TV

Larry David Seamlessly Inserts Bernie Sanders’ Life Into ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ On ‘SNL’

It's pretty, pretty, pretty good.

by Meg Watson  8 February 2016

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As the internet has already exhaustively established, comedian and Seinfeld co-creator Larry David is literally the same person as Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. This was easy to keep up for awhile. Sanders acted as Mayor of his local town through the ’80s, then became a mild-mannered congressman and occasional comedian in the ’90s. Largely shying away from the spotlight to avoid suspicion while David’s career hit its peak, he worked his way up to the presidential race as a relatively unknown candidate last year. He was a fiery Vermont Senator who wanted to bring the revolution right after he finished his nap because, y’know, it’s been a tough day and *throws arms down, groaning* you yutzs have been clattering around all day.

Now, after Sanders extraordinary popularity, much of the illusion has been busted. Following a 16-year break from the show, David appeared on Saturday Night Live a few months ago to portray Sanders as a cranky old man who only owns one pair of underwear. And, due to popular demand, he last night returned as the show’s host. Sanders — definitely not a Tupac-style 3D projection of David’s long-running character of Sanders — featured alongside him for a few skits including one about bringing “democratic socialism” to America and everyone seemed suspiciously keen to note they’ are in fact different people.

Or at least that was the case until David effortlessly inserted Sanders’ recent Iowa caucus loss into an imagined scene from his cult comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. Despite Hillary Clinton being widely favoured to take out the important vote from the start of the campaign, Sanders put up an incredible fight last week obtaining 49.6 percent of the vote. This, however, was not enough to topple Clinton at 49.8 — a piece of misfortune that doesn’t sound entirely out of whack with the central conceit of David’s show: that life is awkward and cruel and any interaction with one or more person is essentially destined for failure.

All this is incidentally doing wonders for Sanders’ campaign. His near-win in Iowa resulted in a huge influx of $3 million in online donations within the following 24 hours and new national polls show Clinton’s lead dwindling. Though last month she sat 31 points ahead of Sanders, the latest Quinnipiac poll shows there’s just two points in it. Clinton leads the vote 44-42 ahead of the New Hampshire primary this week.

“How are things going up in New Hampshire?” David asked Sanders on last night’s SNL.

“Okay,” he replied.

“Just okay?”

“Well it’s pretty, pretty, pretty good.”

Guys. You aren’t even trying anymore.

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