just like, he just nodded his head,
Ah, okay, ha, ha.
After we say cut, he said, What is getting that ass?
I said, Larry, getting that ass is a term people use
when they have to defend themselves verbally.
You gotta reply and give somebody a verbal ass-whooping.
Sometimes a good verbal ass-whooping is just as good
as grabbing somebody and [fists pounding]
and beating the sh*t out of them.
Those words last forever.
Eat some Snicker bars, throw them paper on the floor,
read a newspaper, ball the paper up, the newspaper,
and throw the newspaper on the floor,
f*ck his whole asshole up, you know what I'm saying?
And shooting improv in that scene,
there's five versions of getting that ass.
One involves lighter fluid and matches,
spray lighter fluid and light his ass
and set a fire and burn, you're an asshole arsonist.
You set that asshole on fire, Larry.
They got it.
But they don't use all of them,
'cause when they do Curb,
they put it together like a puzzle.
Everything gotta lead to another thing,
which in turn tells the story of the whole season.
But even though I did different versions in that scene,
there is a means to the madness
where Larry takes all that stuff and starts to edit.
There's a lot of callbacks in Curb
that people don't even realize are callbacks, too,
some things come right back in another form.
Even though Curb is written in outline,
eight pages or whatever,
there's room while you're doing the show,
while you're shooting it, 'cause it is improv,
to take from something,
take from something, repeat it later,
because now it's a storyline.
[whimsical music] Danny Duberstein.
Leon takes on the life of a dead white man.
Don't hurt me, please.
Oh, no, no, no, no. [chuckles]
I'm Danny Duberstein, CPA.
[Kramer sighs] You're Duberstein?
I'm Danny Duberstein. [hand slapping]
The Danny Duberstein thing was cool
because, again, now they got three levels.
You got J.B. playing a Leon,
Leon playing Danny Duberstein.
He's talking sh*t, of course,
but he's also trying to be professional.
Oh, he's talking about the mathematics of being [chuckles]
of a Bar Mitzvah and how many times you re-up the mitzvah,
and all that stuff is coming outta Leon.
Always keep your mitzvah kind of full, a capacity,
the capacity, mitzvah capacity.
Leon don't know what the f*ck he's talking about,
but he [chuckles] finds a way to connect himself,
'cause he sees this guy's leaning forward
and, you know, he's very Kramer, and he's very Kramer.
He's giving it to him,
he's asking questions to Leon,
Leon gotta answer these f*cking questions.
He's doing Larry a favor.
He didn't have to do this sh*t.
He had to put this goddamn suit on,
it was the wrong suit, anyway.
He had a little bow tie on, like he was selling bean pies.
But the scene worked because you being
a fan of Michael Richards,
you being a fan of Curb,
and you know this big headline is out there,
Michael Richards says the wrong thing in the comedy club.
We did all that at one time.
Larry found a way to make,
to soften whatever he was going through.
He found a way to soften the blow
a little bit within Curb,
which is a over-the-top show that can easily attach itself
to anything going on in the world.
Whether it's politics, whether it's relationships,
whether it's sickness, whatever, whatever it is,
he can find a way to make it work
within the confines of the show.
What kinda asshole are you?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, okay.
Let's just calm down, now.
We're getting ourselves all worked up for no reason, baby.
No, don't, don't baby me, don't calm me down.
But there's something funny about what if Leon was to do
that he was going back and forth with,
which caused him to say that.
In improv, you throw these things out,
but they may or may not work.
I told Larry four seasons ago, I said,
Look, man, when he took off six years from the show,
I said, Look, man, if you ain't coming back,
you better f*cking spin me off.
I said, I got an idea, Danny f*cking Duberstein.
Let f*cking Leon live his life as a dead white man,
take his name and open a practice where he's given,
where he's a f*cking psychiatrist,
helping people in his own way.
sh*t! Danny f*cking Duberstein.
Larry just laughed that sh*t off every f*cking time.
[whimsical music] Lampin' and foisting.
He foisted you, man.
f*cking Jimmy Kimmel foisted that bitch on you.
Even in my real life, I never heard the term foisted before.
Larry finds these little words.
A lot of people don't know that,
but Larry is a history major.
He's very fascinated with words, you know,
and introducing people in the world
to different words that they don't use.
And foisted was one I never heard of before,
but once he explained it to me,
how Jimmy Kimmel foisted his damn assistant onto Larry,
and this lady wasn't sh*t, she was terrible.
You know, she got constipation and sh*t.
You know, then Leon got into
this whole thing about constipation.
The dynamic of constipation.
Well, I shot a p*rno constipated.
I ran a 5K marathon constipated.
sh*t, man, come on.
I was in a hot dog eating contest constipated.
Hold, hold, hold, hold on, hold.
You shot a p*rno?
Yeah. Seriously?
Seriously.
Now, here's the thing about the tricks with Curb,
I said in the show, I shot a p*rno constipated,
Larry's eyebrows went up and said, You shot a p*rno?
But I ignored him.
I didn't address it.
Now, I could've dove in
and turn into a whole different scene.
But I avoided it, thinking maybe we'll call it back later,
that I said, You know what?
You mentioned doing a p*rno.
You did a p*rno?
And then I would've gave a whole different take on it,
which is a whole different scene.
If I had said Yes, I did a p*rno,
and got into the p*rno,
it takes over the foisted.
It takes over the constipation.
My trick is this, every time we do a scene together,
I try, rule of thumb is to give him something
he did not know about Leon.
That way he has ammunition, or he can call it back,
it creates this mystique about who Leon is.
You know what I mean?
It builds his legend, I think of the things he's done.
What are you doing?
I'm f*cking lamping, what you doing?
You're lamping?
Lamping originally was guys standing
under the streetlights in the city, in the Bronx,
under the street lights,
and they would hang out and rap and whatever,
do what they wanna do, that's called lamping, you know?
Then chilling came about.
You know, of course people love to chill,
but I just reapplied lamping
'cause it's a cool ass-word, number one,
I wanted to separate lamping from chilling.
You know what I mean?
That's what Larry said, I thought that'd be chilling?
No, lamping is different.
You could chill, you could walk around and chill.
I'm chill, I'm in chill mode, that's different.
Lamping is like, Ah, I ain't going nowhere.
Leon brought lamping back,
and we applied it to his life,
which is chilling out in that little bungalow, relaxing.
Don't f*ck me when I'm lamping.
[whimsical music] Leon on dating,
back in the days in black and white,
like Charlie Chaplin, f*ck it.
It gets a rise outta guys and sh*t.
♪ Poo poo poo dupe ♪
That would get a rise outta you?
We'll be going, Poo, poo, poo, dupe?
f*ck it, if I lived in the f*cking forties,
and some girl said, Poo, poo, poo, dupe,
I know I'm tapping that ass.
Poo, poo, poo dupe is a way of paying homage
to a era of love, and it was a different era.
Leon stays up late watching old ass black and white movies,
ladies with little short skirts on.
And you imagine people f*cking in black and white.
You know, they had no color, it was all black and white.
So the poo, poo, poo dupe is Leon just showing
his love, for cinema, number one,
and ladies were sexy back then.
Little skirts on, and they enticed a man
with their little flirtatious f*cking movements and
♪ Poo, poo, poo dupe ♪
And Leon said, When you see somebody
go poo, poo, poo dupe, you know, you're tapping that ass.
It's hard playing the infield with polio, you know?
[fist smacking mitt]
I didn't have polio, asshole.
Every kid with those kind of gloves had polio.
Larry old as f*ck.
Leon said, Look, you old as sh*t, man.
And when he pulled that glove out, Leon said,
Every old movie I ever seen, there was always a little boy
with that same f*cking baseball glove with polio,
f*cking legs off, he had polio.
Leon, he had to connect Larry
as a little boy and that glove, in polio.
God bless the people who had it and lived through it.
But he assumed that Larry had polio.
[whimsical music] Leon does not believe
Michael J. Fox.
Oh, he's got Parkinson's.
Of course it's Parkinson's.
Yeah, he was shaking.
He would never do anything like that on purpose.
Michael J. Fox, never in a million years.
But he shakes, right?
He has a disorder, that's shaking.
He can't stop f*cking shaking.
When people are fans of the show, you laugh at everything.
I think what happens is people realize,
Wow, I'm laughing at some funny, disturbing sh*t here.
And that's the thing about comedy.
You have to choose your battles.
You have to choose what's funny, what's real,
what connects to people, what makes you a human being.
and not necessarily separates you from everybody else.
Look, Michael J. Fox is one of my heroes.
I f*cking love this man.
Him coming on board the Curb and laughing,
and talking about Parkinson's,
was fricking genius and amazing.
And I think it really rings home
how amazing Michael J. Fox is.
Just to be clear, you're not upset.
[phone ringing] Let me get that.
I'll be back in two shakes.
You can't help but think about it
while you're doing the scene.
Like, we going in hard right now.
The whole thing about when Larry and I were in the kitchen
and we're talking about the Parkinson's
and how Michael J. Fox gave him a soda
and the soda sprayed in his face,
'cause he was shaking and Leon said, Hey, you know,
he could of had a dick in his hand.
Hand you the dick, and the dick shot sperm in your face.
Yeah, but why would he hand me a dick?
I'm listing an example.
Well, what kind of example is that?
Larry's like, Why would he have a dick in his hand,
and sperm shoots in my face?
I'm saying, I'm just giving you different examples
of things that can be shaken up.
Funny sh*t.
Michael J. Fox about to be Michael J. f*cked-up in a minute,
but you go up there, you and him.
That's a fair fight and sh*t, you know what I'm saying?
How's that a fair fight?
You know, even if Michael J. f*cked-up, you know,
Michael J. Fox's up there clumping around
in the apartment above us and I'm like,
Yo, I can't sleep with this sh*t going on.
I said, Maybe you should go up there, Larry.
You know, if you and him get into it, it's even Steven.
You know what I mean?
And Larry, What do you mean even Steven?
You know what I'm saying?
Y'all both, you know, you old,
and Michael J. Fox got Parkinson's, it's a even fight.
If I go up there, you know,
I will kick Michael J. Fox's ass.
Michael J. Fox would be Michael J. f*cked-up.
And there's different versions
of every f*cking thing we talked about today,
which is hilarious to think about,
but there is sh*t on the edit room floor
you will never see that's f*cking hilarious.
I told Larry, Let's put a whole movie out
with all this f*cking scenes that didn't make the show.
People would love that.
[whimsical music] Leon tries glasses.
By the way, you know, I have a very good idea for you
to avoid situations like this in the future,
I think you should consider wearing glasses.
f*ck outta here.
You know, it's so funny because
I actually used to wear glasses
because I always loved glasses.
Even though I didn't f*cking need glasses,
I used to wear glasses.
A lot of things with Curb come from,
you know, real sh*t.
When Leon's giving him this good, bad advice
that he always gives him, he brushes it off a lot.
But for some reason when Leon put glasses on,
he seemed smarter.
What he was saying made more sense because of the glasses.
You put glasses on somebody,
you think they know what the f*ck they talking about.
People respect a person in glasses
more than a person in shades.
If you try to put a noodle in a woman, women hate that, man.
That's a remarkably idiotic thing that you just said.
But, you know, the fact that you're wearing glasses,
[Leon laughing]
I perceive it as a little less idiotic
My man. than I normally would.
When he was walking down the street with Larry
and was talking about the blue pill stuff,
and Leon told him, Look, no lady wants a man on top
of them trying to stick a noodle, a ramen noodle, in them.
That's why you need the blue pill.
[Leon] Hmm.
Juice?
You want me to juice?
I want you to win.
You gotta cheat a little bit.
And that was Leon's whole thing.
Can't stick a a noodle in a lady.
It don't work like that.
[whimsical music] Leon loves watermelon.
I thought you hated watermelon.
What's going on?
Okay, I f*cking lied, okay?
I f*cking love watermelon.
I love it, but I can't eat this sh*t
in front of white people.
The watermelon episode is cool
because people get a chance
to see the watermelon in a different light.
Watermelon's an amazing fruit.
Very healthy for you, too.
There is a negative tone to the watermelon,
which is from the south,
disparaging kind of attachment to racism and what it is.
Curb has a way of attaching itself
to these issues, but making it relatable,
but making it funny, but at the same time, keeping it real.
Leon saying, I don't eat watermelon
in front of white people,
became a layer that you wear on your skin,
and then we started talking about different things
that Jewish people eat that are attached to them forever.
Like they can't shake that sh*t off,
the filte fish and f*cking matzo balls and sh*t like that.
All that sh*t sound crazy as f*ck to Leon.
But when Larry made sense of it, okay, yeah.
Do you eat matzo ball soup
and with the filte fish in front of every f*cking body?
Would you eat that in front of a clan member?
You know what I mean?
It's like all these things
that are attached to us as human beings,
but there's a way of making light of it.
And I think that episode was making light of what
the watermelon has been associated with.
That's f*cking three Mary Fergusons!
Who told you to have a watermelon orgy?
You told me that sh*t!
f*cking Mary Ferguson, man.
f*ck Mary Ferguson, kiss my ass, lady.
End up with Vitman.
Leon's smarter than people think.
When Leon told Vitman that, you know,
he should call his book China and Russia on that bullsh*t,
Leon did a lot of things before they happened.
When Leon was sitting in the pizza shop,
Barack Obama wasn't even f*cking president.
Barack Obama was running for president.
Barack Obama, mother f*cker.
Barack Obama,
I'm the president of hitting that ass.
Tim Meadows called Leon in that pizza shop,
and Leon said, I'm the president of hitting that ass.
Barack Obama, mother f*cker, Barack Obama.
If I was Barack Obama,
I would thank Leon Black for saying,
Barack Obama, I'm a president of hitting that ass.
Which put it into the universe
that Barack Obama would be the f*cking president one day,
not necessarily the president of hitting that ass,
but the president of the United States of America.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome, Mr. President.
[whimsical music] Purse snatching.
I walk by, I grab the f*cking purse, I run down the street,
Larry pops the f*ck out, tackles me,
try to get the purse back,
I f*ck Larry up and keep on rolling.
Larry just wants to be a f*cking hero.
But I told Larry,
[J.B. sighs] look, when he came to me,
and said, Hey, would you snatch a purse
and bring it back to me?
And I said, Nah, Larry.
[J.B. sighs]
You can't do that sh*t half speed.
I gotta really take the sh*t,
and you gotta try to get it from me
and then I gotta f*ck you up.
So you should come back with chipped teeth,
a black eye and a bloody f*cking nose.
And Larry was like, What do you mean, 'half speed'?
You gotta do it for real.
You know, you can't be a hero.
You know, you'll be a better hero
if you come back f*cked up.
People like the realism of it.
You come back with your ass whooped,
with another man's foot in your ass,
I'm telling you, you get more respect that way.
You really do.
[whimsical music] Leon drives to New York
in that f*ckin' Prius.
You drove the car?
[Leon laughing] Look what you did to the car.
I'll tell you something,
this mother f*cking car got some heart, man.
I was surprised.
I thought it was a bitch ass car.
This sh*t got some f*cking heart to it.
He came to New York because, look,
a lot of sh*t was going on in that house, man.
He had a f*cking roommate,
roommate wasn't chipping in, you know,
he ran outta food to eat and sh*t like that.
All the typical things
that you would not think someone would leave town for.
But, he missed Larry, he missed Larry.
He didn't want Larry to come to New York by himself
and be up here by himself.
So, Leon didn't fly because you need
a f*cking ID for that sh*t, you need an ID to fly.
So Leon said, f*ck that, I'm driving.
He drove across the country in the Prius.
I love Leon coming to New York
because it's an adventure that he was on.
[whimsical music] Leon gets banned
from an all you can eat restaurant.
You stink. You f*cking stink.
[Shimon] You stink. You stink, Shimon.
No, you stink, get out, both of you out!
Both of you, you forever,
you, maybe, maybe you have a chance.
f*ck you, Wendy.
Lifetime ban!
Only person besides you, Gary Busey.
When he threw us out of the f*cking buffet, you know,
Leon said, Man, if this was a brothel, I would be pissed.
Lifetime ban.
If I come in a brothel,
I'm trying to f*ck everything in here.
If you throw me out that brothel,
and this brothel's supposed to be all you can f*ck,
or all you can eat,
and you throw me outta here, I'll be pissed.
Just as pissed as I would be
if you throw me outta this goddamn buffet.
See the logic?
Once you make sense of it,
then you can apply the funny.
We always say, You write serious and you add to funny.
It's hard to over, to do the funny,
because it becomes silly.
Too silly to explain, to make sense.
Now you're trying to pick it up
because you're trying to make sense silly.
Or you make that f*cking real,
funny, it's an easier process,
and I think that's what works for the Leon character,
and that works in my journey.
You know who's gonna be a billionaire?
The mother f*cker who's gonna
create a car that runs on piss.
The piss, the person would be a genius
if they could find a way to make a car run on piss.
Man, in my brain, I'm f*cking hollering.
because it's the silliest sh*t to think about,
but it makes f*cking sense.
You drink Gatorade, water,
all kind of teas and coffees and sh*t,
and you can't use that pee for nothing?
That pee goes in the toilet bowl
and goes away into the ocean.
You can't find somebody to take that piss
and make that, put your dick in that gas hole,
fill your car up, keep recycling your piss.
Yeah, save the oceans.
Save all these people.
Let that car run on piss.
I don't do it outward, but I'm f*cking hollering.
[Interviewer] Is there any one moment
that you remember, specifically,
the time you made Larry laugh the hardest?
[whimsical music] Oh, there's so many, man.
puss* Tea was amazing.
All the taste of puss*, without the commitment.
puss* Tea, huh?
All the taste of puss*, without the commitment.
Leon almost mimics the rhythm of standup,
when he's telling Larry something,
and being animated with it, he's telling him what to do.
And, because I already seen what he laughed at, I change it.
He f*cks up every scene.
He f*cking laughs and f*cks the scene up.
[whimsical music continues]
